It’s About…
Vincenzo Cassano, a consigliere (legal advisor) for an Italian mafia family, who moves to South Korea after his adopted father’s death. There, he goes head to head with a corrupt conglomerate.
I Like…
The base idea, and the potential it holds. The episodes’ last part are usually pretty well done, too, and will keep you going back for more in spite of, well. The rest.
Some of the visuals are absolutely gorgeous.
I Don’t Like…
All the gross stuff. Why did they feel compelled to emphasize the fact that one guy has sweaty feet, to show another trimming his toenails, and so on and so forth? Why? It’s so disgusting, seriously.
The tone is also completely uneven and unbalanced, and it translates in the cinematography and the music, too. Most of the episodes are comedy—which is extremely disappointing considering the start of the show, but then you’ve got beautiful scenes with swelling music reminiscent of The Godfather and refined lighting during which the characters’ darker side comes out. Episodes 3 and 4, for example, were basically 50 minutes of nothing happening followed by 15 minutes of explosive goodness, and I just wish the drama would keep only that last part instead of wasting time on the rest.
On the same topic, the characters—or, well, Vincenzo, mostly, are completely inconsistent. For some reason, this man, who grew up as part of the Italian mafia and is seen happily blowing up cars and calmly shooting people in the very first few minutes of the pilot episode, becomes a complete clown as soon as he steps foot in Korea. I guess the air must really be different over there!
But joking aside, this partially translates into a lack of credibility on the character’s part. There was one scene in particular which I suppose was meant to be very climactic and badass and so on, but it left me completely indifferent and disbelieving even. And finally, it’s unpleasantly unrealistic, in a way that reminds me of one of my numerous pet peeves from Descendants of the Sun.
Keep Watching?
For now, for some reason, yes. Not sure I’ll hold on for all 20 episodes, though.
Where to Watch Vincenzo?
On Netflix.
When the taxi driver scene came up, I thought they were giving Vincenzo a chance to show his powers of deduction, I truly thought the taxi driver will pull a gun so that Vincenzo pulls an even bigger gun and prove to us that he is always ahead of the game ….instead he drunk poison that was not even offered to him
I know, right? I was also expecting him to track them down and retaliate with extreme prejudice, but…no? He just let them go? The worst of it is that if it ever comes up again, I’m sure it’ll be him coming across them by accident and pointing dramatically before running after them shouting on the street or something. It’ll be so ridiculous.