Vincenzo Cassano was adopted by an Italian family when he was 8 years old and he grew up becoming an important advisor of a mafia clan. After the clan's boss's death, Vincenzo gets on the bad side of the heir and decides to leave Italy once and for all.
Vincenzo doesn't consider South Korea his homeland either but still embarks on the way to Seoul with only one goal: to collect the billions worth of gold bars he has been hiding under a shabby building, demolish it and then settle in Malta.
But as soon as he sets foot in South Korea everything that could go wrong, inevitably does: he gets robbed, and when he arrives at Geumga Plaza (the building he owns) the tenants show no will to transfer and, as a cherry on top, the room where all the gold is is now occupied by two Buddhist monks...a nightmare!
Vincenzo is firm in not letting himself get involved with the issues and all the weird people who live and work in the building, but when the righteous attorney who runs a small law firm puts his own life in danger because of the sue against South Korea's most influential and corrupted corporation, Vincenzo finds himself helping him despite the fact that he used to be (and still is) on the other side of the law...
My Opinion👍
Even if the first couple of episodes are more on the foolish side, I enjoyed the developments of the story moving forward and it became much darker than expected, with a finale that has probably some of the scariest scenes ever.
Overall I must say I liked this drama, but the reason I won't give it the full 5/5 rating is because of how uselessly long the episodes are and because I'd have preferred it to be more serious throughout the entire story, even tho the supporting cast is great.
Being Italian myself, I don't feel insulted by the stereotypes portrayed of Italian people. It's true that we use hand gestures a lot, we can be snobbish about any kind of food that's not our own and we cherish coffee like our life depends on it.
It's clear, however, that the screenplay stopped at those clichè as Vincenzo's hand gestures are all over the place and sometimes completely out of context and a few pieces of information about the mafia are either outdated or come straight from American gangster movies from the 80es...
That being said, you should take this drama for what it is: an entertaining story with some great teaching, filled with friendship, quite a few funny (and cringy) scenes, 'didn't see that coming' kind of plot twists and some extremely scary and violent moments.
We must remember that Vincenzo is an antihero because he's not an honest character: he plays dirty, doesn't stop before anything to achieve his purposes, and can be very manipulative and ruthless. He sure has his own honor code but still...
While no character in this drama is sinless, it's easier to empathize with the underdogs and the bond they form is somewhat uplifting because it shows what can be achieved when forces are joined for the right cause.
I would say that the actor playing Vincenzo (Song Joong-Ki) speaks decent Italian and some phrases were a bit difficult for someone who just memorized the lines for a handful of scenes and it was so weird not to have to read the subtitles!
Rating: 4½/5
Ph: hancinema.net & TvN's Twitter
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