As Dwight mentioned in The Office, identity theft is indeed no joke, and in the cutthroat corporate market of South Korea, where politics and business work in unison to decide the nation’s future, it can become an ultimate tool to make or break the government itself. Director Ha Joon-won’s crime drama, Dead Man, showcases such a story while chronicling the journey of a man who sold his identity to evade the hardships of life, only to see his one decision come back to bite him by destroying everything he held dear. As a crime drama that depends on the performance of its lead actors and the tautness of the plot, Dead Man excels in the first aspect but loses its ground by making the story more sentimental than needed.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Lee Man-jae Lose Both of His Identities?
Lee Man-jae, acting CEO of a top-rated sports conglomerate, Spotech, is going through a rough patch in his marriage as his expectant wife, Su-hyun, is seeking a divorce from her workaholic husband. Lee Man-jae is a loving husband and really ecstatic about the arrival of the youngest member of their family, his daughter, whose name he has already picked out: Lee-Sol; unfortunately, he hasn’t found a way to balance the work-life equation even six years into their marriage. It is revealed that the family had suffered through a miserable financial condition back in the day when Lee’s first business proposition failed big time, and as a result he had sold his original name to a bookie to start afresh with a new identity, much to his wife’s dismay. After that, Lee didn’t have to look back in life thanks to having excellent sales skills, and was too preoccupied with earning big to provide financial security for his family, being oblivious to the fact that the financial problems have now been replaced by conjugal ones.
A middle-aged Lee is considering moving to Australia with his family, ending his career on a high note and a fat commission, and starting a food truck business there to live a quieter, happier family life. One of his close associates, Loony, takes him to a high-value official sealmaker to offer him an expensive legal seal, which is seemingly a sign of good luck. Lee’s seal gets used in legal documents of Spotech, and an erratic, troublesome hotshot, Cho Pil-joo, pretending to be a trade commission/company official, arrives at his office to take the commission. Months later, Lee is hastily sent off by the company owner, Gong Moon-sik, to a trip to Macau for a month to evade tax-related inquiries. During his stay, Lee finds out that he has been framed for embezzling a hundred million dollars of investors’ money and fleeing, and the authorities are already on his tail. With only weeks to his wife’s delivery, a shell-shocked Lee tries to flee back to his country but gets abducted by two assailants and gets transported to a private Chinese prison, when fake news of his death by suicide circulates everywhere. He had sold his first identity only to get one which ended up robbing his life instead.
Why Did Lee Seek Gong Hee-joo’s Help?
Almost two and a half years after his incarceration, Lee is almost at the verge of physical and mental collapse, when a mysterious South Korean political hotshot, Mrs. Shim, meets him in prison and says she’s willing to pay off his sentence to bring him back to the country. Shim reveals to Lee that the embezzled hundred million dollars have been used as a political slush fund to form the new Jaju political party with young candidate Hwang Chi-woon in the lead, who is aiming for the highest governing seat of the nation. Mrs. Shim wants to bring Lee back to Korea to foil Hwang’s political aspirations, and in exchange, she proposes to return Lee’s life back to him. It is also revealed later that Mrs. Shim is working as the chief political advisor of Hwang’s rival, the ruling political party, Minui, under the command of party chief Yoon Seong-su.
With the hope of reuniting with his wife and daughter and clearing his name in the process, Lee returns to Korea and learns that Su-hyun has emigrated elsewhere after attempting to take her own life in shame. A remorseful Lee pledges to search for his family after putting an end to the matter in hand, and to do so he needs to get his ledgers, which can help him clear his name in the scandal. Lee reunites with Loony, who informs him that the Spotech scandal buried Gong Moon-sik as well, who was a puppet CEO of the company like Lee himself, and burdened him with a tax return scam that ended with Gong Moon-sik taking his own life. From the recording recovered from Lee’s now rundown Spotech office, Loony identifies Gong Hee-joo, Moon-sik’s daughter, who has been vocal about the possibility of Lee’s survival in her streaming channel—and she is hell-bent on bringing justice to her late father. Gong Hee-joo has taken the ledgers that Lee needs, and this prompts Lee to secretly arrange a meeting with her.
