Review | Disney+ K-drama review: Big Bet season 2 – sprawling Choi Min-sik crime saga improves on season 1 to reach a satisfying end, even if it remains flawed
- Season 2 of the crime saga does away with season 1’s convoluted flashbacks, and Choi Min-sik and Son Suk-ku hold the show together even in redundant moments
- Despite some character inconsistencies leading up to it, the treacherous, violent finale helps this flawed show with a great cast end on a high
This article contains spoilers.
3.5/5 stars
Big Bet, the Philippines-set crime saga starring Choi Min-sik, came to an end last week with the conclusion of its second season.
The series, which followed a wily Korean crime entrepreneur building a casino kingdom in a foreign land, pushed the boundaries of Korean crime dramas with mixed results.
Despite its impressive cast of veteran actors and an intriguing protagonist, it was occasionally let down by production values not quite befitting of the exotic locations, and went through many highs and lows over the course of a grand but meandering storyline.
This was largely thanks to the absence of season 1’s convoluted flashback structure, and the consistent presence of Son Suk-ku as Korean police officer Oh Seung-hoon, who was largely absent from the earlier episodes.
Although the dogged and cool Seung-hoon was a highlight of the series, Big Bet revolved around Choi’s larger-than-life character Cha Moo-sik.
He rose through the criminal underworld, first in Korea and then in the Philippines, by dint of his street smarts and glad-handing.
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Moo-sik easily hoodwinked characters on the show with his casual gestures and genial smile. He also fooled the audience by presenting himself as a wily businessman who only resorted to violence occasionally, like earlier in his career when he called in debts for other people with his fists.
Yet he was merely concealing his true nature, and his dealings with degenerate gambler Jung Suk-woo (Choi Hong-il), the show’s saddest character, reminded us of who Moo-sik really was.
Seeing him as a big fish and an easy mark, he befriended Suk-woo and played the long game, first eroding his defences and then feeding his compulsive gambling habit.
Suk-woo was sucked dry, but this also proved true for Moo-sik; it was the point in the show when the game was almost up for him. With nothing left to gain, he stopped hiding behind a smile and stopped being careful.
Another insight into Moo-sik’s true character came when he had Kim So-jung (Son Eun-seo) and Philip (Lee Hae-woo) killed and stole the money they had stolen from business magnate Ko Young-hee (Lee Hye-young).
Yet even in this situation, he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. It was only towards the end of season 2, when he struck the match that set corrupt local bureaucrat Raul on fire for his role in the assassination of Moo-sik’s friend and mentor Min Seok-jun (Kim Hong-pa), that we saw how much of a monster he had become, as the flames danced in his insensate eyes.
Though Moo-sik’s true nature was hinted at earlier in the series, this ferocious act came as a shock. It may have been clever feinting on the part of the writers, but just as likely is that the writing of Moo-sik’s character arc was a little inconsistent.
After all its jocularity and relatively light crime antics, the story simply needed to end, which brought us to that point and the grand finale that followed.
Way back in episode one, Big Bet began with Moo-sik and his right hand man Jung-pal (Lee Dong-hwi) in a car, with Jung-pal talking about how “there are no permanent flowers”. This was a sentiment the series returned to again and again, and telegraphed Moo-sik’s demise when he suffered the ultimate betrayal.
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Jung-pal was Moo-sik’s weakest link, but he was also one of the show’s weakest links. A degenerate gambler and a fairly unreliable worker, it wasn’t always clear why a character as sharp as Moo-sik would take him under his wing.
Moo-sik’s great ability was reading people, but he could never admit to himself how much of a spineless scoundrel Jung-pal was, even if this was abundantly clear to everyone around him and anyone watching at home. Then again, it’s often the things that are right under our noses that are hardest to see.
Jung-pal messed up countless times, but his only real character moment came early, in his failed relationship with Kim So-jung. While his lingering resentment over her death was alluded to towards the end of the series, he ultimately proved a half-baked character with double the screen time he deserved.
Far more reliable was Moo-sik’s other right hand man, the square-jawed and tattooed Lee Sang-gu (Hong Ki-joon). Moo-sik admitted as much at one point in the show, when he told Sang-gu he saw him as his successor. But his misguided loyalty to Jung-pal ultimately proved his undoing.
The more he repelled Sang-gu, the more he pushed him into Seung-hoon’s embrace.
The tense relationship between Seung-hoon and Sang-gu, as they danced around each other for much of season 2, was one of the most compelling on the show. But it was Choi Min-sik and Son Suk-ku who held the show together and gave us a reason to keep watching, especially during its more redundant moments.
Big Bet was a big gamble and, though it’s hard to say it paid off fully, at the very least it was worth a roll of the dice.
Big Bet is streaming on Disney+.
