The spin-off series of The Witch movies is as bloody and brutal as its predecessors with a fast-paced four-episode run that leaves you at the edge of your seat. Alongside an assured director and a strong cast, The Tyrant delivers a hard-boiled action thriller that is not for the faint of heart.
SERIES REVIEW
For those familiar with Director Park Hoon-jung, The Tyrant has his fingerprints all over it. The offbeat characterizations, the gratuitous fight scenes, and the intricate storytelling have become his signature style along with his cool color palette, and for the past decade, he has carved his name in Chungmuro with his noir films. Debuting as a screenwriter with I Saw the Devil and then making a splash as a director with New World, Park’s works are gritty, violent, and dark. In other words, The Tyrant is a far cry from the standard K-drama fare, and you’ll either enjoy it or abhor it.
While The Tyrant exists within the universe of The Witch films, this spin-off series stands on its own without requiring prior knowledge of the previous two installments. The basic premise is that all the world powers have secretly invested in human experimentation with varying results, including South Korea. However, as a small country, most of their efforts have been snuffed, and the last remaining member of this pro-Korea faction is DIRECTOR CHOI (Kim Sun-ho). A diehard patriot who believes in individual sacrifices for the greater good, Director Choi is the leader of the eponymous program “The Tyrant” — an unsanctioned research team that has discovered a semi-sentient “virus” that grants superhuman powers at a deadly cost.
Unfortunately for Director Choi, his program has been discovered and deemed a threat by foreign entities, so rather than have his work stolen, he decides to destroy it. However, one sample gets confiscated by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), and the entire four episodes of this show revolves around the different chess pieces in pursuit of this last remaining vial. Despite the straightforward plot and emphasis on action, The Tyrant is more than a simple watch, and Park’s asynchronous narrative choices and rich character histories give the story an added layer of complexity. Though it takes a while to buildup, once the pace picks up, it never slows down.
In order for Director Choi to steal the vial back, he enlists the help of safe-cracker CHAE JA-KYUNG (Jo Yoon-soo), the daughter of a recently murdered hitman who happens to be a formidable force herself. The only downside is that she has dissociative identity disorder and talks with her “twin brother” in the middle of conversations. None of that matters to Director Choi, though, since he orders ever single field operative to be killed once the sample is retrieved, and the one to fulfill that mission is retired agent IM SANG (Cha Seung-won). Arguably the strongest “non-powered” human in this world, Im Sang appears to be an affable gentleman who speaks formally to all, but his placid attitude only emphasizes the ruthlessness of his actions.
Most of the adrenaline-filled fights derive from these two characters as they use everything and anything to take down their foes. Hatchets to heads, sticks to eyes, and glass shards to necks, whatever object these two possess becomes bad news for their enemies, and the show doesn’t shy away from the gruesome kills Ja-kyung and Im Sang execute with alarming frequency. However, in spite of their growing death toll, these two also happened to be the funniest characters in the show, and their scenes together were some of my favorites. Their uncomplicated motivations coupled with their dogged determination had a crackling synergy that not only propelled the plot forward but also injected tense scenes with an abrupt sense of humor that highlighted just how unhinged all the characters were. These brief moments also gave the audience room to breath and allowed the action sequences to build rather than overwhelm especially in the latter half.
While everyone is a villain in their own right, the true antagonist of this series is American agent PAUL (Kim Kang-woo). Wary of the Tyrant program, he arrives in Korea to retrieve the sample for “world peace” and believes the U.S. is better equipped to handle such technology. His words drip with contempt, and he spits out insults with a smile plastered on his face. However, this borderline-psychopathic man is the only one able to stop Director Choi, and with two superpowered humans on his side, very few people can stand up to him. Ultimately, the conflict between Director Choi and Paul is not about physical violence like the one portrayed with the two killers but a representation of the power struggle between Korea and the U.S. It is a critique of the West’s domineering insertion into other country’s affairs that perpetuates the hegemony, and though the message is a bit heavy-handed, it elevates the story from a simple action-packed thriller to a tense noir filled with betrayals and multifaceted characters.
Unaware of the larger conspiracy, Ja-kyung’s single-minded goal is to exact revenge on the man who betrayed her, YEON MO-YONG (Mu Jin-sung) who also happens to be a pivotal figure in this chase. Knowing that Director Choi has no use for him, Mo-yong turns himself in to the NIS only to be then captured by Paul’s group. As all the important players start to convene, the show climbs towards its climax, resulting in an intense final confrontation as the rest of the characters are clued into the twist the audience was privy to all along: Ja-kyung has the vial. The real clincher, though, is that the vial breaks during a fight, and the sample enters Ja-kyung’s bloodstream, turning her into The Tyrant.
Up till now, no one has been able to control the virus, but as Director Choi stands in a room littered with dead bodies, he realizes that Ja-kyung has accomplished the impossible. A light has appeared at the end of this dark tunnel, and against all odds, hope arises. However, Director Choi’s goal was never survival for himself but for the country he served, and just as he demanded sacrifice from his subordinates, the director holds himself to the same standard. Refusing to let his work fall into another country’s hands, he makes sure the bioweapon remains on Korean soil, and for anyone who has seen Park’s previous films, the conclusion is unsurprising yet nonetheless satisfying.
While I enjoyed The Tyrant for what it was — a dark and violent Park Hoon-jung noir — I didn’t necessarily think it was a masterpiece nor his best work. As his first mini-series, the script didn’t technically feel any different from his usual film ones, and in reality, the show came across as a bloated, nearly three-hour-long movie. As a result, there were some needlessly long scenes and pointless add-ons that should have been left on the cutting room floor in order to tighten and streamline the plot. That being said, I never thought the show was boring, and as expected, the fight sequences were unflinchingly savage and jaw-dropping.
Though I don’t recommend this particular show for the average viewer, I think it will satisfy fans of Director Park and his The Witch films. The acting, in particular, was amazing with Kim Sun-ho capturing Director Choi’s cold and confident aura, Kim Kang-woo absolutely embodying the brazen and vicious Paul, Cha Seung-won stealing the show as the quirky and dangerous Im Sang, and Jo Yoon-soo shouldering the series with her restrained and powerful performance of Ja-kyung. Park Hoon-jung clearly has an eye for talent as well as the ability to extract career-defining performances from his cast, and while I won’t go as far as to say that any of these four leads have rewritten their filmography with these characters, I can confidently say that they were all a delight to watch to the grisly end.