Vincenzo: The Mafia Anti-Hero as Catholic Exorcist of Corporate Conglomerate Corruption

1. “Un Diavolo Scaccia L’Altro”: The Limits of Legalist Justice

Premiering on tvN and Netflix in early 2021, Park Jae-bum’s Vincenzo established a radical milestone in the Korean legal drama genre. Rather than presenting the standard righteous prosecutor battling judicial corruption through institutional channels (the classic archetype of Stranger or Defendant), Vincenzo delivers a blistering, dark-humored thesis: the modern corporate conglomerate (Chaebol) has so completely co-opted the police, the prosecution, and the judiciary that orthodox law is utterly impotent. To destroy a monster, one must unleash a devil.

Protagonist Vincenzo Cassano (Song Joong-ki) is an Italian mafia consigliere and adopted Korean orphan. Dressed in bespoke Bozzolo suits, sipping espresso, and quoting Latin legal maxims, Vincenzo returns to Seoul not as a patriotic crusader, but as a mercenary intending to retrieve 15 tons of gold secretly buried in the underground vault of the crumbling Geumga Plaza.

When the psychopathic Babel Group unlawfully seizes the plaza and murders human rights attorney Hong Yu-chan (who was fighting Babel’s lethal narcotics-laced pharmaceutical trials), Vincenzo aligns with Yu-chan’s fierce daughter, Hong Cha-young (Jeon Yeo-been). Vincenzo abandons all constitutional civility. He operates on the Italian proverb emblazoned across his lighter: “Un diavolo scaccia l’altro” (Only a devil can drive out another devil).

2. The Picaresque Anarchy of Geumga Plaza

Director Kim Hee-won balances the show’s pitch-black violence with wild, high-camp picaresque comedy centered on the eccentric tenants of Geumga Plaza. What begins as a ragtag bunch of comedic eccentrics—a fake Italian chef who cannot cook pasta, a dry cleaner with a past as an underworld scissors assassin, a former piano teacher who is a master hacker, and Buddhist monks meditating atop the gold vault—gradually coalesces into Vincenzo’s guerrilla army: the Cassano Family.

This dynamic subverts the elitism of the mobster genre. Vincenzo does not build a criminal empire out of hired goons; he mobilizes the marginalized working-class citizens whom Babel intended to crush under excavators. The tenants’ conversion from terrified victims into theatrical vigilantes mirrors South Korea’s historical tradition of Madang-guk (traditional peasant masked folk theater), using mockery, spectacle, and collective audacity to ridicule and topple corrupt feudal tyrants.

3. The Anatomy of Villainy: Jang Han-seok vs. Choi Myung-hee

The moral clarity of Vincenzo’s extreme methods is justified by the terrifying depravity of his adversaries. In the duel against Babel, screenwriter Park Jae-bum creates two of the most grotesque antagonists in K-drama history:

4. Conclusion: The Unreformed Devil on Pagliuzza Island

Unlike standard Hollywood or Korean morality tales that force the anti-hero to renounce violence, repent, or face redemption through death, Vincenzo remains unapologetically uncompromising. In the finale, Vincenzo does not become a law-abiding citizen. He escapes to his private Mediterranean island of Pagliuzza, openly acknowledging his true nature:

“Evil is prevalent and veering out of control. Since I cannot become a saint, I will remain a villain who hunts other villains. Justice is weak and empty; but evil is relentless and vast.” By elevating an Italian-Korean mafia consigliere into the scourge of corporate feudalism, Vincenzo captures the global catharsis of an audience sick of institutional excuses, yearning for an uncompromising sword to cut the Gordian knot of systemic corruption.