@givemersspls I know you've already gotten way too many replies already, but you're acting like the mask isn't even suspicious at all in the context he's wearing it in just because masks are less uncommon in parts of Asia for sick people or people avoiding getting sick. But it is still suspicious. It's night time, the location is a dark alleyway. A man, lurking in such a place in his current appearance is rightfully going to terrify people that suddenly see him unexpectedly. At first, she's just startled but that's your adrenaline starting to pump. She asks why he'd be doing that, because it's suspicious and tells him he should take the mask off. He declares that he can't take the mask off, with no further explanation at that time. She's entering panic mode now, and not unreasonably. Fight or flight response is activating. Then he says "I'll show you." Not, "Sorry, I'll show you my face. Please relax." Just, "I'll show you." Now she thinks he's a friggin' flasher or something, throws her garbage bag in the heat of the moment.
Now, he's continuing to try and explain himself but she is not in the frame of mind to be hearing him anymore. He further, makes several more mistakes at this point. First, he's approaching her while she's in this panicked state. He keeps telling her to be quiet, which sounds really bad now. "He's trying to silence me" is all she's going to think now. Finally, he puts his hand on her to stop her from leaving. When someone is out of their wits and thinks you're some sort of pervert attacking them in a dark alleyway, you do not touch them.
Could she have handled this situation differently? Maybe, panic tends to make people not think as clearly as they could though. Should
he have handled this situation differently? Absolutely. There were several times where he should have just bailed if nothing else. He's incognito, he doesn't need to explain shit to her because she doesn't recognize him anyway. Whatever else happened here, he 100% should not have physically stopped her from leaving. I'm assuming that's part of why you're more okay with the son's flying kick, because all he's seeing and hearing was probably his mom freaking out and being restrained by some dude.
My
TL;DR point here is, the context of everything in the entire situation matters. You can't discard the mask here because they're not particularly uncommon in Korea in other contexts. In this context it looked very bad.