Prosecutor Dong-jae works hard (kinda) in five minute preview

2 October 6, 2024October 5, 2024

Prosecutor Dong-jae works hard (kinda) in five minute preview

by Jenzy

The latest bit of promo to come out for Dongjae the Good or the Bastard is a five-minute clip of the first episode, letting us see our shady titular prosecutor Lee Jun-hyuk (Vigilante) as he attempts to remake his image in the name of justice.

The preview opens in the prosecutors’ office, where Dong-jae (Lee Jun-hyuk) works. His colleagues chat about pressure from higher-ups to do well at their jobs with no room for mistakes. But of course, they immediately turn the corner to find a hallway brawl between the victim and perpetrator for one of Dong-jae’s cases.

While Dong-jae (quite hilariously) runs up to them to do damage control, trying to brush off the situation in front of his colleagues as a minor car accident, the angry shouting match behind him has them snarking at his inability to handle a case.

If there’s one thing Dong-jae will not abide, it’s looking bad. He lets the two arguers know he means business by threatening them with a disturbance charge if they don’t get their act together, but it also has about the same level of bite as a pouty three-year-old as he sulks away into his office. Aww sweetie, you’re doing great.

We then cut to Dong-jae’s questioning of the perpetrator, who walked onto the road and caused a car crash that broke the victim’s million-won vase in his trunk. While the perpetrator, cameoed by Kim Sang-ho (Blood Free), understands he was in the wrong by stepping into the street, he argues he couldn’t have known the victim was carrying something so expensive, not to mention there’s no way he can afford to pay back one million won in damages.

Dong-jae is characteristically unsympathetic to this man’s plight, telling him to go to jail then, which is when we learn this man has more to lose than just money. His entire livelihood involves taking care of the elderly by providing them cheap meals. To keep his business afloat with such low costs, he does everything himself, from cooking to cleaning to sourcing ingredients. In fact, it was because of his job that he was on the street in the first place; he was trying to pick up some potatoes that fell out of his truck.

After hearing out the perpetrator’s life story, Dong-jae is moved toward leniency. But not for reasons of good-heartedness or justice, but because his team connects the dots and finds out that the restaurant owner is renown as a do-gooder, even going as far as to almost receive the Minister’s Commendation Award — something he turned down because he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of a camera crew in his restaurant. For our opportunistic prosecutor, a case with this level of name recognition could be exactly what he needs to impress his higher-ups.

This teaser does a great job setting up everything we need to know: Dong-jae is the outcast of the prosecution office and his greatest enemy to being a good prosecutor is possibly (definitely) himself.

Written by Hwang Ha-jung and Kim Sang-won and directed by Park Gun-ho, Dongjae the Good or the Bastard will start streaming on TVING on October 10, and premiere on October 14 in tvN’s Monday-Tuesday slot.

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1 too_much_tv

October 6, 2024 at 12:06 PM

I have watched the two seasons of Stranger more than once. I immediately recognized the character name, which is not typical for me. He's always been this guy: amoral, but wants to be better. This could be good.