The last sample of the program is lost during a delivery and now everyone wants it. This includes Choi himself and Paul (Kim Kang-woo, Artificial City), who works for a US secret service and wants to destroy it, and the mysterious woman Chae Jae-gyeong (Jo Yoon-su, The interest of love) who is hired to steal it.
This may sound relatively simple, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Although it is never fully explained, the Tyrant program appears to be concerned with developing a super soldier of sorts. However, since Paul is already protected by an entourage of his own super soldiers, it is not clear why this program is necessary.
Paul, whom we first meet in Thailand, lives in Japan and speaks poor English. He is supposed to be a US government agent, but behaves as if the NIS were his subordinates, which makes it quite difficult to understand how these international government agencies are connected.
More confusing is Jae-gyeong, the series’ main character. She is introduced at her father’s funeral and other characters explain that she suffers from dissociative identity disorder – her male twin brother is her second identity.
Jae-gyeong is a lithe and powerful fighter, tearing dozens of trained men to pieces without batting an eyelid. She seems to have special powers, though again the show doesn’t bother to make this clear.
Her motives are also rather opaque. She gets hold of the sample and confronts various characters whose connection to the story is never explained, such as a gangster who runs a nightclub. Eventually she allies herself with the assassin Sang.
This exceptionally confusing, yet very stylish piece comes from Park Hoon-Jung, the director of sensational plays such as New World And The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion.
Given all the shady organizations, its superhuman concept and its blood-splattered female lead, the show has a lot in common with the latter. Unfortunately, it resembles the regrettable sequel even more The Witch: Part 2. The Otheranother confusing parade of people beating each other up without any sense or reason.
Everyone in The Tyrant is tough as steel and cool as a cucumber, which leads to endless scenes of characters glaring at each other. Because they are so concerned with appearing cool in front of their opponents, these characters tend to be very poor communicators. Little can be gleaned from their conversations.
Of course, the characters don’t always talk, but Park makes sure that they always use their mouths, even when words aren’t coming out of them. When they’re not chain-smoking, they’re either making disgusting clicking noises with their mouths or aggressively munching on toast and sandwiches.
After introducing Kim Da-mi to the world in The Witch: Part 1. The SubversionPark once again brings a young actress out of obscurity, in this case Jo Yoon-su, covers her in blood and pushes her into the spotlight.
The only person who stands out is Cha, who plays the wonderfully eccentric killer Sang.
The Tyrant marks Parks’ debut as a director on the small screen – the show was originally intended as a feature film, but was turned into a four-part series in post-production and sold to Disney+.
With the Korean film industry slow to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and most films failing to recoup their costs during their theatrical run, producers are turning to streaming companies; selling to one of these platforms guarantees a return on investment.
For the first time for Disney+ Korea The Tyrant released all four episodes simultaneously on launch day.
“The Tyrant” is streaming on Disney+.
