Hellbound review: Netflix, Train to Busan director take on God

HellboundThe story begins with a smoking monster that drags people to their deaths. He then increases the stakes. The new Netflix drama’s creators Choi Gyu–seok (and Busan: TrainYeon Sang-ho’s film pushes plot lines through and around human bodies with the same attitude as the opening. This balances social commentary with an ever-increasing tension in a world that can send you to hell with no mercy. Miraculously, HellboundThe entire season’s six episodes are covered by the actress.

Episode 1 is the turning point: An otherwise innocent man, fearful of being ripped apart by demonic, apelike monsters, who leave nothing but charred remains. The story continues from there. HellboundThe moment is being interrogated, and the detective moves slowly. Detective Jin Kyung-hoon (Yang Ik-june) is assigned to investigate the “murder,” as well as the New Truth, a YouTube-based religious sect claiming that the creatures are in fact angels acting on the divine will of God. Jung Jin-soo, chairman of the New Truth (Burning’s Yoo Ah-in), these sinners got what was coming to them, and the rest of the world would be wise to wake up to God’s new strategy.

Neither the chairman, nor the detective, nor even Min Hyejin (Kim Hyun-joo), a lawyer for the accused sinners, holds the show’s focus for long. Rather, HellboundThe show switches from a police procedural to a social media outrage thoughtpiece to a religious soliloquy and to sacramental tragedy. Each jump narrows the scope to reveal the true meaning of living in such harsh judgment. It could feel disorganized, which might make it seem unfocused. But instead, the show feels intentionally chaotic, skipping any story that might be too tidy. Similar to Akira, the narrative simply jumps between characters as they’re responding to the central events, providing whatever is the most interesting lens on the story at the time.

From the perspective of a sinner condemned for their sex life, Choi and Yeon expose how it’s all too easy to run afoul of hysterical puritanism (a plotline Hellbound wisely sets without a whiff of “cancel culture” discourse). As the New Truth and their extremist counterpart the Arrowhead raise the profile of those who have received “the decree” — and subsequently dox the “sinner” and their family — the show interrogates how public perception changes the stakes of judgment. But it’s the initial pairing of religious leader and police officer that’s most interesting across the first season. Each believe in God, or the state. They may also overvalue the individual autonomy that each person enjoys within such systems. While they both want justice for transgressors, their disagreements are about who should be punished. Both of their disagreements are the result watching the system collapse around them. And they’re both just as helpless in the face of otherworldly ape monsters as the rest of us.

Photo: Jung Jaegu/Netflix

Photo: Jung Jaegu/Netflix

Photo: Jung Jaegu/Netflix

The combination of demagogue and detective is the most captivating of all the characters. It is possible to make a connection between detective and demagogue. Hellbound has any major blindspots it’s the running problem that These are the forces behind the New Truth the larger concept of belief — particularly fervent, violent belief — aren’t worth interrogating, or at least aren’t complex enough for a show devoted to highlighting the layers of “bad” decisions seems glaring across the six-episode season. Pure evil is a mob of faceless men who are eager to inflict violence on the Lord’s behalf.

However, a taut narrative can pull its viewers together through these difficulties. This is the world of Hellbound, marked as it is by Old Testament judgment, provides just enough subjective perspective a puzzle that doesn’t quite fit together, until it does. You can see the moody and gray atmosphere in Seoul. It encourages you to examine the stories being told. Indeed, it’s no accident that Yeon and Choi frame every pang of danger like a monster movie. The attacks feel animalistic and brutal, much more tangibly violent than, say, Sam Raimi’s brand of playful gore. These selections create an atmosphere that doesn’t allow the audience feel comfortable with their role in the story. Yoo Ahin’s casting is especially inspiring. His chairman is as graceful as his virtuous, though he can be immovable and shifty in his low-key fanaticism. It’s on his shoulders that the rest of the players can build their respective roles — the damaged cop, the dogged attorney, the questioning parents — without ever feeling simply drawn.

That’s Hellbound’s greatest trick of all. Choi has been able to adapt seven Webtoon comics. He cleverly and continuously lays the foundations for future steps. Yen is never satisfied with the results. The series takes swipes at for-profit religion, a public’s appetite for violence and redemption, and how crimes are often just the tip of the societal iceberg, always finding a new corner of the world to land its hits. The first season was over. Hellbound’s many focused narratives fuse into a startling new reality, once again overriding the rules the world seems to be functioning by. There can (and probably will) be more mystery to this story in future seasons, and I’ll be devouring them with all the intensity of a supernatural smoke ape.

HellboundSeason 1 of Netflix’s The Walking Dead will be available on Netflix starting Nov. 19.