It would seem that the general South Korean public tends to lean more towards shows with slightly darker or heavier themes, maybe even towards dramas with a little more real world relevance. At least, that's the information I've gathered based off the highest rated series on cable TV, with 5 of the top 10 falling into the aforementioned categories. On my part, it's time for me to start on the ninth highest rated drama in that ranking, a series that has been greeted with massive success for its dark comedy. That's right, I'm talking about Vincenzo, starring Song Joong-ki (Descendants of the Sun, Arthdal Chronicles) as the titular male lead VINCENZO CASSANO and Jeon Yeo-been (After My Death, Be Melodramatic) as female lead HONG CHA-YOUNG. This Netflix Original, which revolves around a Korean-Italian consigliere (aka mafia lawyer) who heads back to South Korea after being betrayed by his own family and fights fire with fire by using morally ambiguous tactics to take down villains, has been on my radar even before it aired so without further ado, let's dive in.
INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)
After being abandoned by his birth mother, 8-year-old Park Joo-hyung heads to Italy after being adopted by an Italian family there. Over time, he joins the Cassano mafia family and is treated like a son by the head, Don Fabio, and is renamed Vincenzo Cassano, becoming the family's consigliere. After Fabio's death, his biological son Paolo attempts to assassinate Vincenzo, prompting our lead to flee to South Korea. His main motivation once he's there? Recovering 1.5 tonnes of gold belonging to a Chinese tycoon that he helped stash within the basement of Geumga Plaza, a building that his associate Cho Young-woon owns. Unfortunately, real estate company Babel Group buys the building through underhanded means, presumably not knowing about the gold and now Vincenzo has to do everything he can to reclaim rights to the building. If he can't go by the law, he'll just have to use the methods taught to him by the mafia. Along the way, Vincenzo has to work with attorney Hong Cha-young, who'll do anything to win a case, regardless of morality.
That's the general premise of the drama and it seems to be fairly interesting. Vincenzo makes for a very unique male lead in that he doesn't actually feel like a hero yet. Oh no, the first episode very much paints him as an arrogant man, whose only goal is to get the gold under Geumga Plaza. He could care less about the tenants and is only in it for the money. That's to be expected, since he's part of the mafia but as we've seen in episode 1, he does have somewhat of a righteous streak to him, even if it's self-righteous. His attitude corresponds nicely to Cha-young, who I can only describe as a "monster of capitalism", a term you see quite often in K-entertainment. An attorney for Wusang Law Firm, she does have ties to Babel Group, having defended their pharmaceutical subsidiary against a lawsuit by their test subjects. What drives her to do this? Simple, it's money. As she says, money is power and power is justice (in Korea), and at least in this drama, she's absolutely right, becoming a lawyer who wants to win her case for money.
This is in stark contrast to her father Yoo-chan (Yoo Jae-myung), a lawyer from Jipuragi Law Firm who stands for the people, being the representative of the test subjects against Babel Pharma. In short, Yoo-chan is very much depicted as a "good" lawyer who fights not for personal gain but to help those who can't help themselves. This puts him directly in conflict with his daughter, with both of their strong ideals clashing and results in Yoo-chan attempting to legally disown her. It also just so happens that his firm's in Geumga Plaza, with Yoo-chan heading the Development Opposition Committee, representing the remaining tenants who don't want to lose their livelihoods now that the building's owned by Young-woon. While Vincenzo reassures them that they won't be chased out, Yoo-chan doesn't trust him, knowing that the consigliere is just out for money. Of course, things don't work out well because Babel Group has hired thugs to threaten Young-woon's family in order to pressure him into selling them the building. Their dastardly deeds don't stop there as Young-woon ends up in a presumably staged car accident the day after.
When Babel's thugs head to Geumga Plaza to start their operations, Cha-young (who's there to argue with her father over the disownment proceedings) tries to stop them from being overly violent, only for Vincenzo to make his grand reappearance, using his mafia ways to physically threaten the head of the thugs by dangling him over the side of a building using a tape measure. The episode ends with our titular protagonist vowing to use everything in his power to reclaim his building and (implicitly) his gold.
Episode 1 alone has already fully captured my attention, giving me a male lead that I really feel engaged by in Vincenzo. Although on the surface Vincenzo seems like a kind of scummy guy, there's definitely something deeper to him, considering how he's following the case of his birth mother Oh Gyeong-ja, who's currently in jail for murder and happens to be represented by Yoo-chan. Also, although he seems to be purely motivated by the gold now, I fully expect Vincenzo to change gears and start to work for the good of the tenants. Usual heroic character development. As for female lead Cha-young, we already know she and Vincenzo are going to be an item so I also foresee that she'll probably become less of a capitalist monster, although it's hard to say right now. Something I'll say though is that the comedy so far is really hitting the right spots for me. The humour is ridiculous, almost slapstick at points, and is right up my alley. If the rest of the drama continues with this trend, I'm going to be slapping my knee a lot throughout.
Apart from our lead couple, there're three other lead characters that we don't really get too much of if at all in episode 1. First up is second male lead JANG JUN-WOO [2PM's Ok Taec-yeon (Save Me, The Game: Towards Zero)], who's Cha-young's intern at Wusang. He seems like a pretty happy-go-lucky guy who's honestly quite clumsy but calling it right now, there has to be a lot more to him than we're seeing. Maybe he's a double agent for Babel or some other shady business but there's definitely more to him than meets the eye, if not it's pointless to have him as the second male lead. As for second female lead CHOI MYUNG-HEE [Kim Yeo-jin (My Strange Hero, Extracurricular)], we only get her in one very short scene, where she's behaving like a typical neighbourhood "ahjumma" dancing at a laundromat. Despite her silly demeanour, she's already demonstrated knowledge of the law by confronting two young men making fun of and taking pictures of her without her consent. Based off context clues but previous teasers, we already know that Myung-hee is the drama's main villain so I'm intrigued to see more of her in future.
The final lead character is third male lead JANG HAN-SEO [Kwak Dong-yeon (Gangnam Beauty, Never Twice)], who we don't see at all in episode 1. I have no idea what kind of role he'll play in the drama but looking at interviews and other media, Han-seo is probably a secondary antagonist. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his character because it seems like he was well-received by viewers but we shall see.
It's been a while since I've seen Song Joong-ki in a drama and I think he's going to kill it as this charismatic mafia lawyer. I think he and Jeon Yeo-been will play off each other's characters very well, which will only serve for a more interesting performance. Vincenzo is a little longer than most K-dramas, being 20 episodes long instead of the usual 16 but I doubt it'll get boring anytime soon. My parents watched this before me and they were chortling throughout so I'm not worried about the comedic aspects. I think the adventures and antics of our titular hero will be really fun to watch so I hope you'll join me for the rest of this crazy series.
Comments
Post a Comment