Lee Seon-kyun masterminds a stock market heist in Payback

by Jenzy

Strap in boys, it’s revenge o’clock in the upcoming SBS thriller Payback. Starring Lee Seon-kyun (Dr. Brain) and Moon Chae-won (Flower of Evil), the new teaser gives us an action-packed glimpse into what we can expect: cartel bosses, vigilante justice, and lots satisfying beatdowns.

Lee Seon-kyun plays Eun Yong, a former juvenile convict turned capitalist’s capitalist. For the past ten years, he’s been grinding at the millstone overseas, amassing large amounts of wealth with the plan of returning back to Korea and enacting his revenge on the corrupt system that put innocents like him in jail. His plan? To use his stock market knowledge and business savvy to take down the mother of cartels and the paid-off prosecution office.

By his side is Park Joon-kyung (Moon Chae-won), a former top prosecutor turned disillusioned army judge. While she used to believe in using the strong arm of the law to apprehend criminals, after an incident when prosecutors — under the orders of a crime boss — pinned the death of her mother on her, she realized that the only way to catch the bad guys would be to become one herself. She and Eun Yong also share some kind of history from ten years ago, before he left overseas, so his return to Korea opens up questions as to what their relationship will look like now he’s back. Brother-sister? Partners-in-crime? Something more? Asking for a friend.

Of course, no one said taking down a criminal organization would be easy, especially when you have the objectively terrifying Kim Hong-pa (Casino) playing your crime boss, Myung In-joo. Not to mention when you factor in the money-hungry and amoral head prosecutor Hwang Ki-seok — played by Park Hoon (Big Mouth) — in his pocket.

It’s in this lion’s den where the last member of our main cast, Kang Yoo-seok (I Haven’t Done My Best Yet), plays the burgeoning rookie prosecutor and Eun Yong’s nephew, Jang Tae-choon. Without any top school or affluent family connections to his name, Tae-choon is desperate to prove that he has what it takes to be a top prosecutor, but the question is, will his ambitions lead him to follow the powerful Ki-seok? Or will he join his uncle in his fight for vigilante justice?

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In the same vein as the previous teaser, this teaser is 40 seconds of a nonstop onslaught of action and character info. We start on Eun Yong executing his stock market manipulation scheme, telling his army of computer hackers that this task will require perfect cooperation from all of them.

We then cut to Joon-kyung being questioned by the police for her role in the stock market manipulation, with Ki-seok looming behind the glass. He tells Tae-choon in another scene that the world of idealistic justice only exists in the courtroom: “Out here, this is reality.” Concerningly, Ki-seok appears to have taken the young Tae-choon under his tutelage, leading him out to see the reporters while Joon-kyung threateningly tells Eun Yong in the background, “Anyone who stands with Hwang Ki-seok is my enemy. Whether it’s your nephew or anyone else.”

In the next scenes, we’re shown why In-joo isn’t a foe to scoff at. From hitting Eun Yong with a car, to threatening to burn a tied up captive with an iron, to stowing away stacks of money in safes, our crime boss is determined to keep his empire together. But our hero is unfazed by the challenge, telling Tae-choon, “You can’t fight someone like In-joo through the law. I’m a businessman. I’m going to use money, not the law, to buy out the entirety of Korea’s prosecution office.”

In our last set of scenes, Eun Yong is in a prison suit, being escorted to his jail cell, and in voiceover we hear the gauntlet being thrown between our two power players, with In-joo challenging Eun Yong, “So you’re determined to take this to the very end?” and Eun Yong responding, “Just don’t touch my family.”

My goodness, I’m pretty sure that was the most information dense teaser I’ve ever covered for a drama, but it absolutely delivered on the epic revenge caper vibes with all the moving pieces and the ominous villains. Looking forward to this!

Written by Kim Won-seok (Man to Man, Descendants of the Sun) and directed by movie PD Lee Won-tae (The Devil’s Deal), Payback will premiere on Friday, January 6 on SBS.