There is the law. And then there is justice.
A common theme in many Korean dramas is that the upper layers of their democratic society are sordidly rotten – tainted by corrupt politicians, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt lawyers, and corrupt businessmen. “Payback” – 12 episodes, ~1 hour each – adheres to that theme.
This is an old-fashioned crime drama with more twists & turns than Mulholland Drive, as used to be said back in the days when Hollywood was still creative. The plot winds through suicides, murders, loan sharking, stock market manipulation, jail house shenanigans, drug dealing, illegal gambling, political greasy-pole climbing, double-dealing, and the difficulties of subjecting well-connected powerful individuals to the law. People are buffeted by threats and temptations, leading to unexpected changes in allegiance. Apparently respectable people behave dishonorably, while some low-lives behave admirably.
The protagonist is a wealthy Korean hedge fund manager who has gone native in Mongolia. He started life as a juvenile delinquent, with nothing but his fists and his extraordinary facility with numbers. He gained a mentor when a successful entrepreneurial business-woman bailed him out of jail in gratitude for assistance he had given her teenage daughter when she got into a fight.
The trigger for this tale was his mentor’s suicide years later, hounded by a conspiracy between a greedy financier and a corrupt state prosecutor chasing political office. When the hedge fund manager learned of his mentor’s death, he returned to Korea intent on wreaking vengeance on those responsible. He teamed up with the lady’s now-military officer daughter (who harbored guilt about her mother’s death), and with his bookish nephew (who had just become a naïve young prosecutor believing he can use the law to secure justice for the Korean people). But to fight monsters, it is necessary to become a monster.
This is the kind of drama where the audience has to pay close attention, as the complex plot springs surprises; there are successes and major setbacks; attacks and counter-attacks; the action occasionally jumps back in time to lay out the characters’ back stories; and the cast of characters grows, some with their own competing agendas.
This is set against the interesting background of modern South Korea – lots of eating, lots of drinking, with well-dressed people who are infallibly polite & mannerly (except when beating each other up). It is an engrossing story with good acting and some excellent photography in Korea and Mongolia. For anyone who likes real drama and can live with subtitles, this is well worth watching.
