Abogado Sin Ley (2018)

Underrated Action-Legal K-Drama

LAWLESS LAWYER was a fun, fast-paced, slick legal drama starring the amazing Lee Joon Gi (of Flower of Evil/ Scarlet Heart Reo fame). In this series, he is a cunning gangster lawyer, name Bong Sang-pil, out for justice for crimes committed against his mother during his childhood. Being a real life martial arts expert Lee Joon Gi shines in this often action-packed role. I personally really enjoyed the energy of this show, as the action and fight scenes really spiced up what might have become a slow or tedious legal drama.

Actress Seo Ye-ji was also interesting as the courageous moral lawyer Ha Jae-yi, who is paired with Bong Sang-pil. His cheery charisma mixed with her unwavering boldness made for a very entertaining pairing, as the two become partners in Lawless Law Firm and eventually grow to deeper levels of understanding.

Ha Jae-yi was a very likable character for me, a strong female lead from the start—fighting discrimination in the legal systems where female lawyers aren’t given the same respect. Instead of being a push over, her reactions are sometimes less thought out but certainly relatable. She was one of those characters who reacted reasonably and felt relatable. When she did—say—punch someone in the face…it felt justified. Otherwise, she had a lot of character depth and made for a great balance to the character of Bong Sang-pil.

While there were some predictable aspects of this series, the cast was really colorful and high energy, which is what honestly sold me on the show. Episode 2 drew me in and by episode 4 I was hooked…

The "villains" or baddies are believably bad, rather than 2D cutout bad guys. I do wish there had been more motives given, however, as to what drove them to do what they did. Money, fame, power, greed. Either way, they were very vividly characterized, especially the gangster thug/Mayor Ahn Oh-Joo. He was brilliantly casted/acted and was hugely entertaining to watch on screen. Judge Cha Moon Sook was convincingly devious in her role as well, and very hard to read. She was very subtle and cunning and made for a threatening foe. Nam Soon-Ja was another interesting character, brilliantly acted. The way she flipped personalities made her another unpredictable variant among the many puzzle pieces. Overall the casting was great. There are just too many great actors and roles to name. And that’s what made this show so watchable for me.

While some plot points are indeed a bit predictable, the series was very entertaining and well casted. It was quirky and had a lot of heart. It was a very fun watch and being a moderate Lee Joon Gi fan, I wanted to catch up on some of his lesser known series. This one was very enjoyable and exciting, though the show was missing something, hard to say what (no fault of the cast).

Besides his usual charismatic charms, Lee Joon Gi offered some really powerful emotional performances in this series as well. Some of those scenes packed a hard punch. As far as the romance, the main leads had great onscreen chemistry that felt natural and convincing. It was great to watch their relationship progress. It made for a fun, memorable experience and overall, it was a very decent and exciting show. Very underrated and worth a chance. No regrets.

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É um dos meus estilos de drama favorito, esse mistura de ação, investigação, vingança e uma dose de romance. O drama começa muito bem, agitado é com uma premissa, porém na metade dele começa a tomar rumo que jamais deveria, como no caso do advogado juntando forças com o cara que matou a mãe dele, isso não existe nem fudendo, por mais que os motivos fossem eles se defender, outro ponto que me fez broxar foi descobrir que a mãe da advogada estava viva, isso simplesmente tirou todo impacto da obra e o pior de tudo foi o final, que merda foi aquela, a juíza fez tudo que pode e no fim não tem um final digno, ela simplesmente e presa e acabou, não mostra ela sendo condenada que era o todos esperavam no mínimo, você não sente em momento algum que ela ficar frustrada ou nervosa, não tem impacto algum, enfim.

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started out well but then....

This is my second Lee Joon Gi drama, and I am so disappointed :(. I liked the main leads and their acting a lot, and I kind of want to see LJG in an unserious/unhinged funny role again because he did well here but some of the other acting performances were not convincing me at all. Choi Min Soo was one of the actors I could not stand in the show. Regardless of his character's ending (which I did not like because I felt like it was lazy writing), his acting made the character even more unbearable. He was overacting and simply gave a bad performance in my opinion. The tongue flicking was nasty, his hair and make-up made him look like a clown and his gangster behavior felt like a joke. He looked more like a cartoony stereotype than a true gangster.

I also found it ridiculous how everyone was head over heels over Cha Moon Sook, like....?? Everyone was just following and praising her like a dog, it was cult-like. It was ludicrous how everyone fell to their knees to apologize whenever they breathed wrong like she really had some serious power over these men and women, but I couldn't take it seriously because I found it too much. At times, the show felt like a play rather than a TV series because it felt too over the top.

Some things also just didn't make any sense. Like Song Pil's (SP) gang actually believing that he killed his uncle. I don't care that they ended up being corrupted by Miss Cha, it still felt so dumb that these men, who watched Sang Pil grow up, actually thought he killed his uncle. That entire plot felt dumb to me but okay. Also, Jae Yi's mom telling SP to break up with her and blabla like?? Girl, your daughter is not working with the man because she's in love, she's trying to get Cha Moon Sook locked up for being responsible for your supposed death.... be fucking for real, that annoyed me too.

I ended up watching the show in 1.5x speed to get it over with, but I have a feeling this is one of the not so good law shows because this felt all over the place. It was okay but also quite disappointing....

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