With Eyes East

Written by Jo Yi-soo
Directed by Park Jin-pyo
Broadcast from 21 September 2024 – 2 November 2024

Episode 1. Just episode 1

The IMDb logline for The Judge from Hell reads as follows: “Kang Bit Na, an elite judge with a beautiful appearance, is a demon whose mission is to punish those who have wronged others and send them to Hell. However, the righteous Detective Han Da On is determined to change her ways.” You know what? That sounds really good. I’ve been dying for a show where Park Shin-hye plays against type and, ironically, into her public persona as a bigger-than-life celebrity who everyone loves. At the very least, her biggest roles have been characters easily described as “nice” or “shy” or even “do-gooder”? I feel like she’s been slapped in the face so many times, though she did give it to Kim Ji-won – the Queen of Tears herself – in The Heirs. But no more. Now she’s playing a demon!

So, the arc, in my mind, is “empowerment.” Think about this premise and about demons past. She’s come from hell to Earth to do a job, sure, but she doesn’t have to play by the rules. And that job, as we read above, is to punish wrongdoers. That sounds “empowered” to me. It’s also the exact same plot as the show (and presumably the comic) Lucifer. On that show, the titular demon always feels like he’s having a laugh, and that’s part of the appeal. What is the mortal world to a demon? A playground; Shin-hye should be god mode in Grand Theft Auto, cutting through all our rules and manners while flashing that infernal smile – she’s very good at the smile, and the camera loves her.

In the opening sequence, we find Kang Bit-na dying of a stab wound in the snow. Her soul lifts from her body and crosses a demonic portal into a bureaucratic hell. The demon Justitia, initially played by Oh Na-ra, disregards Bit-na’s testimony and condemns her to the hell for murderers rather than some sort of “fake hell.” Bit-na is a judge herself, and hasn’t murdered anyone. After the branding and banishing, Justitia’s boss Bael comes in and reprimands her. As punishment for the incorrect punishment, Justitia’s ordered to Earth to punish ten murderers (by sending them to hell). And to drive this point home, Bael puts a demon-spider spike through her shoulder, to which she writhes in pain. So… empowered. I was reminded of the director’s cut of the Justice League movie, which introduces its big villain Darkseid by depicting his loss in battle. Wow, what a badass. I was pretty unhappy to have seen both Lucifer and Justice League, so I’m glad it paid off here.

Once Justitia gets to Earth, occupying Bit-na’s body (I’ll hereafter refer to the character as Bit-na, as the characters around her do, and maybe the actual Bit-na will be “Bit-na’s soul,” who we see again in the first episode’s epilogue), things don’t get much better. Despite posing as a human, Bit-na’s very open about actually being a demon, to the point where doctors study her in a psychiatric ward and attribute her delusions to PTSD from the stabbing. She tells a group of schoolchildren touring a courthouse that she’s a demon and there’s no such thing as justice. In court, she opens a can of cola and drinks it. Cola is her thing. So far, “empowerment” means being kind of sassy, which is a good start but certainly not enough. Suddenly, those flashes of Shin-hye’s smile, in several close-up shots, don’t feel earned. Like, she’s not a badass, she’s just kind of quirky. So far, she’s gotten her ass kicked to Earth, and she’s somewhat unorthodox for a judge (even wearing makeup, because an early runner is that she’s extremely pretty).

