[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Devil Judge" Episode 13

Yo-han has been shot, and left for dead nearby the corpse of his greatest ally. Yo-han is then mostly left to his own devices by the villains, despite the fact that he is the only realistic threat to their plans. What exactly their plans even are is, well, yet another mystery. The beatdown of the citizens of an entire neighborhood isn't just unexplained, it somehow continues for at least a day without the actual objective, whatever it is, being accomplished.

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But the exact goal of the villains is less important at this point as the means by which it is accomplished. We were led to believe, from the beginning of the drama, that the legitimacy of the government was in a perilous situation. This led to the election of the openly populist President Heo, and then the public trials presided over by Yo-han. The purpose of the ruling order was to scapegoat symbolic perpetrators of South Korea's rot, to distract from the broader more fiendish acts being perpetrated by the Social Responsibility Foundation.

Nothing about this premise makes sense in light of the current conflict, where the Social Responsibility Foundation is teaming up with police and Bamboo Spear to beat people up under the pretext of a viral outbreak. If they could just keep the public from being mad at them by turning the cameras off, why didn't they just do that in the first place? Why do they even have any loyal foot soldiers at all when they're still haunted by Yo-han's allegations?

Take the reemergence of Bamboo Spear. They explicitly justified their vigilante behavior under the auspice of Yo-han's cool and unusual punishment. Choong-sik was pilloried because he was identified as a hypocrite who was disliked even among fellow vigilantes. While Bamboo Spear was astroturf working for President Heo all along, the main reason Choong-sik was needed to keep them in line was because most astroturf membership is made up of useful idiots.

This doesn't even get into how inexplicable it is that Choong-sik has returned to his position of power. I also can't make sense of why the police are on the Social Responsibility Foundation's side. The upper levels sure, but we saw in the prison visit that Yo-han has quite a few followers in the lower ranks. If that kind of support wasn't enough to spark spontaneous resistance, what's the dramatic recording at the end supposed to do? It's all just so stupid.

Review by William Schwartz

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"The Devil Judge" is directed by Choi Jeong-gyoo, written by Moon Yoo-suk, and features Ji Sung, Kim Min-jung, Park Jinyoung, Park Gyu-young, Ahn Nae-sang, Kim Jae-kyung. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/07/03~2021/08/22, Sat, Sun 21:00 on tvN.