The Killing Vote
Cast: Park Hae-jin, Park Sung-woong, Lim Ji-yeon, Kim Yu-mi, Kim Kwon
Episodes: 12
Rating: ★★★★
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
They say justice is blind. But is blind justice, justice served? Will the so-called impartiality of the court system automatically means that the perpetrators will get their just punishment? Will a blindfolded Lady Justice be able to read the room and look at true evil in the eye to dispense her famed good judgment and righteousness?
Or is that precisely why she is in a blindfold? So, that she could dispense her justice without fear or favor? Kwon Seok-joo (Park Sung-woong), an avid legal scholar and true believer of the court system, used to think that.
Seok-joo, a single dad, dotes on his young daughter, Na-rae. But his serene and happy world comes crashing down when Na-rae is brutally murdered. He suffers a double blow when the culprit is released on a technicality. Upon discovering later that the culprit, a neighbor boy, is really involved, he metes his own justice by killing him.
Meanwhile, a local vigilante with a dog mask and is known as Gaetal, is online urging members of the public to vote whether to kill their captives, who somehow escape the Korean justice system one way or another. This has led Detective Kim Mu-chan (Park Hae-jin) and his team scrambling to find and arrest Gaetal before their next victim. Helping Mu-chan is cyber expert Joo Hyun (Lim Ji-yeon). Finding out that Gaetal is an admirer of the now imprisoned Seok-joo, Mu-chan enlists the latter to help him with the case. Will Mu-chan, Joo Hyun and Seok-joo solve the case before the public is once again called upon to be involved in this vigilante crime?
There are enough twists and turns, and nail-biting suspense to please everyone in this psychological crime thriller. Moral and social issues are also explored that will leave viewers questioning their own moral judgement on vigilantism, especially when the justice system is called into question. And, as usual in most K-dramas involving the police and politicians, you can expect some corruption issues.
The drama also entertains with stellar performances by veteran actors Park Hae-jin, as a driven detective who will not hesitate to bend the rules to prove a point, and Park Sung-woong, as a distraught dad who’s torn between his steadfast belief in the justice system as a proponent of the law and his desire to mete out actual justice as he sees fit. Lim Ji-yeon, who makes her mark with a wickedly good performance as a high-school bully in Netflix’s The Glory, is commendable in a good-girl role this time as a consumed but compassionate cyber expert.
All in all, The Killing Vote is a must-watch for fans of psychological crime thrillers. You definitely won’t regret killing 12 hours of your time here.
(Note: Korean names are listed here with last names first, and hyphenated first names last. Photos courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.)