Charm. Charisma. Cunning. What do these three nouns have in common with one another? If you guessed that they all apply to the character of Vincenzo, you'd be absolutely right. Executing his precisely planned motions with extreme cunning, the charming and charismatic consigliere has wormed his way into the hearts of not just the other characters in the drama but also those of viewers. However, while the story told in this series is extremely engaging and entertaining, many plot elements are very troubling and leave a weird feeling in your stomach after you're done. Without further ado, let's dive in.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
Before I start, it's important to preface this by saying that I in no way support or condone the criminal activities that Vincenzo, Cha-young and their gang engage in, regardless of their motivations or the circumstances they're in. From my opening statement I think it's quite clear that Vincenzo isn't a good person, far from it. While he's portrayed as the drama's titular protagonist, he's really more of a moral fine line-treading antihero who more often than not steps into the villainous end of the spectrum. In that aspect, Vincenzo is similar to Na Yi-je from Doctor Prisoner, both being dangerous men who aren't afraid to commit heinous acts to get what they want. While Vincenzo's initial motivation is to retrieve his gold from underneath Geumga Plaza, he starts to get involved in the corrupt dealings of Babel Group, finding out that the company's rotten roots stretch deep throughout South Korea.
I found it very interesting how the screenwriters included a lot of Biblical imagery throughout the drama, in fact you could say that it's a central idea underneath all the corruption and violence. Let me explain. As I said in my initial thoughts post, Cha-young's intern Joon-woo is definitely hiding something and I was absolutely correct because turns out, his real name is Han-seok and he's Babel's true chairman, merely using his half-brother Han-seo as a puppet leader. Han-seok's a crazy murderous psychopath who will stop at nothing to achieve his personal goals, whether it's killing his enemies himself or completely ruining the lives of those against him. If you throw a stone into a K-drama pool, you'll probably hit one with insane examples of political or corporate corruption within and just like these dramas indicate, corporate power is absolute. That leads me to Han-seok's reason for commanding from the shadows, he wants to feel like a god and with his power, he's functionally a god.
His master plan is to demolish Geumga Plaza and build Babel Tower, a luxury condominium that'll house South Korea's rich and powerful, specifically the people who used their status to help Babel illegally. If the condo's name sounds familiar, it's of course a direct reference to the Tower of Babel, a Biblical origin myth that explains why people around the world speak different languages. Simply put, the Tower of Babel was an attempt by a united race of humans to build a structure tall enough to reach heaven itself. None too happy that humanity's arrogant enough to try and reach Him, God makes it such that the people working on the Tower all speak different languages and are no longer able to understand each other, before casting them all over the globe and preventing the Tower from reaching completion. As you would expect, this myth is mentioned in the drama itself, with references to how Han-seok is trying to play God in Korea. Naturally, the myth must come full circle and Babel Group is slowly but systematically destroyed by Vincenzo. Unlike the actual myth though, Vincenzo is likened to the devil (who doesn't appear in the original myth), a concept that is prevalent throughout the drama.
I'm going to say this many times throughout this post but Vincenzo isn't a good man, something that's reiterated by the inclusion of the Biblical imagery. Unlike many dramas, which have a clear distinction between the good and evil characters, Vincenzo has a stronger emphasis on the idea that in order to take down a monster, one must become a bigger monster themselves (check out my Beyond Evil posts if you want to see this idea discussed in greater detail). With very few exceptions, no one on Vincenzo's side can really be considered a good person because they're committing the exact same crimes that Babel did. Despite the fact that Geumga Plaza's tenants had their hand forced into doing such things, this still doesn't negate the fact that many of them did illegal things. Criminal intimidation, causing grievous hurt, breaking and entering, kidnapping, abuse of power, abetting and even attempting murder, Vincenzo and his gang have done it all in their attempts to take down Babel. I'll explain a little more on this later but safe be it to say that one of the drama's concepts is to let viewers figure out who is the bigger evil.
