The Judge from Hell

I have loved Park Shin Hye since The Heirs with all the star-studded casts. The show is something I didn't expect to like since nowadays, kdramas don't impress me that easily. However, I was not expecting to like the story, the casts and everything about it. Park Shin Hye is really a versatile actress, she has been with all types of genre and I like her the most if it is action like in Sisyphus (Kdrama) and Alive (Film), she can really pull off being so badass. She has been such an amazing actress that is hard to beat. She is one of my favorite female leads and I am so happy that even she is now married and a mom, she still looks so young and healthy!

Surprised at the high rating. The supporting actors are all very good, as is so common in Korean TV. Let's face it: Ms. Park not a great actress. In fact, she's not even a good one by Korean standards. Regarded as a star, her acting is far from stellar. It's always over the top, as though she trained for the stage, with her eye-bulging, eyebrow wagging, head snapping, hear-tossing, and yelling. It is pretty much the same schtick as one saw in Doctor Slump, but she doesn't here have the benefit of a good male lead like Park Hyung-sik opposite her for balance. This male lead here is wooden and boring. Watch this series only if desperate. A generous score of 6!

I love me an unapologetically badass girlboss, especially as they're very rarely seen in k-dramas in a good light. They're usually out of control villains or bullies. Here, Justitia imparts justice the gory way and relishes in it.

The story is pretty simple, basic even I'd say, and the appeal rests on the characters and the actors' talent in giving us something to enjoy while watching them. Kang Bitna is ruthless, rude, bad-tempered, bet you wish you could act like that around people, right? It helps that she is always dressed to kill and a bit narcissistic. We forgive that in our bad girls going good.

As for Han Daon, he is a secondary character for half the show, at least in terms of screentime, but Kim Jae-young is the reason I wanted to try this drama. This is his revenge after his character's failure in Love in Contract. That's how I'd like to see it, ok?

Anyway, like I said, the story is basic, but it works because of how the characters are played and there is some classic Korean gore, in fact, quite a lot of it. The show is pretty graphic. It also becomes a bit stale for that very reason. The demonic trials are fun in the beginning, but they become repetitive and slow. She insists on replaying the murders step by step, and we see the same thing twice, in ample detail. By the second and third time I was a bit bored. So there are some pacing issues for sure. The Satan twist livens things up a bit, but then the last two episodes were a drag, whereas in the beginning the episodes would just fly by. So 14 episodes is an improvement on the classic format, but maybe 12 would've been even better.

I appreciated the reveal for the J murders, it was captivating enough, but with these supernatural k-dramas, they get their lore a bit convoluted, repetitive and/or illogical. My Demon was a mess. Angel's Last Mission also had some very questionable religious rules in place. There's always the forbidden love twist that becomes a source of tragedy, but it doesn't necessarily make sense all that much, neither does the resolution, so again, pretty unimaginative writing. Tbh, they could have made Justitia in charge of her destiny and found plenty of obstacles in their path. They are assumed to be in love with each other at some point, after some pretty acrimonious exchanges. Work on that instead of some divine, or satanic opposition. So yeah, I wish Han Daon and Kang Bitna had a better romantic progression, if any of it was needed. They could have stuck to some solid sexual tension, there was plenty of opportunity for that too.

I'll give it a four because most of it is pretty good and I think it's the first time I am watching this genre with a female lead and I kind of enjoyed the power trip. I wanted more of it.

After making a mistake in hell a demon possesses the murdered body of a judge and is instructed to send ten souls to hell to atone for her error. As she begins her new life as a judge she comes across a dedicated police officer who has a tragic past and when she begins to send souls to hell he becomes determined to bring her to justice. The judge Kang Bit-na is played superbly by Park Shin-hye and the detective Han Da-on is played by Jae-young Kim whose opinion of her starts to soften. I personally enjoyed the earlier episodes where she was less human and exacting revenge but it is still an entertaining story and worth a watch. Be aware though it is quite violent at times in the depiction of gruesome murders.

.It's a really good series, but only good Park Shin Hye really played his role perfectly It had special effects and an interesting idea and scenario, and the story was good. In these 6 episodes that were aired and I saw them, but on the other hand, the characterization of some characters was not good, and we could not sympathize with the victims of the serial killers that Qazi killed because The characterization and design of the angels and demons was weak and had few story details So far, the score is 7 Hopefully it will be better in the final 8 episodes.

But overall, the series has many positive points, such as the beautiful acting of the actors, especially Park Shin-hye, and the story idea and the captivating story line that I mentioned, and it had the design of Lu Qishan.