Defendant

You know, there is a very good chance that all of my posts in January are going to be about korean dramas.

After finishing Reply late 1980’s - 1990’s, I started watching Encounter. However, being a show that I started while it was currently airing, based on my high hopes due to the Song Hye Kyo and Park Bo Gum combo, I soon found myself caught up and with days before the next episode. So naturally, I started on a new show to watch as a filler, and ended up much preferring. This show was Defendant, another high ranker and one that I had avoided for looking a little too serious. I remember it coming out, and thinking that while I love Ji Sung, the idea of a drama set in a prison just didn’t appeal.

I don’t know why I don’t learn that the high rated non-romance dramas are almost always absolutely amazing.

Park Jeong Woo is a successful prosecutor with a perfect life - he runs around catching the bad guys and then goes home to his loving wife and adorable daughter. He is just starting to crack the case on a suspicious CEO who he thinks is actually his criminal twin brother who apparently committed suicide, when he wakes up in a prison cell. Somehow, it’s four months later, and he discovers that he is on trail for having murdered his wife and daughter, has admitted to it, and has absolutely no memory of any of it.  Slowly, he starts to regain his memory and figure out who has framed him and to plan his revenge.

Firstly, I love Ji Sung. He is the lead in of my favourite films, My PS Partner, and played the main role in the slightly forgettable Protect the Boss and in Kill Me Heal Me, which was amazing. He was great in this too, able go from stony seriousness to goofiness to heartbreakingly sad. The guy who played Cha Seon Ho was really good too, in that he made me hate him for being such a despicable person, although Seok his dirty work assistant person also did horrible things and I kind of just crushed on him, so take that as you please. Kim Min Seok from DotS and Because This is My First Life was also in it as Seong Gyu, and he bloody well broke my heart and didn’t deserve anything but a happy ending where he was adopted by Jeong Woo as a younger brother and Ha Yeon’s uncle and they all lived happily ever after.

It was interesting actually to learn a bit about the prison system in South Korea. I found out that people are still sentenced to death, although these sentences haven’t been carried out in decades. People on trial wear beige, those who have been sentenced wear blue and those on death row have their identity numbers in red. They aren’t referred to by name in prison, but instead by number, and live in small rooms with six other inmates, unless they are rich, in which they get a private room which looks more like what we associate prison accommodation to look like.

It was a really good series. It kept you guessing, and while you kind of know it’ll all end up ok in the end, the constant twists and turns and cleverness of the plot does make you doubt it occasssionally. There was zero romance subplot, which is rare, but you really don’t miss it, and I think anything of the sort would have totally ruined the key aspect of Jeong Woo’s character. I enjoyed the comic relief of the cell mates, and that they all got their happily ever afters - apart from Seong Gyu who I actually think I had a bit of second male lead syndrome about, in that while he was only a supporting role, I did root for him hard.

I just can’t fault it, really.

Tldr
It made me cry - like a fair amount. That means it’s good.
You should watch it, but maybe only if you’re a non squeamish adult.
I’d totally watch it again, but would wait a while to forget it first.

Having said all that, I don’t think it will knock any of my Top 5 off the list. It is probably safe in my Top 25 though.

Luckily, I finished this and only had to wait a day until the finale of Encounter came out and was subbed, so expect that review shortly.