Exited the hype bus but it was an alright ride

If you are on the algorithm for KDrama watchers on social media, you’ve probably already heard of Vincenzo and chances are you don’t really need another review telling you whether or not to watch this. You’ve already heard all the hot takes from the hype train to the “unpopular opinion but…” This drama got incredible attention during its weekly releases and for good reason. The first half of this show is nothing short of an edge-of-your-seat experience. On the other hand, viewers who don’t take well to this drama are not unjustified, and my guess is that this drama is not going to age very well. If, by some slim chance you’re actually reading this review while on the fence, then know that this show is more like The Sopranos meets Law and Order meets KDrama than some of the other comparisons I’ve seen. It’s good, but I’d question your taste if this made it into your all time favorites list.

The good: music and production
The OST of this drama is great. Every song hits hard when it needs to. KDrama OSTs are usually very long, but 67 tracks? That’s why nothing ever gets old- there was some real thought that went into having a song for every moment. Solar’s performance on Adrenaline is great- she’s got amazing control of her voice. The production was great too, but I would also say that it’s about what you’d expect for an $18 million KDrama in 2021, there’s nothing that’s novel.

The just alright: story and acting
The story progression of this drama is mostly this: a threat upon Vincenzo is made at the beginning of the episode and either by the end or halfway through the next, it is revealed that Vincenzo knew all along of what was coming and had a plan. Vincenzo always wins and the stakes get higher for the next threat. It’s not objectively a bad formula and this show does it very well at the beginning. Even though you know that Vincenzo will win, you still want to know how. Getting there is plenty rewarding at the beginning, and this show is not entirely without consequences, but by the end this formula gets tiring because it's less rewarding as time goes on, less and less character development happens, and Vincenzo fully reverts to being a cruel mafia member by the end. The world building is outrageous but not out of the ordinary for the genre. I never really fault KDramas for not being “believable” but if that’s not your thing, then you should skip this one.

The acting is just okay. Song Joong-Ki was good, but didn’t show a ton of range. The romance scenes never quite hit the way they were supposed to. Honestly the chemistry the two leads had as business partners was way more satisfying than as lovers.


The terrible: rewatch value
I think you know where this is going: the glorification of vigilante justice. There’s absolutely no sugar coating it because it’s so bad, and it just gets worse and worse. The way to beat the bad guys at first was to outsmart them, but this show gets progressively more violent as it goes on, and by episode 20 the writers are working overtime to convince you that the heinous acts being shown to you are okay because Vincenzo is doing them, he knows best so this must be the only solution.

Another crime was what was unexplored or undeveloped, like the flashbacks that Vincenzo kept getting at the beginning of his mafia days, or Vincenzo’s adoption story. This could have been such a good story. “Adopted Korean grows up in an Italian mafia as a consigliere, ends up back in South Korea and takes on the nation’s corrupt politicians and business leaders.” When I hear that, I picture a story that tells who he was in the past, how that changes throughout the series, and who he might be afterwards, but you don’t get any of that. We’re forced to believe he’s invincible and always has been because it’s what everyone in this show keeps telling you. He goes through absolutely no character development after episode 4. Vincenzo is never confronted with the consequences of his actions and he never has to because the point of the show is to constantly tell you that he is all knowing, all powerful. I feel the worst for all the other characters because by the end, they’re all worse people. They’re greedier and more needlessly violent. Honestly, I’m convinced that the studio commissioned this story and the writers bent over backwards to “just make it work” but had no direction as to how to do it.


Overall
I’d still say that this was entertaining to watch as long as you know how to suspend your disbelief and are familiar with the genre. The ratings of this are incredible across the board, and people all over are singing the praises of this drama. I really want to drive this point home though: it’s trendy, not a classic. People will talk about it all through 2021 because it ticks a lot of boxes for people, but it’s not here to stay as a “classic.” The writers were so concerned with being edgy and trendy that they forgot to be timeless.

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Nothing you haven't seen before.

TLDR; The writing is subpar at best, but the music was good and it's a nice "feel good" drama.

This drama was fairly well received, with average scores of 8.5 on MDL and 7.7 on IMDb. Viewership also appears to be competitive in its season. Pretty much everywhere you're going to see fairly good reviews for this drama, but overall, it's average.

Music: 8
This soundtrack does everything you need it to in a drama and it does it pretty well. There were a lot of moments that were *made* by the music. An example of this is that while there was no skin/s** in this drama, the song "Starlight" by Jeong Hyo Bean, along with some great production created intimate, sensual moments. The song is wonderful, highly recommend. Other standout tracks are I Wish It Was You and Run To You. The instrumental tracks in this album are good too.

Acting/Cast: 7
Actors in a rom com have to achieve two things: be funny, and show love. The romantic moments were so much better than the comedic moments. Im Si-wan (ML) and Shin Se-kyung (FL) did a really great job with their characters, but the second couple of focus and their actors Kang Tae-oh and Choi Soo-young were so much more fun to watch. They were funnier and gave us the most romantic moments in the drama.

Story + Writing 5
This is where this drama really suffers depending on what you're looking for. This drama is an exercise in cliches and troupes, There's nothing you haven't seen before here. A lead is incredibly wealthy/famous, the other one isn't but has strong work ethic, there's a love triangle, disapproving parents, and at the end even characters that only had 2 minutes of screen time ended up in a couple. There wasn't anything that made the cliches more compelling either. It almost felt like there was a bingo card of cliches the writers were trying to fill out so they had to create outlandish scenarios to check them off. There was also way too much going on- there were a lot of smaller characters that the story could have honestly gone without and been better for it because towards the end, they took away time from some of the more compelling storylines. Sometimes as viewers we just want to shut down our brains and absorb ourselves in a cute, light-hearted drama with a happy ending, and this one is that. This drama is never stressful to watch, but it's also never thrilling. There weren't any moments that stood out or that you'll remember years after watching it. Everything was just pretty average.

Rewatch Value: 2
You didn't miss anything the first time. In fact, you've seen this drama many times before, it just wore different names. Fine to rewatch if you have nothing better.

Overall: 5.5
To enjoy this drama at its fullest, know that this is going to be exactly what you think it is. It's light-hearted, cheesy, and predictable. Sometimes that's exactly what we want, but not always. Sometimes we want something that will really grab us, pull our heart strings, and thrill us. This drama will not do that. In my opinion, Choi Soo-young, the music and production carried the drama towards the end.

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