Although he's quite a terrible person, Vincenzo is still super entertaining to watch on screen. Whether it's seeing him executing his 10000 IQ chess game plays or his exasperated expression whenever the Geumga Plaza tenants or Cha-young annoy him, Song Joong-ki has done an excellent job portraying the devilishly handsome and charismatic antihero. It's been a while since I've seen Song in a drama role, with the last time I saw him being Descendants of the Sun so it was really cool to see him take on such a different role. Although the justice he metes out on his enemies is extremely brutal and disturbing, Song is able to distract you just enough with his character's style that you end up rooting for Vincenzo even though he's not following the law. I honestly thought that this drama would end up being a redemption arc for our titular consigliere, where he starts out as this irredeemable mafia lawyer but changes by the end of the series, which would've been pretty lame and following a typical K-drama ending trope. Thankfully, the screenwriters decided to leave Vincenzo's character generally untouched and by the end, he's now the Cassano family's head who continues to exact his justice where he sees fit and sticking to his antiheroic (or even villainous) roots.
I also found it a good move on the screenwriters' part to have female lead Cha-young be a character that wasn't hiding behind Vincenzo all the time but actively participated in the action. It's always nice to see female leads who take matters into their own hands rather than be the damsels-in-distress and it's definitely a change that's taking root in modern South Korean society. She's a hilarious character and contributes a lot to the drama's comedy, oftentimes exhibiting over-the-top behaviour much to the exasperation of her mafia partner. Huge props to Jeon Yeo-been for portraying this eccentric lawyer well. This also allows for awesome chemistry between our leads, with Vincenzo and Cha-young playing off each other very well. I did say that it was likely this pair would end up as an item and I was somewhat right because there were hints at a romance throughout the series but nothing actually really took off, even though our leads definitely have feelings for each other. They just never properly acted on it because of their drastically different lifestyles, with Vincenzo running away to Malta after the whole Babel debacle. Couple or not, they had really fun interactions and I would've been totally fine if they just stuck as partners.
To give our two leads a close match, we need a super dangerous villain and we definitely got that with Han-seok. I just want to say that Ok Taec-yeon did an excellent job in this role because more often than not, you'll see him play heroic characters or even some comedic roles. This is the first time I've seen him as a full blown villain and it's amazing. Han-seok is an absolutely deranged psychopath who could be placid one moment but the next he's bludgeoning a dirty prosecutor to death with a hockey stick, all while smiling insanely. The minute changes in Han-seok's behaviour, whether it's a slight shifting of his gaze's intensity or a tightening of his smile, are brought across expertly by Taec-yeon and I have nothing but praise for his role. His initial turn as the happy-go-lucky intern Joon-woo, his double identity, didn't really leave a strong impression on me although I'll give him props for being able to portray such contrasting dual roles well. The mark of a good actor is when you feel something for the character and this is especially true for villains, for Han-seok is truly a villain you'd love to hate, courtesy of Taec-yeon's wonderful performance.
Next to Han-seok, his partner-in-crime Choi Myung-hee, eventual CEO of Wusang Law Firm, is another villain whose guts you hate to the core. Despite speaking with a strong Gyeongsang-do accent, giving off the façade that she's a country bumpkin, and engaging in silly Zumba dances at random moments, Myung-hee is truly one of the most despicable K-drama villains I've ever seen and I absolutely hate her guts. I've seen Kim Yeo-jin act as villains before but her portrayal in Vincenzo really takes the cake for antagonistic roles. While Han-seok can be said to be driven by his psychopathic urges, Myung-hee is truly a monster of capitalism, motivated by nothing but a thirst for power and money. She's practically willing to do anything to ensure that she and Han-seok succeed, ordering the killing of many people and engaging in so many illegal activities you'll often wonder how on Earth someone like this could exist. For both villains, their respective actors have portrayed them superbly, to the extent that when they meet their (extremely brutal) ends, it's almost a cathartic moment for viewers.
There're multiple villains throughout the series, ranging from the big shots all the way down to lowly thugs but one of them has stolen the hearts of many viewers. I can't really call him a villain but Jang Han-seo, the puppet chairman of Babel and Han-seok's younger half-brother is definitely not the best person around. Han-seo's not the sharpest tool in the shed either, lacking a lot of knowledge about the business world and coming across as very incompetent to outsiders who know his true self. The constant abuse that he's faced over the years from his older brother has turned Han-seo into a coward hellbent on preserving his own life at the expense of others but he gets a redemption arc when Vincenzo appears, motivating Han-seo to side with the consigliere. Unlike his truly murderous brother, Han-seo's biggest sin is just following heinous orders blindly without questioning anything, although he doesn't really have murderous intent behind it. Eventually, after seeing the atrocities that Han-seok has wrought, Han-seo decides to join forces with Vincenzo and stop the madman once and for all.
