Largely without conspicuous and melodramatic flourishes, The auditor was one of the most surprising K-drama successes of the year.
After modest opening ratings, the show steadily built a loyal audience in Korea until, by the end of its 12 episodes, its thrilling finale had it ranking just below the much-vaunted 10 percent mark, making it the fifth highest-rated cable television show of the year in that country to date.
The series tackles a theme that is ubiquitous in contemporary Korean dramas: corporate corruption. K-dramas are designed to reflect real life, so office fraud must be a fact of life in South Korea.
Whether that is really the case is irrelevant. Bad bosses and unreliable colleagues are a means to an end. They represent an understandable and “unfair” obstacle for the protagonists that they have to overcome.
It’s hard not to be persuaded by a story that defends the beleaguered average office worker when faced with inept and corrupt management. Who hasn’t been frustrated with a boss?
Although many K-dramas use this stylistic device, it often only serves as a temporary challenge for the characters before they can focus on what really matters – friends or lovers.
In The auditorbut the means are the end. Although this strategy might seem like a limitation at first, it has proven time and again to be the show’s strength.
Cha-il, who specializes in joining a company’s audit team and eradicating these weeds – he calls them rats – until there is nothing left and it is time to move on, identifies Se-woong’s disheveled brother Dae-woong (Jin Goo, Descendants of the Sun) as JU Construction’s largest rodent.
This is exactly how the first half of the series goes, in which we learn what makes Cha-il such a uniquely effective and magnetic auditor.
It is this very trait that eventually makes him see through Se-woong, the man who hired him. It’s not that Se-woong didn’t want to clean up his company, but that his warped idea of how to do that crossed a line long ago – he was the one responsible for putting his older brother in a coma after attacking him in a fit of rage.
Since then, he has strayed further and further from his moral principles and justified increasingly evil acts in order to achieve his business goals, which he believes are for the good of the company.
Cha-il begins to see through his boss long before others notice his mistakes. What surprises him more is the moral development of his target, Dae-woong. They remain enemies well into the series, long after they realize they may be on the same side.
Because Dae-woong is too much of a macho show-off and Cha-il is far too reserved, they fail to form an alliance earlier, which would certainly have saved the company a lot of trouble.
But where would the fun be in that? Their cautious sneaking around creates tension throughout, leading to the wonderful moment in the grand finale when Cha-il accuses Dae-woong of being a murderer in a calculated ruse to expose the real murderer, his brother Se-woong.
Cha-il develops a certain affection for his colleagues, but remains true to his nature. After the “rats” are eradicated, he hands in his resignation and moves on. His destination is a pier, where an actor in a cameo asks him to clean up the highest office in the land.
There are plenty of hints of a second season these days, but we hope this sequel becomes a reality.
“The Auditors” is streaming on Viu.
