Choi Min-sik takes on a thriller with 'literary heft' in Netflix's ‘Notes from the Last Row’

What brought some of Korea’s most acclaimed actors and a celebrated director to the small screen was a strong screenplay and a shared hunger for a project with "literary depth."

Following the massive success of Netflix's "Teach You a Lesson" comes the psychological thriller "Notes from the Last Row," a story about storytelling itself.

While the globally popular action series may have had its own thrills, “Notes from the Last Row” offers something different, according to lead actor Choi Min-sik: a work that gives viewers room to see themselves in it and plenty to think about. The acclaimed actor, whose works include "I Saw the Devil" (2010) and "The Admiral: Roaring Currents" (2014), returns to the small screen for the first time in more than three years since the Disney+ series "Casino" (2022-23).

"[Watching the show] feels almost like writing in a diary, or taking out a book you loved in school late at night and reading it page by page,” he said at a press conference in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Wednesday. The six-episode series will release on Netflix on Friday.

“Watching our series probably won’t leave you feeling entirely refreshed,” he said, adding that it could be rather "frustrating."

"That’s the nature of the work. But it gives you a lot to think about: What is a human being? What is life?"

"It's the type of project I like," he said. "I have been longing for a project with literary heft."

The show is adapted from "The Boy in the Last Row," a play by award-winning Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga. Choi plays Heo Mun-oh, a failed writer and Korean literature professor at a university who discovers the literary genius of Lee Kang, an engineering student in one of his classes. Mun-oh begins giving him private lessons, rekindling his own creative spark, but grows increasingly obsessed with Kang — both his writing and the life that seems to feed it.

Mun-oh is a character who, while twisted, viewers can relate to, Choi said.

“Everyone has fears or feelings of inferiority they don’t talk about or show to others,” he said.

“Everyone has, at least once or twice, must have wondered, ‘Why am I like this?’ and felt that sense of self-loathing.”

Playing Kang is Choi Hyun-wook, the 24-year-old actor best known for roles in "Weak Hero Class 1" (2022) and "Twinkling Watermelon" (2023). Choi Min-sik and director Kim Gyu-tae had nothing but praise for the rising star, with the older Choi sharing that he watched Choi Hyun-wook audition for Kang and even had dinner with him afterward, though he denied having any say in the casting.

“While filming, I felt that if I could simply react truthfully to Choi Hyun-wook’s performance, everything would fall into place,” Choi Min-sik said.

“Lee Kang is a character who tosses Heo Mun-oh around emotionally, lifting him up one moment and throwing him down the next. Every time Kang pulled him in one direction, I just had to let myself be pulled along.”

"With every scene, I felt more and more that I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Lee Kang,” he said.

Kim said it was Choi Hyun-wook's eyes. “They are very calm, still and serene, but they also have this unsettling quality that makes you think something is about to happen,” Kim said. “Lee Kang is a character with a duality beneath his innocence. [Choi's eyes] capture that very well.”

For his part, Kim said he tried to capture the conflict between the two characters, as well as their inner states, with precision, using techniques such as extreme close-ups and subtle camera movement to convey Mun-oh’s growing madness. Kim is known for his work in the KBS spy romance "IRIS" (2009), the SBS melodrama "That Winter, the Wind Blows" (2013), and the tvN omnibus "Our Blues" (2022).

“I wanted the show to feel classic and dignified, the kind of work that doesn’t grow tired with time but has weight and staying power," he said. “Rather than chasing mise-en-scene, I wanted to focus on the characters’ emotions, psychology and inner lives.”

Joining the two Chois in the supporting cast are veterans including Huh Joon-ho, Jin Kyung and Kim Yun-jin. Some are Choi Min-sik’s juniors from university or the military, while Kim reunites with him nearly 27 years after they appeared together in “Shiri” (1999).

“None of us strayed too far. We kept circling the same world, and that is how we ended up meeting again after 20 or 30 years,” Choi said. “I was moved, and happy at the same time.”

The prolific actor, whose 45-year career has spanned theater, film and television, said he does not suffer from the same sense of inferiority as his character in “Notes from the Last Row.” He emphasized the complementary yet solitary nature of acting, saying there was little point in comparing one actor’s performance with another’s. 

“We’re not competing in the Olympics,” he said. “Each actor builds their career with their own philosophy.”

If he had to choose one person he envies, however, it would be Elon Musk.

“When I see the strange gestures and odd facial expressions he makes on the news sometimes, I find myself quite envious,” he said.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]