A prosecutor in Seowon is given a difficult assignment: take down Jo Young-gook, the powerful CEO of Hyunseung Company.

Woo Je-moon knows that a conventional investigation probably won’t be enough. He puts together a team of people who have their own experience with violence and crime, then goes after Young-gook and the network protecting him.

That is the setup for Bad Guys: Vile City, the 2017 Korean crime thriller starring Park Joong-hoon, Joo Jin-mo, Yang Ik-june, Kim Moo-yul, and Ji Soo. The 16-episode drama aired from December 2017 to February 2018.

Watch Bad Guys: Vile City on Amasian TV

Woo Je-moon already knows how ugly the job can get

Woo Je-moon is a prosecutor at the Seowon District Public Prosecutors’ Office, and he has a reputation for using drastic methods to get results.

Three years before the main events of the story, a corruption investigation ended badly. Je-moon’s colleague was killed, and another was left seriously injured. When he gets another opportunity to pursue the people responsible, he decides to approach the case differently.

His target is Jo Young-gook, the CEO of Hyunseung Company and one of the most powerful figures in Seowon.

Je-moon starts assembling people who can help him reach Young-gook.

The team is built from people with very different pasts

The group includes four other men, and their reasons for being there aren’t the same.

Heo Il-hoo, played by Joo Jin-mo, is a former mobster who was once feared for his violence. After leaving that life behind, he runs a restaurant, but Je-moon knows his past could make him useful.

Jang Sung-cheol, played by Yang Ik-june, is a detective whose personal problems and unpredictable behavior make him difficult to read.

Han Gang-joo, played by Ji Soo, is a young man with a criminal past who becomes involved after violence reaches his family.

Then there is Noh Jin-pyeong, played by Kim Moo-yul. He’s a rookie prosecutor who enters the investigation with considerably less experience than the others.

Putting these people together creates an immediate problem. They don’t share the same history, the same motivations, or the same ideas about how far they should go.

Noh Jin-pyeong gives the group a different perspective

Jin-pyeong is one of the most useful characters to follow because he’s still trying to understand the world he’s been pulled into.

He’s a rookie prosecutor at the beginning of his career. His previous experience with violence has already affected him, and joining Je-moon’s team forces him into situations far outside the controlled environment he expected from his job.

That becomes especially important as the investigation escalates.

The people around him are willing to fight, threaten, deceive, and take risks that would normally be far outside the boundaries of legal procedure. Jin-pyeong has to figure out how to work alongside them while dealing with the consequences of their methods.

Jo Young-gook has built a difficult target

Young-gook’s position makes the investigation increasingly complicated.

He runs Hyunseung Company and has substantial influence in Seowon. Je-moon’s team begins by targeting his criminal operations, but their investigation gradually exposes a wider network of people with connections to him.

That expansion gives the drama its larger sense of scale.

The team isn’t walking into one location, finding one culprit, and wrapping up the case. Every step toward Young-gook brings them into contact with another person or organization that has something to lose.

And the deeper they get, the more dangerous the investigation becomes.

The crime story keeps pulling the team in different directions

One of the more interesting aspects of Vile City is how the characters’ personal motives become tangled up with the main investigation.

Je-moon is pursuing the people connected to the corruption case that changed his life.

Gang-joo has his own reasons for wanting revenge.

Il-hoo’s past makes him useful to the investigation while also making him vulnerable to the people they’re fighting.

Jin-pyeong is still trying to understand where he fits into all of this.

Sung-cheol operates with his own methods and instincts.

The investigation therefore keeps changing as the characters learn more about one another and about the people they’re pursuing.

The Bad Guys name, with a different story

Bad Guys: Vile City is a spin-off of the 2014 series Bad Guys, but it follows a new story with a largely new group of characters. The connection is the basic idea of using people with questionable backgrounds and methods to pursue criminals who are even harder to reach through conventional means.

This time, the story is built around a prosecutor trying to dismantle a powerful criminal network in Seowon.

With 16 episodes to work with, the investigation has room to expand from one target into a much larger conflict involving organized crime, corruption, and people inside the system who have their own interests.

For viewers looking for a Korean crime thriller with a large ensemble, violent confrontations, and a long-running investigation, Bad Guys: Vile City has plenty to work with.

Watch Bad Guys: Vile City on Amasian TV.