Nobody messes with Father Kim Hae Il. He's ready to bring the Holy Order to serve justice, one fist at a time.
This is a really fun K-drama action thriller about Father Kim, a priest with big anger management issues. Following the mysterious death of a beloved elderly priest, Father Kim attempts to bring the culprits before law. The journey in taking down the gangsters and corrupt officials in the city is both dramatic and funny.
We were a bit worried about how the priesthood would be depicted. I'm happy to say that the show represented Catholicism well. We felt there must have been a Catholic adviser or writer. Even when a couple of women rhapsodized about Father Kim's good looks, it never went further than simply noticing and a bit of a crush, which eventually wore off and was never acted on. Father Kim's struggles to overcome his sins are real and we were impressed by the fact that many characters wound up in prayer or looking for divine help with their problems.
That's not to say that it was spiritually deep or sappy. Most of the show is taken up with the investigation, plot twists, and character development. But it is a thread that is always just below the surface. The last episode blew us away and I even shed a few tears.
This was a really popular show that grew by word of mouth. It features parodies of popular movies and dramas which we obviously didn't get. However, you often could tell when they were happening. The drama was genuinely engaging, the mystery of who killed Father Lee was a great springboard for a lot of other plot points, and we especially enjoyed the Catholic parts.
A fellow reviewer on Letterboxd summed up well:
The depiction of "fiery/mad" priest is really genius. Something I never imagine, yet something that I NEEDED the most. Being a priest means being a leader, not a God. They hold a big community, but they're not a sinless bcs they're human after all. And anger is one of human nature. We should and needed to be angry for the sake of change the world and speak for injustice.It is certainly a special action show that leads to such a review. And I agree with it.
I personally love the endings. Sometimes we misinterpreted the terms of "forgiveness". Forgiveness doesn't mean we could run from our sin, but rather realize ourselves that we're wrong and we must atone it by fighting the evil inside us.
This is streaming free on Kokowa. The show has 40 episodes, but don't panic. They are actually 20 hour-long shows which are broken into two pieces so they could put ads in the middle when it ran in Korea. Evidently, there's a law that you can't run ads except before and after shows. This is how some shows get around that law.
Just fyi, it sags in the middle and we almost stopped watching but decided to give it one more episode to prove its worth. It turns out that was the one where everything suddenly hit high gear and took off.
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