I'll start this review by saying, "any viewer who enjoyed the way of the judge in this series should be watched out for, they love the devil itself" lol. I actually clapped my hands to most of the judge's moves because they were so satisfying even though evil and inhumane. Well, you shouldn't expect anything less with the title of the series.
The title kinda gave me a hint that there could be some scary scenes that I won't want to see alone as I'm not a fan of horror genre in movies so I saw this one with a friend of mine. It didn't turn out as scary as I had expected but great I saw it with her, it gave me more thoughts to share on regarding the series and why it's a unique one.
"The Judge From Hell" is a 2024 released Korean drama starring Park Shin-hye from "The Heirs", "Doctor Slump", as a court Judge who's a demon and Kim Jae-young from "Love In Contract", a righteous detective. The series is based on crime, romance, fantasy with almost no funny scenes. One about life after death (the underworld/hell).
The story is about a judge in hell who made a wrong verdict and was sent to earth to send only those who have wronged others to hell as her punishment, Kang Bit-na is cold hearted and inhumane. And there is Han Da-on, a righteous detective who is determined to change her ways. Both fall for each other but crimes never stop.
There is one highlight of this series that excites me most and I could bet it's same for other viewers, that is "Her final Verdicts" after her light verdicts in court. I think there were like 7 wrong doers who went through her light and final verdicts. Her way of making them pay for their sins and still sending them to hell is so gratifying.
Picture this. An unrepentant serial killer after clear evidence gets a court verdict of less sentences that a mere thief would get. The serial killers feels his money did the work and smirks happily to victim families but then, he is visited by the same court judge as demon who makes him go through severe pains and sends him to hell.
While it's the main message of the series, I love the idea of sending the bad guys to hell but, the fact that the victims of the evil do not know about what happens to those evil people who have wronged them wasn't so satisfying but it wouldn't have been cool for them to know either. In all, the storyline is a good one and indeed gratifying.
Even though the series have romance as one of its genre and yeah, the main characters did fall in love but then, the series wasn't focus on that aspect as much. There was only two kiss scene and a few "Catching feelings" scenes which kinda help put the character playing Han Da-on in a sweet light after the series has ended, it's cool.
Can we give a paragraph of admiration on "Kang But-na" fashion sense in this series? For a demon who is inhabiting a human body, not just any human, a judge. Her fashion sense goes contrary to what is expected of Judges to wear and for every mission she carries out, there is a fashion wear for each phase and that is beautiful.
What I'm not satisfied about or that I think they missed in giving good conclusion on, is that real Judge Kang Bit-na (the human) didn't get to have a justifying verdict especially after an unjust death and the Demon's wrong judgement at first. All the scenes were necessary except the part where human Kang Bit-na runs away from hell.
Maybe it was an oversight on their part or on my part but in either case, it wasn't done well enough. This doesn't take away anything from the storyline though, I totally enjoyed my time on it. Mind you, the series has only one lead, the Judge but the detective role got viewers loving him more and waiting for more of his series in future.
I'll give it a rating of 8/10 and I hope you'll check it out. Have you seen it? Share your thought.
