Notes from the last row, and the man who sits up front

Ask Choi Min-sik to describe his latest lead role and he reaches, bluntly, for the language of self-loathing. The grumpy literature professor he plays in Netflix's "Notes from the Last Row" is "a man who grinds himself down with a complex that borders on self-abuse," he says, "tormenting himself over it." Then came the confession: "I've got plenty of pathetic in me too. The inferiority, the shame you can't show anybody — everyone's felt that at least once." It's a curious thing to hear from an a

By The Korea Herald