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The Judge from Hell korean drama review
Completed
The Judge from Hell
11 people found this review helpful
by SamRoss
Oct 2, 2024
14 of 14 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.5
Story 6.5
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 5.0

UPDATE: Started strong, but fizzled out.

Original review after 4 episodes: I wish Disney listed it as ongoing. At least where I am however many episodes are up, look like they that's all there is. I thought it was complete and watched the four released episodes in a night and was left so mad at myself, because I wanted more. And now I have to wait until November to see it all play out. ?

Honestly though, it is good. The main female character reminds me of Sim Eun-Seok from Juvenille Justice or Koo Ryeon from Tomorrow, but at an unhinged level. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical about how it would be. I hadn't thought much of Park Shin-Hye as an actress. It isn't that I thought she was bad, it just didn't seem like she had a lot of range based on what I'd seen her in. Apparently that was the writing or direction, because she has shown much more range in these first four episodes than I can really recall from most of the dramas I'd seen her in previously.

I can't wait to see where this goes. I do worry a littttle bit that it might try to do too much. Like I see threads for different plots it could follow popping up and like...if it tries to grab all of them I think it will end up more a knot than a braid. Not my best metaphor, but my point still stands.

Side note, I do feel like spider guy should cut her a little slack. I mean, the guy confessed to killing three people. How was she supposed to know that was more of a childhood guilt thing than an actual confession? She's not psychic, she's just a demon sent to torture and kill murderers and there was a guy in front of her telling her he was a murderer.
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UPDATE: after the first like 7 episodes of supernatural revenge it fizzled out into a forced romance. Whole subplots seemed like they were dropped and the world building was lacking.

A-rong's whole purpose of being a demon punishing demons who fall in love came up once when she killed that random demon from the demon support group. But the group never comes back and her purpose quickly fades to the background in favor of the romance. She went from having her own purpose to apparently just tagging along as Justitia's underling. Man-do's whole thing about him attending church was never expanded on. A high-level angel who apparently was able to just peace out on his heavenly responsibilities to babysit a detective, though mainly in the form of vague warnings. The ultimate evil was scrunched pretty easily once they tracked him down. Honestly, her peer and co-second-to-Bael seemed more threatening than Lucifer in the end. Bael's character confused me entirely since it seemed like he wanted her to fail. I thought it would end up being the big twist/villain situation (since Lucifer was a little underwhelming) that Bael set her up because he was her worried her "I'm the demon of all demons" attitude meant she might try to challenge him and he wanted to basically smack her down before she rebelled. But, no it kind of went nowhere and ended with him being like "I'm glad you're my successor and would be disappointed to lose you". Her being a serial killer leaving bodies of criminals the justice system didn't punish branded with "hell" just kind of get dropped from the plot.

I liked the parts where she made the killers suffer the same fates as their victims. It was not only kind of satisfying (though I personally liked the psychological aspect of them having to feel what their victims did more than the just-straight-beating them up), especially the stalker who almost drove his ex to take her own life, but it really showed off how talented an actress she is when given the right scene. Honestly, I would have preferred to drop the romance and have it be more like Youth Justice where each episode is a different case and then her balancing being a human judge and demon judge to give them justice. Maybe still keep her paired up with a detective to balance the justice vs. vengeance aspect.

As for the romance...I mean, I don't get it. He was drawn to her first from their first trial but then was pretty quickly against her and only following her in the hopes of taking her down and proving her a killer. He wasn't even like trying to be nice to get the information, he made his suspicion 100% clear. He also accused her of killing the other demon after she had basically stepped in to save his life from being killed by that demon. And lectures her about like "oh, just 'cause you're a demon, you think you get to demon things". So, other than his looks, I'm not sure what she saw in him to become so obsessed with him that she was basically ready to risk everything to keep him around. And then he goes from being all "killing killers is bad and makes you bad" to "kill this killer for me" in less than 24 hours. And he then transitioned from capable cop a bit over his head in a supernatural situation to just kind of being a damsel in distress.

I feel like it tried to so much from the start and then had to let things go. Like, if they dropped the whole Lucifer thing and all the moments of Man-do going to church, that would have given them time to establish the romance more.
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