Vincenzo (2021)

Spettacolo molto bello con un uomo molto bello*

*That's with Google Translate, so forgive me if you're an Italian speaker.

Using my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh," & "nah," this was mostly a “loved”.

I am writing this review after re-watching show from start to finish for the first time since it came out (which is when I watched it the first time).

Things I liked:
Characters. Vincenzo Cassano. I loved the complexity of the character. That he had moments of fear, loss, and humanity. I loved how well he was played by Song Joong Ki who, despite being known for his youthful appearance (I completely believed him as the twin teenagers in the Arthdal Chronicles), can also pay a ruthless bad@$$. I liked Hong Cha Young as well. I remember reading comments/reviews that some did not like her character, but I liked her better on the re-watch. She was outspoken, outgoing, irreverent, and brave. She was not this sweet, innocent female lead who fit all the tropes of a pure heart and soul. She, too, was a complexly written character. Ok Taec Yeon did an amazing job playing two sides of the same person. He did such a good job as a monster, I’m currently re-watching “Secret Royal Inspecter & Joy” just to see him play a nice person. Lol! And finally, Choi Myung Hee because this character broke all the tropes about evil women. She was horrible but it had nothing to do with her gender or jealousy. I liked the plaza residents, their different personalities, their quirks.

Other things: I liked the moments of fear, tension interspersed with tragedy but also love and humor (even slapstick) because real life is that way. There are times when we are crying because we’re laughing so hard and then crying because of sorrow. I also liked the tension—I had a hard time predicting what would be coming up in the plot. For example, I did NOT predict who would become the main antagonist in the show. Usually, if I questioned a plot point (for example, when Vincenzo goes to threaten the CEO with a gun, I could not figure out why he just didn’t shoot him—it was so out of character for him to hold a gun on somebody and then talk…but the next episode explained it all) it would all be revealed later and would make sense—some inconsistencies aside.

Set/music/styling. This was well done many times throughout the show. The first scenes of VC in the vineyard and then defending himself against assassination were gold. When he first defended the Plaza residents. When he was riding that horse…(though I did which they had gotten him a pair of tighter pants—not even from the aesthetic sense, but from a horseback riding perspective, he was going to have some serious chafing…).

Things I did not like so much:
Motivation. Those were not always fleshed out well. I mean, why was Babel Group ALWAYS so horrible!? It was like their mission statement was “do as much evil as possible even if doing legitimate business might actually be more profitable in the long run…”. They were actively killing off their own employees and test subjects—that just does not make sense from a business standpoint. Even though I liked the fact that Choi Myung Hee’s gender was not usually made an issue in the show, I did not understand why she was such a terrible person. It was not entirely clear why she disliked the FL on first sight nor why she always chose killing people off as the best option. The way they introduced her in the beginning, she seemed like she would be a sympathetic character, but then once she got to Wusan, the gloves came off (but they imply she was the hitman-by-proxy when she worked for the gov’t, too). The evil main lead and evil female lead just kept doing stupid things to piss VC off. They SAW the pictures of what he’d done in Italy, why on earth did they think that would not happen to them!? (And why did CMH always scream in terror every time she was threatened--like she had not wrought such on others!? And does no one in South Korea own a washing machine of their own?)

Inconsistencies, unrealities. The pigeon rescue was a bit much…cute, but beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. Why was VC always using civilians!? He was a mafia consigliere, even if he did not have the same level of connections in SK, why would he ever trust these serious jobs to civilians!? I get that is how they included the Plaza residents in the story, but it did not make sense from a logical point of view—especially when they wrote VC’s character to be so brilliant. And how did all the Plaza residents turn out to be professional fighters!?--I felt like they threw that in there at the last minute with zero logical set up in the plot beforehand.

Violence. It was bit too much, for me personally, especially towards the end. It made it hard to like VC’s character fully since he was capable of such ‘creativity’. They try to explain it away, but still, for me, personally, that was one of my dislikes of the show.

Conclusion. All inconsistencies aside, I pretty much loved this show. I would recommend it if you like k-drama thrillers and/or Song Joong Ki. :D

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