‘The Killing Vote’ review: when vigilante justice goes wrong

A police officer, a cyber-security expert and a convicted criminal find themselves scrambling to unravel the truth behind The Killing Vote, a mysterious nationwide social phenomenon where a masked figure puts “devils who were deemed innocent” on public trial. These “devils” are people who had committed heinous crimes, but were acquitted due to sundry reasons. In the span of an hour, the masked figure urges people to decide whether said “devil” should die or go free, all from the convenience of their phones. If more than half the population votes yes, the person is brutally murdered – a twisted form of vigilante justice, if you will.

Is it really so wrong, though? That’s a question you’ll find asking yourself multiple times during the show. If the law refuses to see right from wrong and sets free criminals at the expense of the suffering they have caused, would one really be amiss in delivering justice through other means? The Killing Vote would have made for a far more interesting watch had the show focused on this moral quandary than turning it into a goose-chase which seems to be going in circles.

Veteran actor Park Sung-woong (Snowdrop) easily holds the fort as Kim Seok-joo, an academic who chose to turn himself in after killing his eight-year-old daughter’s rapist and murderer. Both Park and his character have several years’ worth of seasoned experience over those around them, which translates into a deadly confidence on screen in this case. Park speaks more with his eyes and face than through words, expertly making other characters (and the audience) put up their guards as he vivisects one with his piercing gaze and bringing out more natural reactions from his co-stars.

His grounded force contrasts well with Park Hae-jin’s (From Now On, Showtime!) younger, more restless attitude as Kim Moo-chan, a police officer who was originally assigned to the case of Kim Seok-joo’s daughter. The latter’s death remains a great personal failure for Moo-chan, perhaps second only to his inability to stop Seok-joo from going down a dark path and becoming a murderer himself, even if it was for justice. How their relationship develops (or deteriorates) remains one of the key mysteries of the series.

Rounding off this trio is Lim Ji-yeon (The Glory) as Joo Hyeon, a young police officer with a notorious reputation for being a whistleblower. The righteous, headstrong, yet affectionate Joo Hyeon is the first character in the series to discover a clue to the The Killing Vote’. While Lim plays the role of the plucky young girl wanting to make a difference well, her character sadly seems to be the scapegoat of the writing room in the face of her seemingly more “complex” male counterparts.

Outside of the three main characters, the show also overpopulates itself with a handful of others to prolong the mystery behind ‘Gaetal’ – as the perpetrator of The Killing Vote calls themself. This has come at the cost of tight storytelling and – at times – absurd narrative progressions. For example, in a city that has deployed police forces at every corner to stop The Killing Vote from claiming a life, it’s two high schoolers who somehow manage to arrive at the logical conclusion to analysing the videos sent out by ‘Gaetal’.

In counterparts like Squid Game or Hellhound, the trauma depicted or dealt with was a collective one – when everyone was equally helpless, the stakes were infinitely higher. The Killing Vote had the perfect opportunity to reckon with a question about fundamental human nature, but instead, the show goes down the more straightforward murder-mystery route. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – we’d just hoped for a little more than another average vigilante-detective thriller.

The Killing Vote is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video

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