“ | You can forget someone who dies... but it's hard to forget someone who has changed. | ” |
–Lee Byeong-chan |
Lee Byeong-chan (Korean: 이병찬) is one of the three overarching antagonists (alongside the Principal, Jin Seon-mu, and Jung Yong-nam) of Netflix's All of Us Are Dead. He was the creator of the Jonas Virus, and one of the two main people responsible for the zombie outbreak in the series. He is portrayed by Kim Byung-chul and voiced by Keong Sim in the English dub.
History[]
Pre-Apocalypse[]
Byeong-chan was a former cell biologist turned science teacher employed at Hyosan High School. His son was severely bullied to the point of attempting suicide. No matter how much Byeong-chan complained to the school about the bullying, the school principal refused to do anything about the matter, even trying to get him to drop the issue after Yoon Gwi-nam, Son Myeong-hwan, and Park Chang-hoon give an insincere apology. Later, Byeong-chan took the matters into his own hands and created the Jonas Virus from the high testosterone levels from the mouse infected with Toxoplasma Gondii, which is known to remove any fear with the hopes of using its advantages to give his son strength against his bullies. However, the plan ultimately backfired when his son turned into a zombie. Byeong-chan kept his infected son (who infected his mother at this point) at his home, not having the heart to kill his own infected family. Prior to the events of the series, Lee Na-yeon would comment with her fellow classmates on how Byeong-chan smelled like a corpse. He was next seen while the infected mouse was kept at the school's science lab where Kim Hyeon-ju found it and got bitten by it. After walking into the lab and noticing she had been bit, he knocked her out and tied her in the lab's storage room, trying to prevent an outbreak. His plan ultimately failed when she got out and wandered into a classroom where she collapsed and was taken to the nurse's office.
Later, Hyeon-ju would tell Park Sun-hwa and the other students about what happened (not revealing his claims of a virus though) and Sun-hwa would inform the principal who would have called the police to arrest Byeong-chan. They confronted him soon after he realized Hyeon-ju had escaped from the storage room. Then, he was taken to the police station (sparing him momentarily from the outbreak at the school) where he was interrogated by detective Song Jae-ik. Later on, he would confess his entire story and reason behind trying to quarantine Hyeon-ju, but he wouldn't be fully believed until the zombies began to overrun Hyosan.
Post-Apocalypse[]
While the police station was being evacuated, a horde of zombies overwhelmed the initial security, quickly infecting many policemen as well as prisoners being evacuated. While Jae-ik tried to fend off the infected, an infected police officer tried attacking him from behind. Byeong-chan intervened, getting bitten in the process, as Jae-ik tried escaping with him towards an exit, realizing what was to happen to him. Byeong-chan stayed behind and sacrificed himself in order to let Jae-ik escape (not before informing him the location of his laptop). Despite him last seen being devoured by the zombies, later when he reanimates, his limp when he walks as well as his facial expression seem to indicate that he became a halfbie. He is not seen being bombed at the end of the season, leaving it highly likely he’s still alive. He later only made video clip appearances explaining the virus.
Physical Appearance[]
Byeong-chan had short shaggy brown hair. He wore a yellow flannel under a dark blue blazer, black trousers, and black dress shoes. In the flashback, he wears a beige jacket and a green shirt. After being infected, his eyes are bloodshot, he has a thick stream of blood coming out of his right nostril, and he has holes in his shirt where he was bitten.
Personality[]
Byeong-chan was shown to be apathetic as seen as when he didn't do anything when Yoon Gwi-nam was bullying Min Eun-ji in the middle of his class, most likely due to the grief of losing his family, as well as anger towards the school system's indifference towards his son's bullying. When he sees a group of people being attacked by zombies, he remembers what he said about giving up on curing zombies since they're little more than animals and realizes what his actions have done, motivating him to sacrifice himself.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
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Others[]
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Appearances[]
Season 1 Appearance | |||
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 |
Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 |
Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the original Webtoon, Now at Our School, Byeong-chan was not an antagonist in the first place as he was not responsible for the creation of the Jonas Virus. His son got infected by the virus through a worm on a river while he and his son were fishing. He even attempted to warn his wife about Jin-su's condition as well as warning the school against the idea of taking Hyeon-ju to the hospital, knowing that the outbreak would spread to the city. In the end, Byeong-chan, unable to bear with the falsely accused guilt from everyone, decided to commit suicide.
- Like his Netflix counterpart, Lee Byeong-chan died in the police station, but Byeong-chan committed suicide at the police station in the webtoon, whereas his Netflix counterpart was being devoured and zombified by the zombies that infested the police station after sacrificing himself to save Jae-ik.
- In the webtoon, Byeong-chan killed a homeless person when he tries using him as a human expiriment to cure Jin-su
- In the series, Byeong-chan was rumored to smell like a rotting corpse, while in the webtoon he was rumored to be a cannibal who feasted on his wife and son and was responsible for their disappearances.
- Despite being a teacher of the school, he cannot punish the bullies directly since he will risk his job and his son's place in the school.