Based upon the webtoon of the same-name, Rugal had all the good selling points of a thrilling drama- macabre, original and intriguing plotline, unique characters, venerable actor Choi Jin- Hyuk taking the lead and of course fairly pioneering and new film studio and Studio Dragon ( same makers as critically- acclaimed dramas such as Children of a Lesser God , Love Alarm and Doctor John) taking creative control of the show, should have easily sealed Rugal’s fate as one of the best Korean dramas of 2020. So naturally this raises the dire question we all want to know ;

“ So what went wrong to make it so bad ?”.

Of course, normally ( regardless of whether I can access the webtoon or not), I like to try and be non-biased and take into account a drama based on a webtoon ( regardless of whether I’ve read it or not) as a standalone story with its own characters, plot and original qualities as it should be assessed as a series in its own right . On the other hand with comparing images and forums of original pans from the webtoon ( which actually seems pretty good) and comments by fans of the Korean version in contrast to the actual dire deliverance of the drama, it is pretty fair to say that the drama writers made the classic mistake of pacing.

To put into refined words, pacing is a classic feature in stories into how quickly the story moves , however, in Korean dramas due to being in a televised or streamed format , it can quite literally make or break the audience and critical response from watchers. There isn’t necessarily a correlation between “ slow” meaning “ no viewers” or “ quick” meaning “ lots of viewers” because at the end of the day, the biggest part to play in any Korean drama is storywriting , however, pacing can affect the quality and deliverance of the story for viewers.

Rugal’s biggest problem, however, isn’t that the storyline isn’t interesting ( quite the opposite in regards to a cop upon death’s door both literally and metaphorically blinded from the truth and being given a new opportunity to take his revenge) , but, there just isn’t enough time for viewers to both catch-up or develop any interests within
the storyline or characters. Jin- Hyuk cannot be faulted for what he was given to work with , however, his character may as well just have moulded together with failed storyboards and scripts for viewers as there quite simply wasn’t enough exposure to his character, Ki- beom as an individual outside of the story.

For most viewers to relate to even the seeming villain of a story, writers often reflect qualities we can see in ourselves, friends and family in a character - traumatic pasts, complicated relationships with the people around us or even just emotions - these are all real qualities most of us know in the real world. Whilst as viewers we do come to understand Ki- beom’s anguish and fury over his wife being taken from him, we don’t really learn why this should be significant for us as viewers either through a sense of normality or love to hit closer to home, or, the actual after affects of losing this normality for Ki-beom.

Even in minor scenes such as Ki-beom walking as a blind man or being able to see for the first time, a moment of weakness by stumbling or having to lie down would’ve allowed us to step back and see Ki-beom as someone who is a relatable hero. Instead the show is too focused on Ki-beom becoming an all-fighting machine to actually consider these fleshed-out moments. ( A classic case of the show doing this is within his former police coworkers happily accepting that their close companion and a man they thought had either been dead or missing for the past several months, could just return all of a sudden without a second thought.)


As you can imagine, whilst the quick pacing allows us to get to the quirky action scenes, Rugal again simply doesn’t give us a chance to know the other characters ; Mi Na ( Jung Hye In), should have easily been one of the most profound considering her past yet was written-off to see her delivering punches throughout the series with her comrades or enemies and Lee Gwang Chul ( Park Sun Ho) had so much potential to be a genuinely enigmatic character, yet the drama wrote him off as a goof for the majority of the drama rather than an individual.

Maybe on one note of praise the show did surprisingly deliver both a good performance by Han Ji Wan and surprisingly intriguing characterisation around one of the show’s antagonists, Choi Ye Won. Although her character should have initially been despicable, her moral grey area around the intrigue of Beom and the horrific actions of the major antagonist Deok Goo ( Park Sung Woong) did add a level of intrigue around her character. It’s just a shame that the writers couldn’t have done the same for the previously mentioned antagonist, who although wanting to be portrayed in a villainous light, had no intriguing motives or features at all as a villain apart from just being a violent menace .


Perhaps the scriptwriters were becoming conscious of how much time they’d wasted seeing characters deck one another twelve times or how we’d spent nearly six episodes watching the characters fight or train without Ki- Beom getting any closer to learning about his wife, as near the ending of the drama, we did see a couple of loose threads attempting to be tied. On the other hand, the problem with this decision lies with the returned problem of pacing. Seeing nearly fifteen episodes of a comedic character such as Gwang Chul suddenly struggling with an inner-battle with himself does not add a level of depth or shock for viewers, it just adds another round of groans and questions due to having no indicators of Gwang Chul struggling in previous episodes. This seems to point out that Rugal’s biggest failure is just not being able to keep up with the right speed of pacing with racing through the story and give us little time as viewers to grow used to the characters or story points. ( As an example of intriguing story pacing consider probably one of the most sensational Korean dramas of the 2010s, Sky Castle - the drama spiked from slow pacing to suddenly quick to back to slow in a matter of episodes yet love or loathe the drama, it was able to keep viewers entertained because viewers could adhere and keep-up with the story because of the pacing-style. Rugal could’ve lived up beyond expectations if it had been given the right pacing, yet the show just fell into its own despair by trying to race to scenes of mindless violence and fighting instead ).