K-drama Voice 4: call centre thriller adds new co-star and decamps to island setting
- Lee Ha-na teams up with new co-star Song Seung-heon for Voice 4: Judgement Day, in which they track a group of hooded killers in a Jeju Island-like setting
- A lack of great storylines so far sees Lee’s character carrying the show, but she can only do that for so long
It’s rare for K-drama series to get follow-up seasons. For a show to get all the way to a fourth season is practically unheard of – but that’s exactly where the procedural thriller series Voice finds itself this summer as it returns to screens two years after season 3.
Beyond taking a longer break this time around, Voice 4: Judgement Day also finds the series occupying a new home on cable with its move from OCN to TVN.
Following the death of Do Kang-woo (Lee Jin-wook) in season three, Kang Kwon-joo (Lee Ha-na) gets a new partner this season in the form of bereaved LAPD cop Derek Jo (Song Seung-heon). Kwon-joo is a uniquely skilled member of the “Golden Time” emergency call centre team, whose extra-sensitive hearing allows her to hear clues over the phone to help her team solve cases. Each season she has been paired with a male detective in the field: first Moo Jin-hyuk (Jang Hyuk), then Kang-woo for seasons two and three, and now Derek.
The new series kicks off at night in the countryside, where a teenager has bound his grandparents in Christmas lights and is forcing them to eat chicken droppings. However, the youth is actually following someone else’s directives and before long the “Circus Man” group of mysterious figures in black hooded rain slickers enters the home and kills him.
The killers are led by a woman who spews deranged aphorisms, among them that it’s a blessing for a family to pass away all at once. Her right hand, who commits the vicious slayings, is a dwarf in a clown mask, who may be a reference to the classic Venice-set horror film Don’t Look Now.