Grade: A
Category
Crime thriller
What it’s about
Fate forces a young woman into undercover police work, leading her to spy on Seoul’s up-and-coming drug kingpin—a suit-wearing uber-gangster known only as the Doctor’s Son. She discovers a dark, dangerous world where nothing is what it seems.
First impression
After a long string of romantic comedies, I decided I was in the mood for something with teeth. I think I’ve chosen wisely—Cruel City is crisp, cinematic, and brutally effective as its follows cops and gangsters on their bloody travels through Seoul. Like many shows on Korea’s cable channels, it pushes far, far beyond what would be acceptable on a mainstream network: it’s graphic and unvarnished in its depiction of violence, and also in its exploration of moral ambiguity. Its characters aren’t necessarily nice—or even on the right side of the law. I do think, however, that jTBC might have been influenced too heavily by this spring’s (revolutionary) flop The End of the World. Cruel City is completely different from other Kdramas, it’s also a little bit the same—there are diarrhea jokes and plucky young women and hammy drug lords in showy outfits.
Final verdict
Stylish, thrilling, and filled with a cast of indelible characters, Cruel City is the most compulsively watchable drama I’ve come across in a long time. It may not be my usual kind of show, but whenever I sat down to watch a few minutes of it, I would stand up dazed and sweaty-palmed two hours later, trying to figure out how to shirk my real-world responsibilities in favor of another episode.
