(MINI SERIES) Mercy For None - Thrilling Series Full of Brilliant Fight Scenes

Although this series was put under the Coming This Week section in Netflix, I was a little bit hesitant to watch as I thought the premise was pretty standard and there was not a lot of hype about it. But since I just finished another series and was not sure what to watch next, I decided to give it a try on Friday night, a day after its release and managed to complete the whole series yesterday. OK, let's find out more then, shall we?

Brief Story Line

Nam Gi-jun (So Ji-sub - Alienoid: Return to the Future, Oh My Venus TV series etc) used to work for the two largest gangs in Seoul, i.e. Joowon led by Lee Joo-woon (Heo Joon-ho - Dark Nuns, Bloodhounds etc) and Bongsan led by Gu Bong-san (Ahn Gil-kang - Sweet & Sour, A Shop for Killers TV series etc). After a major incident 11 years before, Gi-jun left the organization and became normal person, while his younger brother Gi-seok (Lee Joon-hyuk - The Firefighters, Our Beloved Summer TV series etc) became second in command in Joowon since Mr. Lee's only son Geum-son (Choo Young-woo - Oasis, Trauma Code TV series etc) worked as a Prosecutor. On the other hand, Bong-san's only son Jun-mo (Gong Myung - Extreme Job, Be Melodramatic TV series etc) who was supposed to take over the Bongsan organization was making a lot of trouble that worried his father.

When Gi-seol was unexpectedly killed by some young thugs, Gi-jun returned to Seoul to find the persons responsible. As he dig deeper, Gi-jun found that his brother's murder involved his old acquaintance who now owned a "cleaning service" company, Sim Sung-won (Lee Beom-soo - The Roundup: Punishment, Private Lives TV series etc). With nothing to lose and determined to revenge on his brother, Gi-jun did everything in his power to get the people behind his brother's killing even if he had to kill everyone that were in his way.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was rather unexpected but in a very good way. As I said, I was a bit hesitant to watch this as I had no clear idea how the series would be despite reading the synopsis that it was about revenge. However after I watched the first episode where I saw several hand to hand fight scenes, I was immediately hooked and did not realize that I had continued watching till 5th episode. And every time an episode finished, I gave the same comment to my wife over and over again that she should watch it as I was sure she would have enjoyed this a lot. When I finally completed the 7th episode, I found myself to be very satisfied after witnessing such a great, brutal, violent action series.

One of the reasons that I liked this series was the category of Limited Series which I am sure you would understand the reason, since nowadays it's very hard to find a series that would have proper conclusion. The ending to the series was exactly what I had hoped for without any possible different interpretation. From what I read, this series was based on webtoon by Oh Se-hyung and Kim Gyun-tae. It was directed by Choi Seung-eun (Little Sister, Tong: Memories TV series) and written by Yoo Ki-seong. I think this was an original Netflix series and not the ones that are usually aired on TV which would explain its short 7 length episodes. Duration was only 40-50 minutes but due to its not so complicated story, the action was given more emphasis which obviously pleased me. 

The series was definitely male-centric without a single woman played as major character. The actors, especially So Ji-sub was totally perfect in this role. I even asked my wife whether he used to play in a lot of action series in the past cause he was not that spectacular in the films that I saw. And according to her, he used to play more dramatic roles which just made me more in awe of him. In this series, he fought so many gangsters and hit-men that I lost track how many people he had beaten (and killed). I think the fight choreographers did fantastic job in here cause the way Ji-sub (and many others) fought were so fast and truly convincing. Oh I also thought Gong Myung was great in characterizing Jun-mo. 

Btw, aside from the names I stated above, there was one more name that was part of the main cast, i.e. Jo Han-chul (Gyeong Seong Creature TV series, My Name is Loh Kiwan etc) as Lee Joo-won's trusted assistant Choi Sung-cheol. There were plenty of other recurring characters/guest stars such as Cha Seung-won (Uprising, Our Blues TV series etc) as Mr. Kim, Jung Gun-joo (Rebound, Check in Hanyang TV series etc) as Gi-seok's loyal Jeon Hae-bum and several others. 

Overall this was something that would definitely satisfy fans of full action series. It did not have any romance to "distract" or complicated story to make you lose interest. The fights were really amazing that reminded me a bit of John Wick movies where he had to fight against so many bad guys. Although there was a bit of difference where the use of guns were very limited here as it mainly used fist, knives and my favorite, the baseball bat. So if you are looking for this kind of series, then I am sure you would enjoy this as much as I did. But if you prefer more well established story with deep character backgrounds, then this might not be fulfilling. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars