'Trigger' review: Warning, shameless button-pushing ahead

The Star

a day ago

The brisk, violent and morally murky K-drama Trigger is a study in contrasts.
The show is pretty ambitious, aiming for a serial thriller vibe while tackling tough questions about gun control, violence begetting violence, and humanity's general indifference to the suffering of others.
Yet it is puzzling how something that scores so highly on the bingeability scale can also shoot itself in the foot so frequently when it comes to believability.
For better or for worse, this 10-episode "alternate society" series sends viewers down a darkly dystopian path as it ponders the effect of guns suddenly flooding a powderkeg of assorted social ills.
From grieving mothers to bullied students, overlooked gangland underlings to harassed apartment dwellers, South Korean citizens mysteriously receive guns on their doorsteps. Of course, you can guess how most – though not all – of these scenarios play out.
It's heartening to see that writer-director Kwon Oh-seung (Midnight) chooses to have some secondary characters take the high road, even if much of Trigger's manipulative plotting seems to push everyone down the low road.
'After reviewing the footage of yesterday's shootout, we're convinced you'll look cooler next time if you advance towards danger with your gun angled upwards instead of pointing straight ahead.'
The victims are all too vulnerable and helpless, their tormentors one-dimensionally cruel and unrepentant; and it should be noted that one sequence set in a school is deeply disturbing in its almost offhand depiction of juvenile carnage.
Much of Trigger revolves around frenemies Lee Do (Kim Nam-gil, Fiery Priest, Through The Darkness) and Moon Baek (Kim Young-kwang, Hot Young Bloods, Mission: Possible).
Lee is ex-military (though he's sometimes referred to in the subtitles as a mercenary), now a policeman who prefers non-lethal methods of subduing even the most vicious perps, and whose empathy has endeared him to the community – if not all his superiors.
Moon is a mysterious figure who always seems to be in the right (wrong?) place when stuff hits the fan, and initially helps Lee as waves of gun violence sweep through the city.
Together and separately, they are charismatic leads who grab and hold our interest in whichever what-if scenario Kwon happens to be pitching at us, though ultimately Nam-gil's hero cop comes across as more admirable and fully formed than Young-kwang's larger-than-life but sketchily shaped antagonist. Trigger is certainly not short on action sequences, many of them executed with the same verve as Nam-gil's famous beatdowns from his Fiery Priest days (set to a familiar-sounding score), with some slick shoot-'em-up sequences too.
One scene where Moon deals with a van-load of thugs even evokes vintage Jackie Chan slapstick fights seldom emulated in this neck of the woods.
The series also serves up human drama in buckets, and the ensuing pathos should not be lost on even the most jaded, stone-hearted viewer.
'Don't blame me for how I act in this series, it's in my DNA. I'm a Hot Young Blood, after all.'
Where Trigger stumbles, however, is in the motivation and grand plan of its principal villain, the lever and fulcrum with which he plans to move the whole world (sorry, just watched The Fantastic Four: First Steps, insert sheepish grin emoji here) – it just doesn't hold water.
Also, dystopian alternate reality or not, it's pretty baffling how the baddie and his goons can brazenly commit multiple murders of law enforcement personnel on camera, in a public place, and not spark a nationwide manhunt.
At least, nothing of that sort is even hinted at in the script right up to the finale, where the authorities appear content to just gawk or mill about helplessly while chaos ensues.
Not our man Lee Do, though. Expect him to be in the thick of the action and drama as he engages in battles of philosophy and physicality with the bad guys, all to show his adversary that it's not hypocritical to espouse peace while indulging in some John Wick-style gun fu.
The rough edges aside, you can't deny that Kwon is pretty clued in to the pressures, injustices and sense of helplessness that appear to have permeated most urban settings around the globe these days.
Just that he often chooses to take a sensationalised approach instead of having the characters argue their respective cases in a calmer atmosphere. It's hard to pay attention to people arguing semantics when there's so much hot lead flying around.
All 10 episodes of Trigger are available on Netflix.