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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Ma Dong-seok, Park Hyung-sik, Seo In-guk
Latest Nielsen rating: 5.9 per cent
Demon hunting has become very popular in East Asian media of late, with the new Demon Slayer anime feature turning into one of the biggest smashes of the year and crossover hit KPop Demon Hunters on the verge of becoming the most successful Netflix film of all time.
Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), known for The Roundup series, has also been busy pummelling demons all year, first on the big screen in Holy Night: Demon Hunters and now in Twelve, a rare TV outing for the burly Korean star.


The premise is simple. Opening with a little animated information dump, the show explains the existence of 12 angels, each modelled after an animal, sent to protect the earth from demons in the fight between light and dark.
The angels vanquished the demons and sealed them in hell, although four of the angels perished. The remaining eight, burdened by guilt, assumed their places among humanity but decided to no longer interfere. Famous last words.
Leading the smaller group in the present is Tae-san (Ma) who wears a tacky tiger-striped tracksuit, leaving no doubt as to which animal he is supposed to represent.
Joining the surprisingly busy ranks of benevolent K-drama loan sharks (alongside those in Bloodhounds and Heavenly Ever After), Tae-san and his fellow angels run Angel Capital Group.

But rather than people in need, they only give loans to people with criminal records, knowing they are likely to renege on their payments and give Tae-san a moral excuse to work out his meaty fists and clean out crooked coffers in one fell swoop.
The other angels nominally help out, but it is far from clear what some of their roles are.
Won-seung, the “Monkey”, is played by Cafe Minamdang star Seo In-guk but largely appears in the background in the opening episodes. Lee Joo-bin is Mirr, the “Dragon”, who has prophetic powers and spends her days working at a museum.
Bang-wool, the “Snake”, is a proficient practitioner of oriental medicine; she also does not speak, which works out for the Taiwanese actress playing her, Regina Lei Jia-rui (The Sadness). Ko Kyu-pil provides comic relief as Don-yi, the “Pig”, who mostly jokes around and talks about how nice pigs are.

Tae-san and his cohorts’ simple lives are about to be turned upside down by the re-emergence of one of the demons they put away all those years ago: O-gwi, played by Park Hyung-sik (Happiness).
There is always some pleasure to be derived from watching Ma dole out punches to miscreants who deserve a good beating, but Twelve spends quite a bit of time beating around the bush, wasting time on playful but weightless banter.
One extended vignette includes Don-yi heading out for a run with some others in the group, only to instead indulge in a morning instant noodle snack in the park, where he gets into a one-sided argument with a puppy he believes is mocking him.
With its broad array of half-baked characters, Twelve seems eager to please. But its messy melting pot of genres – horror, action, comedy, period drama, family drama and so on – is so diluted that it is hard to understand what the show wants us to focus on.

Beyond the explanatory intro, there is not much world-building, which means that when the villains show up early on, it is difficult to feel much of a threat. The only real focus is Tae-san, who unsurprisingly gets the lion’s share of the screen time.
Ma plays the character as a lovable protector, much like most of his recent roles. That is probably not quite enough to sustain an eight-episode series, so Tae-san has the added dimension of dealing with depression but being too macho to really acknowledge it.
He visits a therapist but strong-arms him into giving him meds and skipping all the talking. However, even this layer aligns him with his protagonist in Holy Night: Demon Hunters, who was another depressed occult protector.
Given its ensemble cast and light and comedic approach to action, crime and fantasy, the series calls to mind the breezy and tightly controlled aesthetic of Korean hitmaker Choi Dong-hoon, responsible for the likes of The Thieves and Assassination.

Twelve is a poor imitation of Choi’s masterful alchemy of commercial sensibilities, but more than that it feels a little dated.
Ma’s fists are still crowd-pleasers, but even a champion needs a few contenders. What this show requires is a few other angels to step up and claim their place in the ring.
Twelve is streaming on Disney+.


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Ma Dong-seok puts in a rare TV appearance in Twelve, starring as an avenging angel with depression who deals out justice with his fists


Ma Dong-seok puts in a rare TV appearance in Twelve, starring as an avenging angel with depression who deals out justice with his fists.


Disney+ K-drama Twelve: Ma Dong-seok hops back on the demon-hunting bandwagon

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ma Dong-seok puts in a rare TV appearance in Twelve, starring as an avenging angel with depression who deals out justice with his fists

Ma Dong-seok puts in a rare TV appearance in Twelve, starring as an avenging angel with depression who deals out justice with his fists