K-drama Review: "The Judge from Hell" *SPOILER ALERT*
Get ready for one helluva ride~
I recently finished watching the Korean drama series “The Judge from Hell,” ‘twas a great watch, I enjoyed myself immensely. It’s not too much of a heavy investment considering the 14 episodes @1 hour/episode.
The series opens with a bang, our FL (female lead) Kang Bitna, is a seemingly normal judge in modern day South Korea is the victim of a snowy night murder in a park. Her soul wanders through the gates of Hell that appear before her but she ends up being sent to the wrong jurisdiction and is sentenced to a painful demise by Justitia, the demon judge in charge of the Hell of unforgiven and unrepentant sinners.
Justitia’s superior Bael, second-in-command in Hell, appears almost immediately after to condemn her actions. The consequences of her wrongful ruling results in her being exiled to the mortal world to find and execute ten (later increased to twenty) unforgiven and unrepentant sinners in one year’s time. As repentance for her mistake, she must complete this task in Kang Bitna’s “skin” (her demon powers are still intact though). Thus begins our FL’s atypical, action-packed hero’s journey.
One aspect I enjoyed about the drama was, for lack of a better description, the “instant gratification” punishments Justitia handed out to the criminals who’d escaped adequate judicial punishment by the law. The blatant an “eye-for-an-eye” karmic retribution that the criminals go through during Justitia’s judgement, especially when they experience everything they inflicted on their victims is just so, so immensely gratifying.
I also really appreciated the light they shed onto sensitive topics, our feisty and indifferent demon judge was not afraid to call out the controversial topics. Some of my favorite moments were:
Debate of “excessive use of violence” vs legitimate self-defense. This was the initial meeting between our two leads, the detective ML (male lead) is accused of using excessive violence when he used force to unhand a suspect wielding a knife. In the background of the serious court environment, our matter-of-fact demon judge sarcastically asked the prosecution: “Well, what did you expect him (the officer) to do? (mockingly enacts) ‘sir, please could you hand me your weapon?’”
The debate of whether people who are psychologically unwell, e.g., MPD (multiple-personality-disorder) are guilty of the crimes they committed. Justitia’s take was: “Insanity or idiocy, he’s still a killer.” (for this particular case, the perpetrator turned out to be faking MPD to escape a hefty legal punishment)
The case of the CEO conglomerate’s son wrongfully killing the elderly leader of the labor union: Justitia asks if the killer has asked for the victim’s forgiveness, the killer replied that he had repented at church and asked for God’s forgiveness, “God has forgiven me,” he says. Justitia unrelentingly asks again: “Did you ask the victim for forgiveness?” Killer: “What? God has already forgiven me…” Justitia proceeds to beat the shameless sinner up some more and delivers her final verdict: “Wrong [answer]. ‘Execute killers unforgiven by their victims, and unrepentant of their sins, and send them to Hell’ that’s what God wants.”
The beginning of the final showdown between Justitia and the final boss family, her excuse to infiltrate the enemy base is: “To be exact, it’s attaining success and wealth through marriage. I want to go into politics. I’m a great liar, shameless, selfish, hypocritical, and I like money. I think I have what it takes to be a great politician.”
Aside from the aforementioned favorite parts, I really enjoyed Park Shin-hye’s performance as the FL Kang Bitna, the flashy outfits, the reddish tinted hair, the unfiltered sharp-tongued personality, she really brought the character to life on screen.
I personally thought the ML actor was a bit weaker in comparison, his character portrayal was a bit lacking during some highlight emotional parts. The climax where he finally catches the serial killer that ruined his life and killed his family not just once, but twice, his expressions felt a bit flat in light of everything that he had gone through up until that point. Anyways, just a subjective opinion from Rosie.
Overall, this was a highly enjoyable drama, very gratifying for the justice-hungry soul. Definitely not for the faint of heart though, the action scenes are extremely violent and gory. The drama ended on an open note, it seems like it was purposely setup for a second season, I would definitely watch if there’s a sequel :)