'Defendant' closes with warning for crooked real world

Promotional photo for SBS legal thriller "Defendant" / Courtesy of SBS

By Park Jin-hai

There was no surprise ending for SBS’s hit drama “Defendant,” which has driven viewers for the past two months with its thrilling cat-and-mouse case.

The legal thriller, starring veteran actors Ji Sung and Um Ki-joon ended Tuesday with a mostly expected finale _ justice prevailed and the bad guy got punished.

Cha Min-ho, Cha Myung Group's evil vice-chairman played by Um, who killed his twin brother to assume his identity, was sentenced to death, despite trying to get off by bribing a judge and pretending to be insane.

Ji’s character prosecutor Park Jung-woo, framed by Cha for the death of his wife, visited his wife’s charnel house with his daughter and promised to make the world that his daughter would be living in more beautiful.

Park, entering another crooked conglomerate, said to his colleagues, “We only have to catch those people whom our bosses say to leave alone.”

The 18-part drama has had its share of criticisms that it repeats the same pattern of twists and turns to keep viewers hooked. Yet “Dependant” without a so-called tacit success formula of star writers, hallyu stars and romance enjoyed great popularity. Its Tuesday finale garnered the highest 28.3 percent, surpassing the previous record of 27.6 percent that “Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim” posted this year.

The comeuppance has been an easy guess, but after the long wait it gave as much relief and satisfaction to viewers. The drama, in a form of a fiction, was like a warning sign to the evil and powerful figures of the real world.

Cha, who pretends to be mentally unstable in court, comes near Park and whispers “Have you seen anything that cannot be done with money and power in Korea?” When he is jailed, he is boss of his prison cell.

His remark outraged viewers and when he finally ended up in solitary confinement, wearing prison garb bearing the number “1001” _ the same number as the real-world interrogation room where former President Park Geun-hye was investigated for her involvement in a corruption scandal _ viewers got their vicarious satisfaction.

Also, what made “Dependant” so special had been the acting performances of Ji and Um, who played against each other neck-and-neck.

Ji, who won the Grand Prize at the MBC Drama Awards for playing a person with dissociative identity disorder in the 2015 romantic thriller “Kill Me, Heal Me,” proved himself once again. He was acclaimed for playing the diverse emotions of the character, who suddenly wakes up one day and finds himself a convict on death row for killing his wife and daughter. Ji portrayed the inner struggle of Park to recover his lost four-month memory and find the truth. Scenes showing his love for his daughter touched the hearts of many viewers.

Um, who played the ultimate villain, stood opposite Ji, representing Korean society’s corruption and the collusive ties between politics and business. Cast in a dual role as Cha Min-ho and his twin brother Sun-ho, Um gave viewers chills in every episode and impressed viewers as strongly as Ji.