All of what I’ve described so far can be excused if the rest of the first episode plays its cards right. The cards? Well, The Judge from Hell premiered in September, and I waited because it meant restarting a costly subscription (Disney+), only being moved to finally pull the trigger by – what else – the algorithm. YouTube started randomly recommending shorts from this show, including one where Bit-na beats up a domestic abuser in an elevator. It’s really quite something, a step up from my beloved “Lee Da-hee in an elevator” scene in Search: WWW, as well as what I saw of Shin-hye’s martial arts in Sisyphus: The Myth. Brutal and prolonged – it’s the antihero difference. Really, it’s the promise of the actress playing outside her usual zone (something I’ll forever hope to see from Yoona). For narrative context, the creator of the short video also includes snippets from the domestic abuser beating up his wife or girlfriend, which is less pleasant. In the first episode of The Judge from Hell proper, it’s like, “Okay, okay, I’m seeing the domestic abuse part,” and I’m just waiting for what’s to come.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t come. While watching The Judge from Hell, I’m also watching another fantasy show, Kamen Rider Black Sun, which is worse, but at least had the decency of ending its first episode with an actual climax. The episodic conceit was resolved within the span of an hour. Of course, The Judge from Hell is a K-drama, so these episodes are a little longer than an hour regardless. I can rephrase: the episodic conceit was resolved within the span of its opening remark. Bit-na’s assistant, Valak, in the body of Gu Man-do, gives her the idea to use her mortal judgeship to release a clearly guilty, remorseless abuser, Moon Jeong-jun, from jail so she can send him to hell. I assume that means “elevator ass-kicking” is next, and that’s how we’ll close out the episode. Instead, the plot follows a confusing sequence. When we first meet Justitia as Bit-na, she’s actually doing the job of judge, as part of Bael’s assignment. So when this abuse case comes up, she’s prepared to hand down the maximum sentence in accordance with the law.

She even meets with the parents of the abuse victim, Cha Min-jeong, (which I assume is a breach of conduct), and they tell her that their daughter cut off communication after they reported Jeong-jun. See, the maximum sentence, recommended by the prosecutor, is one year in prison. After that, he’s free to return and kill Min-jeong. During this meeting, Bit-na excuses herself to the toilet where she makes herself appear to be crying to show off to the parents (I don’t know why). After this scene is where Man-do the assistant gives her the extremely obvious idea to let Jeong-jun off the hook. She does, shocking the gallery and causing Mij-jeong’s mother to faint. Han Da-on, the lead detective on this case (and the eventual love interest) confronts Bit-na, and she denies having cried in front of the parents (what?). Jeong-jun goes to Mij-jeong’s apartment, breaks in, and beats her for, like, way too long. I didn’t need to see any of this, and it’s a lot. Kicking, punching, she begs him to stop. Come on, guys.

Then he just leaves, and Min-jeong prepares a noose with which to hang herself. Bit-na peers into a scrying mirror and sees that she’s dead. Jeong-jun is now a murderer, giving her the green light. She finds him outside (not in an elevator), and we end the episode on her summoning a magical blade. Cliffhanger! Okay, so, allowing a young woman to die is pretty hardcore, but like that Key and Peele sketch, “not in an entertaining way.” It feels too contrived, within this opening remark when I’m supposed to understand the character. Because there are supernatural elements, Bit-na has infinite options to accomplish her earthly mission. No murders in South Korea? Okay, take a vacation and go north. That would definitely be a quirky thing to do. As it turns out, I don’t understand anything about Bit-na. I didn’t really get the sense that she was trying to do the job (as directed by Bael) because there’s no moment where it requires a conscious effort. Subsequently, there’s no moment of conflict then solved by reconciling the job and the earthly mission.

Why not have Bit-na discover that she likes to be a judge on Earth before she realizes the solution to her real problem conflicts with it? And why not… goddamn it, why not just let her be a badass – and not in a weird way? Eh, there are also other, more technical issues at play. I don’t particularly like how the show looks. You can see from these [admittedly low-res] stills [thanks, streaming], that it’s just kind of blah. Dull colors, but it’s also overlit, with the occasional lens flare, even. We got a camera that’s bobbing around. Hell is vague and uninteresting, the CGI is predictably bad. Also, and this isn’t the show itself, but Disney+ does this weird thing where they fade in and out to black for commercial breaks, even if I’m ad-free. It’s surprisingly disruptive.

Once the first episode ended, I said aloud (to no one): “I’m not watching any more of this.” Of course I will, but I can’t say that’s a strong indicator of surviving the entire season. The new year’s about to bring more K-content; I’m already behind on Squid Game, Song Hye-kyo’s movie Dark Nuns is out at the end of the month. Should I just wait for Park Shin-hye’s next show?

(As I now discover, locating that YouTube short, it was a different guy abusing his wife/girlfriend who she beats up in the elevator. More to look forward to.)