Gong Hee-joo is initially startled to see Lee alive and lashes out at him as she considers him responsible for her father’s predicament. However, she realizes that both Lee and her father have been victims of deep-rooted conspiracy and agrees to help him bring the real perpetrators to justice—but on the condition that he brings her along in his quest. Gong Hee-joo brings the ledgers from her apartment only to have them stolen by an assailant, which prompts Lee to suspect Loony, as he was the only other person who knew about the ledger situation. However, it turns out that Loony is innocent, and he directs him to a guy named Big-Foot, a fixer who connects the duo with Cho Pil-joo, the middleman who worked to convert the embezzled money to fund Hwang’s party with political stocks. Lee and Gong Hee-joo infiltrate Cho Pil-joo’s penthouse and try to force him to spill the names of those who paid him to act as a mediator, but to no avail. As Mrs. Shim learns about the situation, she decides to use Lee as bait at Hwang’s first major public address, revealing his presence to the public and ruining Hwang’s reputation in the process.
Did Lee Man-jae Get His Life Back?
During the Jaju Party public address, Hwang gets disgraced as Lee gets identified in the crowd, and Cho Pil-joo’s men abduct Lee. Later on Lee learns that Loony had indeed betrayed him all along by using his seal to forge documents under the command of Cho Pil-joo, and that he had stolen his ledgers as well from Gong Hee-joo. While getting tortured by Pil-joo, Lee tries to appeal to Loony’s humanity, and he finally decides to make amends for his actions and attacks Pil-joo and his cronies. Lee is horrified as Loony gets killed in front of his eyes, and Hee-joo arrives just in time to rescue Lee by knocking down the abductors using a bulldozer.
Despite Shim’s betrayal, Lee chooses to assist her and finds the link of ten million of the embezzled money has used as Jaju Party fund directly. This information will be enough to pin down Hwang, and as per their agreement, Shim provides Lee with a million dollars to start his life anew, and a contact number to reach his wife. However, after calling his wife, Lee is devastated after learning that their unborn child didn’t make it in the end, as Su-hyun had suffered a miscarriage after learning about the news of Lee’s money embezzlement and escape. Lee’s life is in ruins and beyond recovery, and he decides to bring all the persons responsible for his present predicament to justice.
With Hee-joo’s help, Lee learns that the ruling party chief, Yoon Seong-su, had used Cho Pil-joo’s assistance to embezzle the rest of the 90 million dollars. After learning this, Mrs. Shim’s conviction about her morality is shaken, and she threatens her party chief—only to realize she has nothing substantial to prove his crimes. Lee comes up with a new plan as he learns Seong-su had used Gong Moon-sik’s name as a bookie to embezzle money and decides to take the blame on himself by making him appear to be Seong-su’s bookie instead. At Hwang’s press meet, Lee willingly appears in front of the media, and later on, he and Hee-joo reveal their plan to Hwang. The young candidate questions the reason for Lee taking the blame for someone else, and Lee reveals the only way to bring the real perps to justice is to play the game by their rules. He might have lost his identity, but the integrity of Lee’s character remains intact.
In Dead Man’s ending, Hwang exposes Seong-su, and Hee-joo testifies in support of his allegation, which makes the procedure much easier as Hee-joo was already known to have seen investigating Lee for a prolonged period. Cho Pil-joo and Seong-su are apprehended by the authorities, and even though Mrs. Shim loses her job as advisor, she is much more content to be bringing down the real perpetrators of the scandal. Lee meets the sealmaker, who also had a major stake in the entire fiasco and quite obviously betrayed him by forging his seal, and in sheer anger, nearly goes on to assault him, but eventually stops himself, knowing he too will get his due in time. Years later, Hwang has returned Lee and Hee-joo’s favor by implementing the Man-jae law to help all the persons who were wronged by identity theft, and Hee-joo has begun an underprivileged rehabilitation program to honor the memory of her deceased father. Hee-joo is on good terms with Lee still, who is revealed to have gotten his new ID, which will finally help him turn a new page. Mrs. Shim meets Lee once again, thanking him for helping her to see error in her ways. The duo have a friendly chat, and it is hinted that they might get acquainted later on better terms.
As Dead Man ends, a lonely Lee takes a good look at his new ID before moving to his own path. It remains unknown whether he will be able to rekindle his relationship with his wife anymore, or whether with that bridge burned down, he has to start his life from square one. But whatever happens in the future, he knows that he will try to put his name to good use after all.
