Lee Seon-kyun and Moon Chae-won are ready for Payback

by stroopwafel

Payback (formerly known as Law Money) has released a batch of new promo materials to pique our interest, including their first video teaser. Set to air on SBS, the revenge tale stars Lee Seon-kyun (Dr. Brain) and Moon Chae-won (Flower of Evil) as two people who make the decision to stand up against powerful villains.

Payback asks the question: When the law can’t stop a criminal cartel, what — or who — can? A hedge fund manager may seem like an unlikely hero, but our protagonist Eun Yong (Lee Seon-kyun) isn’t just any hedge fund manager. Armed with a brilliant mind and a snazzy name (in Korean, it means Silver Dragon), he’s been overseas for ten years raking in huge sums of money. Despite being wildly successful at his trade, he’s managed to remain largely anonymous. It’s only after an unexpected event occurs that he decides to return to Korea in order to fulfill a personal vendetta.

Recent character stills feature Eun Yong’s partner in vengeance, Park Joon-kyung (Moon Chae-won). She’s known as a legal tactician, having graduated at the top of her class at the Judicial Research and Training Institute while passing the bar with flying colors to boot. Though she started out in the prosecution, she’s a military judicial officer with the rank of major when she decides to join Eun Yong’s revenge mission.

On the surface, they seem like an unlikely duo, and it’s true that at one point in her life she was a law-abiding citizen who cared deeply about justice. That all changed when her mother died under strange circumstances and was turned into a scapegoat for a crime boss. If she can avenge her mother, Joon-kyung is willing to give up everything. In order to fight monsters, she resovles to become a monster herself.

In the other set of new stills, we see Kang Yoo-seok (I Haven’t Done My Best Yet) in character as Jang Tae-choon. Tae-choon has a familial connection to one of our leads, as he’s Eun Yong’s nephew. He’s a young but ambitious prosecutor and his ultimate goal is to join the elite Special Investigations Unit. It’s a lofty goal, not just because he’s a mere baby prosecutor with three years of experience, but also because he’s a graduate of a provincial university.

Tae-choon may be an interesting contrast to the character of Hwang Ki-seok, played by Park Hoon (Big Mouth). Chief prosecutor Hwang Ki-seok is a man who’s already powerful, but his hunger has yet to be sated. If he can amass more power, he wouldn’t hesitate to collude with even the worst of the worst. Veteran actor Kim Hong-pa (Shadow Detective) will be playing that ultimate villain. His character, Myung In-joo, is a notorious moneylender and is known as the godfather of loan sharks.

In this very fast-paced teaser that was not at all difficult to screenshot, we get a sense of the stakes and hints to why the leads are seeking revenge. The video starts with a snippet of a news report, “The Special Investigations Unit of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office…” As the voice trails off, a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of Eun Yong being led into prison flashes by.

At the scene of a labor strike, a bus crashes onto the scene and men spill out, led by Eun Yong. He’s wearing a leader armband and he shouts, “Let’s go” as he throws himself into the fight. It looks like he and his men have been hired to break the strike and Eun Yong has no qualms about using violence as chaos erupts.

The screen goes black with simple text across it: Directed by Lee Won-tae of The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil. We’re transported to Mongolia and Eun Yong races on horseback across a vast plain as a voice asks “Revenge?” Eun Yong stands in front of a grave with Joon-kyung and darkly states, “When you owe a debt, you should repay it. Don’t calculate your bottom line.” His statement is interspersed with a shot of papers before we see his face. He’s mustachioed with a shaggy haircut and he stares into his reflection silently.

Across a black screen, text appears: “Written by Kim Won-seok of Descended From the Sun, Man to Man.” In the next cut, it’s pouring rain and Joon-kyung is in full military dress, getting completely drench. She walks as though in a daze. In another cut, it’s still raining and she’s standing with a man on a city street; the man is in a heap in front of her. Joon-kyung yells furiously, “Do you think you can bring back my mother? Do you have any idea how I lost her?”

Eun Yong sits in solitary confinement and text flashes across the screen: “Facing off against unjust power.” In-joo watches as his henchman beat a man bloody and they force him to sign a contract. As he watches his men, he intones, “Isn’t it best to take one last golden egg before you kill the golden goose?” Eun Yong watches the scene without emotion and the screen turns black again. On-screen text appears: “A satisfying tale of revenge begins.” And we’re back in Mongolia, where a very expensive looking sports car revs up to a private jet. Eun Yong steps out, looking very suave, and as he steps into the jet he narrates, “You can’t fight these bastards with the law. I’m going to drag them into the gutter.”

So much tension! So many questions! I love revenge stories, and with Revenge of Others wrapping up, I need a new drama to fulfill my craving for revenge, so I hope this drama can deliver. There’s one severe deficit that I have to complain about though, and that is the lack of Park Hoon in the promos. SBS better remedy that soon.

Directed by Lee Won-tae with writer Kim Won-seok, Payback will air in the Friday-Saturday timeslot beginning January 6 on SBS.

Via Yonhap News, eDaily, News1, TenAsia
 
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