BarryJ

This had been in my queue for some time, as the capsule description wasn't particularly compelling to me. After watching it, I realized there was no reason to have hesitated.

Overall, a strong crime/corruption/revenge k-drama leavened with a good bit of action and a bit of romance.

If you watch many k-dramas, you will recognize a number of cast members, all of whom turn in good, or at least serviceable, performances. Good cast chemistry.

I noticed a couple of reviewers comment about Min-su Choi's performance with his guttural delivery at times. While I do think he may have slightly hammed it up a little with this, and with his physical acting (his gait for example), I thought it was just fine and not over the top for his gangster character.

My main criticism is around the pacing. As I often notice in k-dramas, it can lag a bit in the middle bits. I also felt the wrap-up was needlessly hurried. They could have easily written the events of the final episode to unfold over two or maybe even three episodes while tightening up a few of the episodes in the middle.

A secondary criticism is that I think the some of the writing around various plot development slightly strains credulity, but by the standards of the genre, in which entire stories often hinge on the most improbable of coincidences, this is a pretty minor point.

Overall, pretty good. While not my favorite Korean action film, if you like the genre you will probably enjoy it. Overall story and tropes will be broadly familiar to anyone who watches much Korean crime/action.

My one criticism is that the antagonist is cartoonishly evil - a genuine sadist - and his sadism is demonstrated probably more than is necessary, and in more extreme ways than is necessary, for a film which is trying to be more comedic.

Other than that, some good casting/actors, many of whom will be familiar to fans of the genre, including a cameo by Ma Dong-seok, probably my favorite actor in the genre.

I watch a lot of Kdramas with crime & corruption themes, and most have some kind of a romantic subplot in there somewhere. I often joke that by the end of some, I unexpectedly almost more invested in the romantic subplot than the primary story.

I mention this to make clear I am not averse to the romance elements of such series, but for me the romantic subplot did not add much to this series, and in fact detracted from it as I felt the show really dragged when developing it. I attribute this to mostly to how it was scripted and to the character of Go Anna generally.

Having said that, the rest of the series is really quite excellent. Song Yun-ah, as Madame Choi, delivered a fantastic performance of an extremely interesting character. The acting was generally quite good across the board including by some of the smaller supporting roles. There are enough mutually sparring antagonists with shifting alliances (either real or feigned) to provide several twists and turns.

If you generally like the corruption subgenre of the K-drama space, this is definitely worth watching, but it is not the best of the best in that sub-genre.