A lower-middle class Korean man in his mid-40’s, making a living in the dynamic 00’s, being the weary sole breadwinner for his family, is persuaded by his best friend to abandon his livelihood to start a fishing business in a country 15-something thousand kilometers away, Suriname. And he does so in a heartbeat.
Sounds familiar? This is the rough premise of the brand new, bestselling K-drama original series on Netflix.
Suriname, titled Narco-Saints in the global market, is the new series launched by the director Yoon Jong- bin.
Revolving around Kang In-gu (Ha Jung-woo), our newly fledged 40-something Korean businessman in question, the show supposedly covers a true story based on the events ranging from the late 1990’s to the 2000’s when the notorious yet mysterious Korean drug lord, Cho Bong-haeng, operated his massive drug trafficking organization in Suriname.
This case had originally been brought to light and investigated through the whistleblower known only by his initials, K, in 2011, a decade or so after the events.
K claimed through an interview that he had moved to Suriname as an entrepreneur but ended up caught up in Cho’s nefarious schemes. He recalled that they had been partners in his welding rod supplying business, but even as the business flourished, Cho, the middleman of the enterprise, refused to give K his fair share.
As K’s own funds spiraled into the abyss, allegedly he was approached by the National Information Service (NIS) to work as an undercover agent for them in their operation to investigate Cho, who, astonishingly, happened to have his name carved in Interpol’s most-wanted list.
Narco-Saints follows a very similar storyline, with Kang’s new fishing business in business in jeopardy thanks to Chen Zhen (Chang Chen), the Chinese drug lord and gang leader. But then, the mysterious local Korean “pastor” Jeon Yo-hwan (Hwang Jung- min), swoops into the rescue and it seems like all would be smooth sailing for Kang, when suddenly, cocaine is found in his fish shipments by the authorities.
The story takes a new turn when in jail, Choi Chang-ho (Park Hae-soo), the leader of the US Branch of the NIS, comes for a visit and drops the bomb that Jeon is the multimillionaire nexus of an infamous drug cartel. Choi persuades Kang to “work” with Jeon to expand his drug business to the US, where the NIS will save the day and arrest him. Yes, apparently, the NIS’s master plan to take one of the most notorious drug lords into custody is sending a clueless, not- at-all field-trained businessman on a suicide mission.
There is lots of tension throughout the show, as Kang, the innocent civilian, is always on the edge of life and death, no matter what he does. However, despite the endless suspense and brutal violence, the show never becomes as intense as it promises.
Narco-Saints unfortunately treads along the same road countless others with the same topics (drugs, money, gangs) tend to do. It is rather painful to watch the promising plot dissolve into a common, unsatisfactory formula along the way.
To focus on the characters – or the three men, shall we say – they truly do successfully deliver their roles. Boasting an internationally renowned cast, with Ha Jung-woo as the nobody-turned-double-agent, who surprises us by showing grit that enables him to swivel out of any sticky situation, Park Hae-soo as the efficient workaholic who can effortlessly go undercover as the role of a suave gang leader, Hwang Jung- min as the enigmatically unnerving drug lord in a pastor’s clothes who ingeniously manages to find a way to quote the Bible at every turn to justify his drug business.
In stark contrast, sadly enough, the show does nothing with the few women of its cast, limiting their roles to Kang’s anxious wife, the competent unit member of Choi’s NIS team, and Jeon’s rarely seen deaconess. This, again, could be because this show seems to largely feed into the still-existing trope of most drug- guns-violence shows, where most important roles are executed by men.
All in all, his “crime-thriller” is not the best of its batch, despite its flashy cast and promising premise. It is one that still has not managed to break out of the box in terms of what a new take on a drug lord series, and may disappoint with its predictable plot, which can lead its viewers down the path of mild boredom.