Season 1 |
|
|
Episode Guide
Episode 1 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 3/5
The Tyrant Season 1 is the latest K-drama from Disney+ and stars familiar faces like Kim Seon-ho, Cha Seung-won, Jo Yoon-soo, Kim Kang-woo, Mu Jin-sung and Kim Joo-heon. Said to be a spin-off of The Witch movies, it has exciting themes of espionage, loyalty, betrayals and world-changing viruses.
The K-drama begins in medias res as a faction of the NIS is caught running the unauthorized The Tyrant Program. The program is forced to shut down and all of the files are to be transferred to the NIS for investigation. In the middle of the chaos, the uncontrollable virus goes missing with different agents rushing to get their hands on it for their personal gains.
Cha Seung-won plays Lim Sang, a retired agent turned mercenary who Director Choi hires to get rid of all evidence including witnesses related to The Tyrant Program. Kim Seon-ho is Director Choi who runs the program while Kim Kang-woo is Paul, a foreign agent, trying to get rid of the virus.
Jo Yoon-soo plays Ja-gyeong, the mysterious safe-cracker who gets roped into the hunt for the last sample. Initially directed as a movie, the K-drama is helmed by filmmaker Park Hoon-jung of The Witch movies fame.
The Tyrant Season 1 is a fun exploration of The Witch universe and as a fan of the movies, it is exciting in the way they link everything together. We learn more about that world while the K-drama also gets the freedom to skip some exposition like Paul’s Alligators since they are already established in The Witch Part 2.
The narrative structure of Season 1 also scratches that itch just right of instant set-up and pay-off. This makes it easy to follow all the different subplots and characters once the plot takes off. Sure, the exposition and info-dumping at the beginning is quite overwhelming and confusing but points for trying to follow the show-don’t-tell trope.
And as always, South Korean action movies and shows are in their own league which we again see in The Tyrant. The action choreography is not only exhilarating but switches up right when it is about to get boring. The camera follows the punches and the limbs to give an immersive experience.
But while most K-dramas always have exceptional technical execution, it is disappointing that The Tyrant chooses darkness, heavy contrasts, underexposure and minimal lighting for the majority of Season 1. It becomes quite hard to see and follow the characters, especially in fight scenes when we are not sure who is doing what. This happens to be a major drawback as the finale is 50 minutes of darkness…
The show is also slightly ableist as there is a character with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) but the disorder is mostly used as a comic relief. The pay-off for this creative decision is little to nothing. If the writers cannot tackle a disorder sensitively, they should have come up with a better alternative as the resulting plot twist is a popular trope in science fiction.
There is not enough substance for a 4-episode run either which makes sense as The Tyrant was initially planned as a film. Sure, some filler scenes help etch out the characters, but then there are more filler scenes that just don’t add to the story.
Kim Seon-ho is absolutely wasted while we don’t even know what Paul’s purpose is. It is as if we were watching the Lim and Ja-gyeong show which wouldn’t have been a problem if this hadn’t been an ensemble story with Choi and Paul being given equal screen time. But they just don’t have anything to do despite all that screen time.
To put it simply, The Tyrant is a shot in the dark, literally but the final result is not worth it, especially when you compare it to the well-made movie counterparts. Sure, The Tyrant Season 1 has its merits but the technical decisions and the need to drag it into a 4-episode show when it could worked better as a film leads to its downfall.
Feel Free To Check Out More Of Our TV Show Reviews Here!
-
Verdict - 5/10
5/10