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Moon Baek Stole the Show
This is one of those shows where the villain totally steals the limelight.
It’s not just that Moon Baek is HOT. He’s likeable, stylish, clever, and has a complex and tragic backstory. “Trigger” feels less like a treatise on guns and more a story of revenge. It’s a little unlikely that an international arms dealer would be pouring time, resources, and funds into flooding South Korea with guns—after all, the US has ample wars waging around the world and any number of its enemies looking for illegal arms shipments. No, the motivation is justified disillusionment and pure vengeance, for being abandoned at birth, kidnapped, sold off for parts, then shipped off to a foreign land when he was no longer viable to be harvested.
It’s telling that Moon Baek, in incentivising Koreans to use guns, chose people trapped in desperate situations. They were all, in some way or the other, victims of a society that favours the strong and stamps out the weak. Each target of Baek’s plans picks up a gun to redress wrongs being done to them, whether real or imagined, all playing into the elegant and cheerful (on the surface) hands of a man who found his own redress at the end of a barrel.
Meanwhile, the real hero of the show, Lee Do, is a highly-skilled gun expert, a martial artist who can take out evil hordes by himself, and has a keen nose for detecting bullshit. Officer Do does all the right things, is impressively stoic, and he has his own demons to slay. He’s the hero of almost every gunfight in the show, whether it’s in precise marksmanship or negotiating with a lone gunman.
Yet, yet, he constantly falls short of Moon Baek’s charisma and charm. The character evolves over the ten episodes from a mysterious chaotic stranger in a hoodie into a deeply disturbed man hiding his demons with haute couture.
The two of them have great chemistry, however, and until they finally step into their respective corners, the show brings them together constantly, playing off on their natural differences.
The plot itself unfolds logically and with impressive memory—when you go back to watch this a second time (as I highly recommend), you’ll see people in the pilot who are to appear much later and who all have a part in the villain’s plans. You’ll see clues you missed, actions that gave away the truth though you didn’t know it.
“Trigger” is an old-style story of vengeance and anger. When you think about it, it’s clear that the guns, the deals, the fancy car chases, fights, and marksmanship are all in service of Baek’s motto—“the meek shall inherit the earth, with guns.” He was a victim himself, once meek, now no more.
Watch this for a freakishly attractive villain and some really, really cool fighting choreography by both main leads. Don’t fall into the trap of debating whether guns kill people or people kill people. This is not about that at all.
On a side note, Kim Young-Kwang is really excellent in this. I went looking for his other works because of his role here and stumbled across “Somebody” and “Take Charge of my Heart” on Netflix—it’s like he’s a chameleon, he changes so much for each role.
It’s not just that Moon Baek is HOT. He’s likeable, stylish, clever, and has a complex and tragic backstory. “Trigger” feels less like a treatise on guns and more a story of revenge. It’s a little unlikely that an international arms dealer would be pouring time, resources, and funds into flooding South Korea with guns—after all, the US has ample wars waging around the world and any number of its enemies looking for illegal arms shipments. No, the motivation is justified disillusionment and pure vengeance, for being abandoned at birth, kidnapped, sold off for parts, then shipped off to a foreign land when he was no longer viable to be harvested.
It’s telling that Moon Baek, in incentivising Koreans to use guns, chose people trapped in desperate situations. They were all, in some way or the other, victims of a society that favours the strong and stamps out the weak. Each target of Baek’s plans picks up a gun to redress wrongs being done to them, whether real or imagined, all playing into the elegant and cheerful (on the surface) hands of a man who found his own redress at the end of a barrel.
Meanwhile, the real hero of the show, Lee Do, is a highly-skilled gun expert, a martial artist who can take out evil hordes by himself, and has a keen nose for detecting bullshit. Officer Do does all the right things, is impressively stoic, and he has his own demons to slay. He’s the hero of almost every gunfight in the show, whether it’s in precise marksmanship or negotiating with a lone gunman.
Yet, yet, he constantly falls short of Moon Baek’s charisma and charm. The character evolves over the ten episodes from a mysterious chaotic stranger in a hoodie into a deeply disturbed man hiding his demons with haute couture.
The two of them have great chemistry, however, and until they finally step into their respective corners, the show brings them together constantly, playing off on their natural differences.
The plot itself unfolds logically and with impressive memory—when you go back to watch this a second time (as I highly recommend), you’ll see people in the pilot who are to appear much later and who all have a part in the villain’s plans. You’ll see clues you missed, actions that gave away the truth though you didn’t know it.
“Trigger” is an old-style story of vengeance and anger. When you think about it, it’s clear that the guns, the deals, the fancy car chases, fights, and marksmanship are all in service of Baek’s motto—“the meek shall inherit the earth, with guns.” He was a victim himself, once meek, now no more.
Watch this for a freakishly attractive villain and some really, really cool fighting choreography by both main leads. Don’t fall into the trap of debating whether guns kill people or people kill people. This is not about that at all.
On a side note, Kim Young-Kwang is really excellent in this. I went looking for his other works because of his role here and stumbled across “Somebody” and “Take Charge of my Heart” on Netflix—it’s like he’s a chameleon, he changes so much for each role.
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