The Devil Judge is a Korean Drama that came out on July 3, 2021, on the network tvN. The drama has a total of 16 episodes each 70 minutes long. The Devil Judge stars Jinyoung (Kim Ga-on), Ji Sung (Kang Yo-han), Kim Jae-kyung (Oh Jin-joo), Ahn Nae-sang (Min Jeong-ho), and others. It revolves around a dystopian South Korea where citizens participate in a live trial judge reality show where Kang Yo-han (Ji Sung) is appointed as the chief judge. It is a legal drama and mystery that ended on August 22, 2021. 

Originally, I wanted to watch this show because of  Jinyoung, a singer in the Kpop boy group, Got7, of which I am a fan. I have seen a lot of the dramas he has been in and whenever he is announced to be in one I usually try to watch it. Once I watched the trailer and saw that Ji Sung was the main character in it, I felt more compelled to give the show a try. Though with that it still took me a long time to actually watch it, I’m glad that I did. The drama is thrilling and leaves viewers entertained after each episode. It’s very dark and mysterious that’s just overall fun to watch. Watching this gave me another chance to see Ji Sung as I have only seen him in one other drama called “Kill me, Heal me” where he played the main character, Cha Do Hyun, who has multiple personality disorder. His character Kang Yo-han in “The Devil Judge” is similar to one of the personalities shown in “Kill me, Heal me”. The actress Kim Jae-Kyung who plays Oh Jin-Joo in “The Devil Judge” has been in a drama that I watched but never finished, called “The Secret Life Of My Secretary” as the character Veronica Park. It’s great to see her in a different type of role as her characters in those two shows are completely different. 

The drama reminds me of the NBC show, “Hannibal” based on the story of the Hannibal Lecter. Don’t be alarmed there is no cannibalism in “The Devil Judge”, It’s just that some characters remind me of characters in “Hannibal”. The main characters in “The Devil Judge”, Kim Ga-on (Jinyoung) and Kang Yo-han (Ji Sung) in my mind are similar to the characters of Will Gram and Hannibal Lecter, with Ga-on being more similar to Will and Yo-han more similar to Hannibal. It is mostly the relationship between Ga-on and Yo-han that really gives the same type of vibe as the relationship between Hannibal and Will. How it seems that they care for each other in a certain way, yet one always tries or ends up betraying the other. 

“The Devil Judge” does have some graphic images and mentions a few hefty things such as mentions of suicide and characters committing suicide, shootings, murders, beatings, and a couple of other things that happen or appear throughout the show. Even with those characteristics, the drama is really good and most differently worth watching.