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Vigilante: Episodes 1-2
by mistyisles
Frustrated by the limits of the law, a young man takes it on himself to execute violence on the violent. That is, when he’s not busy studying to become a police officer. Vigilante’s first two episodes are on the short side (around 50 and 40 minutes, respectively), but they’re also impactful and cinematic — and definitely not for the faint of heart.
EPISODES 1-2
Like many a vigilante story, our protagonist’s journey begins with a personal experience of deep injustice: as a young boy, he watched a man brutally beat his mother to death over a perceived slight. Despite this not being the man’s first offense, the judge sentenced him to a measly three years in prison.
Twelve years later, that same man is still brutalizing innocent strangers. But his latest victim — a bus driver who called the police on him — proves to be his last, because KIM JI-YONG (Nam Joo-hyuk) is all grown up and ready to avenge his mother’s murder. With his face hidden by a dark hoodie, Ji-yong stalks the man down an alley. He makes sure to identify himself and his motivation, and then thanks the man for remaining a horrible person — right before bludgeoning him to death.
Meting out justice, it turns out, is pretty much Ji-yong’s entire life. He’s a top student in police university alongside his best friend MIN SEON-WOOK (Lee Seung-woo) — who likes to play adorable pranks like dumping extra shampoo on Ji-yong’s head in the shower — and their professors acknowledge in private that both young men are nearly ready to enter the force.
On weekends, Ji-yong refuses social invitations in favor of his own plans, which consist of donning that hoodie and hunting down violent criminals who have used loopholes in the law to evade actual punishment. Notably, Ji-yong backs off if that weekend’s target demonstrates sincere remorse for what they did. (Spoiler alert: most don’t.)
It doesn’t take long for someone to notice the pattern. Reporter CHOI MI-RYEO (Kim So-jin) whips up a story about the dark hero she dubs “Vigilante” and presents it to her less-than-enthusiastic boss. She has to threaten to take it elsewhere before he agrees to run it, but in the end Mi-ryeo’s story airs, along with a word of thanks from one of the people Ji-yong recently rescued from being re-victimized.
Now that she’s got her foot in the door, Mi-ryeo convinces her boss to lay out bait for the Vigilante by exposing the identity of a man named JUNG DEOK-HEUNG (Woo Jung-gook), a sex offender whose case was named after his victim to protect his privacy (thereby forcing said victim to move and change her name).
Just as Mi-ryeo had hoped, the news takes the country by storm. People swarm Deok-heung’s home demanding he belatedly face consequences. But Mi-ryeo isn’t worried about someone else killing Deok-heung before the Vigilante gets him — that would simply give her two Vigilantes to write about.
Late one night, Deok-heung drives to Incheon Port. Mi-ryeo follows, but loses him among the other trucks, and soon the police arrive, hoping to prevent Deok-heung from fleeing the country. Mi-ryeo stews, worried they’ll succeed and she won’t get to give the public a glimpse of the Vigilante in action.
Fortunately for her, Incheon Port was a misdirect. Deok-heung is actually headed to the home of his old victim. He stabs the officer stationed out front and drags the poor girl out of her apartment and into the stairwell, blaming her for “ruining his life.” That’s when Ji-yong arrives. He rescues the victim and beats Deok-heung within an inch of his life, demanding a letter of apology if Deok-heung wants to live.
By the time the police and Mi-ryeo arrive, Deok-heung is dead and propped up next to a gruesome apology written in his own blood on the wall. Thus, the Vigilante makes his official debut as a person of public interest. The police, having deduced that his kills are premeditated, call in reserves — including Ji-yong’s professor and mentor, LEE JOON-YEOP (Kwon Hae-hyo) — to investigate and apprehend the Vigilante for murder. This outrages the public, who flood Mi-ryeo’s newsroom with angry calls accusing them of putting the police on Vigilante’s tail.
But Mi-ryeo is just getting warmed up. This time, she exposes three different underpunished criminals, hoping to learn more about the Vigilante’s preferences. Sure enough, Ji-yong immediately zeroes in on one of the three: SEO DU-YEOP (Yeon Je-wook), who murdered a woman and her two young children.
Du-yeop now spends his time dealing drugs at local clubs and bragging about finagling his way out of a murder charge. So that weekend, Ji-yong stuns his friends by accepting their invitation to go clubbing for once. I’m sure it’s no coincidence they end up at the same club as Du-yeop, and Ji-yong lets a young woman lead him out onto the dance floor so he can get close enough to eavesdrop.
When none of her attempts at capturing his attention work, the woman takes Ji-yong out into the hallway. Figuring he’s after some of Du-yeop’s wares, she gloats that he’s not eligible to buy and then places an unspecified substance in her mouth and kisses him. The rest of the night passes in a colorful blur, and the way Ji-yong’s friends later ask whether he got home okay is a touch concerning to me, though he doesn’t seem to give it much thought.
In any case, Ji-yong spends the next few weeks preparing to take Du-yeop down. After giving Du-yeop a chance to turn himself in (of course he doesn’t), Ji-yong burns the payment from Du-yeop’s most recent transaction and then proceeds with the execution. When Du-yeop finally begs for mercy, Ji-yong shows him a video of the children he killed and points out that Du-yeop didn’t show them mercy — so he won’t receive any, either.
While Mi-ryeo’s colleagues celebrate her success at creating a sensation, the police announce a special investigative force tasked with catching the Vigilante. Joining them is JO HEON (Yoo Ji-tae). Other officers refer to him as a “monster,” and it’s easy to see why — when he tracks down one of Du-yeop’s accomplices, he bends a coin in half with his bare hand as a (very effective) intimidation tactic and then dangles the guy off the roof of a building until he gives up what little clues he has about the Vigilante’s identity. With a frightening glint in his eye, Heon vows to make everyone forget all about the Vigilante.
Well, color me intrigued. Vigilante initially enticed me with the cast list alone, but these first two episodes have me officially hooked. They’re so slick and cinematic that the short runtime feels even shorter, and I don’t even mind that I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten to know Ji-yong yet. Or that, you know, I can’t exactly condone his choices. Instead, Vigilante gives me a weird sense of cognitive dissonance, because the people Ji-yong kills are completely horrific… but so is the way he kills them.
And considering he’s already gotten his personal revenge (which would be the end goal in a different show), I’m curious to see what kind of trajectory is in store for him. So while it feels a little weird to say I enjoyed these first two episodes, I’m definitely excited to see what else is in store.
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