Sychaeus
Who needs due process when everyone looks this good while they threaten each other?
This show that takes its premise and runs absolutely wild with it, leading to some great TV.
It looks gorgeous, the music is fantastic, the actors are giving it everything they've got, and it all comes together into something that is lush with beauty and menace. This show does for crime and law procedural dramas what Kang Yo Han is doing on screen - they've gone all in on style and attitude, and not worried about keeping things realistic. There is very little restraint... anywhere, and that's a good thing.
One of the best things in this drama is the careful balance of Kim Ga On's emotional journey towards and away from Kang Yo Han. Often, POV characters have so little personality - they're the vehicle through which the audience experiences the story, so their actions can become motivated by plot necessity rather than by characterisation, which becomes tedious really quickly. The Devil Judge largely avoids this trap. Yes, there are moments of tension as you watch Ga On make bad decisions as he tries to decide who and what to trust, but he never acts without reason or against his nature. Park Jin Young does a really good job of showing us how much Ga On likes Yo Han, and how much he wants to trust him. But Ji Sung does an equally good job of layering misdirection, threat, and vulnerability in equal parts that the push and pull between trust and distrust is intriguing instead of just frustrating.
The plot, while stretching belief at times, is tight- some twists you'll see coming, and others will take you by surprise. This might be a fictional, dystopian Korea, but it's never far away from the present. Social media, pandemics, executive power, conspiracy theories and xenophobia might be pushed to extremes, but how much further than reality is extreme?
If there's an underlying message to the show, it could be a warning. It could be, as the show says, that systems fail in the face of power. If it's either of these things, then I don't think the ending is hopeful for the fictional, dystopian Korea (even if I have boundless hope for our main characters). That might be the one weakness of the show- in the end, it may condemn or praise individuals, but it can't seem to commit to whether the actions of an individual can or should engender real change. It seems to show us that the ends justify the means - even as it's taking pains to tell us the opposite. But this in no way lowers the enjoyment you get from 16 hours of people in amazing outfits saying horrifying things and (maybe) getting away with it.
They really committed to telling this story and telling it indulgently, un-apologetically reveling in it. I can't get away from how the production almost mirrors the character of Kang Yo Han. I mean, it's a bit over the top, and if you wanted to you could walk away and call it ridiculous, but why would you want to when it just full on commits to the insanity like this?
No-one on this show knows what irony is, every dial is turned up to 100%, I can even forgive the damn bus scene in episode one. God, I love it.
It looks gorgeous, the music is fantastic, the actors are giving it everything they've got, and it all comes together into something that is lush with beauty and menace. This show does for crime and law procedural dramas what Kang Yo Han is doing on screen - they've gone all in on style and attitude, and not worried about keeping things realistic. There is very little restraint... anywhere, and that's a good thing.
One of the best things in this drama is the careful balance of Kim Ga On's emotional journey towards and away from Kang Yo Han. Often, POV characters have so little personality - they're the vehicle through which the audience experiences the story, so their actions can become motivated by plot necessity rather than by characterisation, which becomes tedious really quickly. The Devil Judge largely avoids this trap. Yes, there are moments of tension as you watch Ga On make bad decisions as he tries to decide who and what to trust, but he never acts without reason or against his nature. Park Jin Young does a really good job of showing us how much Ga On likes Yo Han, and how much he wants to trust him. But Ji Sung does an equally good job of layering misdirection, threat, and vulnerability in equal parts that the push and pull between trust and distrust is intriguing instead of just frustrating.
The plot, while stretching belief at times, is tight- some twists you'll see coming, and others will take you by surprise. This might be a fictional, dystopian Korea, but it's never far away from the present. Social media, pandemics, executive power, conspiracy theories and xenophobia might be pushed to extremes, but how much further than reality is extreme?
If there's an underlying message to the show, it could be a warning. It could be, as the show says, that systems fail in the face of power. If it's either of these things, then I don't think the ending is hopeful for the fictional, dystopian Korea (even if I have boundless hope for our main characters). That might be the one weakness of the show- in the end, it may condemn or praise individuals, but it can't seem to commit to whether the actions of an individual can or should engender real change. It seems to show us that the ends justify the means - even as it's taking pains to tell us the opposite. But this in no way lowers the enjoyment you get from 16 hours of people in amazing outfits saying horrifying things and (maybe) getting away with it.
They really committed to telling this story and telling it indulgently, un-apologetically reveling in it. I can't get away from how the production almost mirrors the character of Kang Yo Han. I mean, it's a bit over the top, and if you wanted to you could walk away and call it ridiculous, but why would you want to when it just full on commits to the insanity like this?
No-one on this show knows what irony is, every dial is turned up to 100%, I can even forgive the damn bus scene in episode one. God, I love it.
Was this review helpful to you?