It's thus really unfortunate that Han-seo dies at his brother's hands but at the same time, his story has come full circle. From someone who only cared about his own survival, Han-seo died protecting Vincenzo and Cha-young from meeting their own death. Kwak Dong-yeon has done a really good job in this role, giving us this lovable goofball of a semi-villain who gets a well-written character arc and redeems himself. It's no wonder that Kwak has received much praise for this role and I hope he continues to give us greater performances in the future.
There're many things to like about this drama and while I enjoyed it immensely, I do think there're improvements that could've been made. For starters, most K-dramas are 16 1-hour episodes long but Vincenzo has a whopping 20 episodes, each spanning from slightly over an hour to 1.5 hours. While the extended runtime gave us many more of Vincenzo's high IQ plays, I do think they could've trimmed it down to 16 episodes while still maintaining the story and keeping it tight. That said, my next gripe will be somewhat contrasting because I personally felt there was one aspect of Vincenzo's story that wasn't covered. If you recall, our titular lead suffers from occasional nightmares, seeing flashes of the murders he's committed in the past for the Cassano family. One such case shows us that Vincenzo notices that in the car of a man he just killed, there's a young girl sitting there clutching a stuffed bear, having presumably just watched her father gunned down right in front of her eyes. That could've been a really important plot point for Vincenzo because after realising the devastation he's wrought upon this young girl, there could've been some kind of mental trauma element regarding killing for him, especially as someone who was abandoned by his mother a long time ago, Vincenzo could've somewhat seen himself in that now orphaned girl.
Unfortunately, we don't actually get any development from this particular scene. Instead, Vincenzo has no problems with killing, which is how he disposes of most of the enemies he's made in Korea, reducing those nightmare scenes to nothing but cannon fodder, there for the sake of taking up runtime. If they were just going to go ahead with keeping Vincenzo as the irredeemable killer, the screenwriters should've just removed any indication of him having nightmares since it doesn't add or detract from his character anyway. It also would've saved some airtime for other things as well. Speaking of killing, I want to talk a little about Myung-hee's character as well. Granted, I heaped praise on her being a villain you'd love to hate but I don't really understand her motivation. Yes she's a monster of capitalism who wants more power but at some point you think to yourself, isn't this enough? Even when Babel was on the losing side and she was almost certain that she was going to die, why was she still sticking around Han-seok and helping him to the bitter end? That motivation is paper thin because at that point, Myung-hee should've been smart enough to jump ship and get out of Korea to escape Vincenzo's clutches. That part just doesn't make sense to me.
My final and biggest gripe is the complete disregard for the law in this drama. I do agree that corruption is a huge theme in this drama and that's why Vincenzo and gang go about their tasks of bringing down Babel using unlawful means but at the same time, I'm left wondering how the normal Geumga tenants are perfectly fine with committing crimes. With the exception of the laundromat owner Tak Hong-shik, a former gangster known as Lightning Scissors for his skill in combat using a pair of scissors, and the owners of Bye Bye Balloon (who were formerly under Babel's employment), the other tenants are fairly normal people who have shown no indication of being past criminals. Yes, many of these tenants have their own special skills like being former pro athletes or street fighters but they seem to be completely ok with following Vincenzo's lead and doing heinous crimes. Even the more docile tenants engage in criminal intimidation, while the more aggressive ones break into Han-seok's home and try to kill him (although their failure was all part of Vincenzo's plan). I can suspend my disbelief because this is a drama but at the same time, I simply can't believe that this is fine with these normal tenants, even if they want to defend their livelihoods, because the more serious crimes could actually land them in jail for decades.
This drama is marketed as a dark comedy and it definitely delivered in those areas. We got loads of slapstick humour throughout a good majority of the drama, which gave us lots of laughs to the end, but when the drama got dark, it got DARK. The most depraved moments in the drama were probably Han-seok and Myung-hee's deaths at Vincenzo's hands, with the latter being burnt to death while the former was subject to extreme torture before taking his last breath, and the aftermath of Vincenzo's numerous crimes in Korea are left ambiguous, literally keeping audiences in the dark. The consigliere ends the drama by saying "evil is prevalent and vehement", sticking to his guns of ultimately being a villain with antiheroic tendencies, believing that evil will always come out on top of justice. While there're people who'll simply write him off as a "bad guy", majority of viewers will recognise him as the exacter of mafia justice, defending the wronged in his own special violent way. Who is this dangerous vigilante? He's none other than the head of the Cassano Geumga family, Vincenzo. Thanks for reading.
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