A Killer Paradox: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by solstices

Sardonic, stylish, and a tad strange, A Killer Paradox sets up a dark comedy about a dispassionate college student who accidentally stumbles into murdering someone that arguably deserves it. The plot may be relatively straightforward for now, but it’s delivered through dynamic storytelling that keeps the premiere engaging.

Editor’s note: This is an Episode 1 review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODE 1

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this show, given the offbeat tone of its teaser that contrasts sharply with its subject material — would the show manage to toe the fine line of macabre absurdity, or would it suffer from a flagrant tonal clash? Thankfully, the show manages to pull off the former, presenting a deliberately curated disjointedness with an unusual protagonist.

That’s the impassive and unmotivated LEE TANG (Choi Woo-shik), who drifts through classes and conversations with his family in favor of his lofty dreams about seeking escapism through a working holiday in Canada. The problem is, Tang can barely commit to cleaning his apartment or maintaining a gym routine, much less an entirely new life path. In fact, he’s so noncommittal that he barely ever displays any emotion, seemingly numb to everything and everyone around him.

The night Tang’s life changes irrevocably starts out with a familiar scene — a belligerent man ordering Tang around at the convenience store where he works. Tang complies without complaint, though his displeasure is clearly written in his body language. After his shift, Tang is heading home when he spots the crude customer passed out on the street, but catching up to his companion and informing him about his buddy’s state only earns Tang a curt dismissal.

Then their conversation escalates drastically. Tang flips the man off, the man sees it in a mirror, and then the switch is flipped and Tang’s being subjected to a brutal beating. Spurred by a flashback to his high school days, when he’d been violently bullied, Tang strikes back with the hammer in his backpack.

It’s set up as an act of self-preserving retaliation from being pushed to the brink, but it plays out in such a slow and measured manner that it makes one question whether Tang simply snapped, or if he’s had the latent capacity for violence lying dormant in him all along. In his mind’s eye, he’s nailing his painting frame to the wall. In reality, he’s murdered a man, then fled the scene and left the hammer behind in his wide-eyed panic. The painting of the Canadian Rockies sits on his apartment floor, a silent reminder of his crime.

This sequence is perhaps the epitome of this show’s approach to storytelling, highlighting its creative transitions and skillful cinematography. A Killer Paradox tells its tale through deliberately abrupt editing, some done through impossibly smooth match cuts, that heighten the disquietingly surreal tone. It plays with parallels, such as the hammering of the nail for the painting that represents Tang’s dream of starting a new life, and the hammering of the man whose murder sets Tang onto an entirely different life path.

It’s almost eerie that the first explicit emotion we see from Tang is fear, since it runs directly counter to his bone-deep apathy. In the aftermath of the murder, Tang is haunted by hallucinations of the dead man, bloody and resentful. Interestingly, though, it’s not a manifestation of Tang’s guilt — instead, it’s a projection of his fear that he’ll be caught for his crime. Tang is a character that ought to be unlikable by all counts, but is just relatable enough in his dispirited lack of direction and listless endurance of the mundane toil to keep viewers invested.

Through the murder investigation, we’re introduced to detective JANG NAN-GAM (Sohn Seok-gu), whose distinctive idiosyncrasy is his habit of blowing bubbles with his chewing gum. He’s gruff, scruffy, and peers at people with an unfaltering gaze that seems to see right through them. Nan-gam thoroughly unsettles Tang with his sharp observations and incisive comments, but just as Tang fears he’s been found out, he’s inexplicably saved by a series of inconceivable coincidences.

In line with this show’s ludicrous humor, a convenient fly on the CCTV camera covers up the exact moment Tang asked to borrow the hammer from his boss. Next, the police’s forensic analysis paints a picture of the two customers tussling and bludgeoning each other to death, which lines up with their infidelity love triangle. Last of all, the clincher — it turns out the victim was a serial murder suspect who’s been living under a false identity. Looks like Tang’s dealt a stroke of karma, albeit inadvertently.

Most stories about murdering criminals often feature vigilante heroes, which Tang is anything but. His lack of a moralistic motivation — and apparent lack of scruples, given his petty theft and pre-military infidelity — keeps his moral alignment intriguingly vague. Will he harness his uncanny ability to mete out justice, so that he can finally find a purpose in life? Will he revel in this newfound power and eventually wind up as someone of his victim’s ilk? Or will he simply continue to stumble into accidental murders, not taking the reins of his life? Tang is so detached that it’s difficult to get a read into his mind, and it’s precisely that which shapes the show’s curiosity-fuelled suspense.

Darkly humorous in its eccentricity and deadpan delivery, A Killer Paradox delivers gripping storytelling through its juxtaposition of the surreal and the mundane. That isn’t to say I don’t have my gripes, because I’m not a fan of the gratuitous sex scene to demonstrate a point that had already been proven through better ways, and there were a few scenes that I felt were overly drawn-out. All that aside, though, the premiere displays quite a fair bit of potential in its deft techniques and intriguing characters. There’s certainly a lot of style, but as of yet it’s hard to tell whether it matches up in substance. If the show plays its cards right with Tang’s character and Nan-gam’s chase, we may be in for an interesting tale.

 
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