It has been awhile since I last watched a drama with “revenge” content. (The last being Taxi Driver 2 of course). Oh the refreshing feeling when you see a bad guy getting the punishment they well deserved.

Vigilante on Disney+ is a Korean dark hero drama where Kim Jiyoung (Nam Joohyuk) is a model Police Academy student by the weekdays and a vigilante by the weekends whom punishes people who did wrong but yet were being let off by the law. When Jiyoung was still a young kid, his mother was brutally beaten to death by a gangster for no reason and he only received a pretty short sentence in prision. Since the gangster’s release from prison and Jiyoung is now an adult, he sees that his mother’s killer did not change one bit. Jiyoung then decides to take matters into his own hands and punish the killer in his own ways.

As the story unfolds in Episode 1, we see that Jiyoung has been quietly doing his job as a Vigilante, punishing horrible perpetrators whom were let off the hook by the court’s ruling. All these vigilante acts starts to get picked up by Choi Miryeo (starring Kim Sojin), a reporter who works at a broadcasting station. Feeling liberated that somebody is doing justice to all the unfair court ruiling, Miryreo decides to start reporting on the acts of the Vigilante, calling him the “Dark Hero”. The broadcasting station went around interviewing the perpetrators that were being punished as well as their victims who saw their perpetrators being punished and made it into a TV show.

Jiyoung of course made his “punishment” decisions logically. If the perpetrator apologised and asked for forgiveness from the victim, he would let them off the hook since they were sincere in repenting. But this made Miryreo lost her chance to report on the lastest act by the Vigilante. Hence, she decides to bait the Vigilante out by releasing information of a perperator of a sexual assault in their TV show. (I personally feel that Miryeo was also sick and tired of all the unjust court rulings, hence she has no qualms in releasing such confidential information to the public).

In hopes of catching the Vigilante in action, Miryeo and her team were on constant standby after trying to bait out the Vigilante but failed at capturing him in action.

You could really feel the rage of Jiyoung when he punished the rape perpetrator. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the perpetrator died after being brutally hit by Jiyoung and the police are investigating the case with the Vigilante being labelled as a murderer.

Naturally with all this violent cases surfacing from the acts of the Vigilante being reported, the police and the public are now paying attention to every move of the Vigilante. There are different views on what Jiyoung did was considered “justice is served”, “Vigilante saved the life of the sexual assult victim” or a “murderer”.

In Episode 2, we see Miryeo trying to bait the Vigilante again by releasing information of 3 perpetrators and guessing who will the Vigilante choose. Jiyoung once again took the bait but was a step earlier than the cops and finished off 1 of the perpetrator before the cops nor the broadcasting station could do anything.

With Jiyoung‘s actions as a Vigilante getting more and more daring, the police vow to put a stop to the crimes of the Vigilate. This of course once again drew differing views from the public.

In Episode 3, other “copy cat crimes” of the Vigilante using violence to “punish” people whom they felt had commited a crime started appearing around the country. This has greatly shaken up the juridical system. Jo Heon (starring Yoo Jitae) is the team leader of the police investigation team that is in charge of investigating the Vigilante. Jo Heon looks like a no nonsense police who is not afraid of removing anything that is standing in his way to catch the Vigilate.

We also see that a fake Vigilante had appeared and even left a message with the broadcasting station, declaring that he would not stop his vigilante activities. This of course pissed Jo Heon off very much as he sees this as a direct challenge to him.

Another incident happened which left the granny, that Jiyoung always gave his assistance to in collecting cardboard boxes when he’s away from the Police Acadamy, dead. Jiyoung was infuriated and immediately commenced his vigilante activity once the weekend came. This of course left the perpetrator badly injured and was hospitalized. Both Jo Heon and Miryeo knew that the Vigilate would be back in the hospital and had both of their teams on standby to monitor activities in the hospital.

After Jiyoung felt that the perpetrator had his fair share of punishment and promised that he will repent, Jiyoung left the hospital ward after almost being caught by Jo Heon. But suddenly the body of the perpetrator fell to the ground floor from this ward. Jiyoung knew that this was the act of the other Vigilante. He spotted the other Vigilante taking off hence decided to chased him down to reveal his identity.

Cliff hanger of Episode 3 was when the fake Vigilante knew that Jiyoung was the original Vigilante.

Be sure to catch the remaining 5 episodes in this 8-episode drama on Disney+ to see how the story unfolds.