Hellbound (2021) TV series | obiter dictum

Death can be a randomly occurring natural event, or it can be deliberately inflicted. The new South Korean series on Netflix named Hellbound are trying to find that exact point where we separate the former from the latter. The explorations throughout the six episodes are intriguing and engaging. Especially so because the matters appertaining to fundamentals of cults and religions had been brought in to make the ideas expressed tangible and relatable. This has resulted in a tale that vibes well with current trends when it comes to modern ideological bellwethers both, off- and online with either overt or covert agitation, zombified followers, videos taken using phones and serving as both, evidence and tools of influence, as well as issues that rise with adhering to doctrines; particularly when one is not capable of admitting to being wrong, especially when there’s lots at stake.

For those who know Ringu, Pulse and Death Note, Hellbound will seem like a new spin on that old trope of inevitable countdown of doom once someone has fulfilled the necessary conditions of triggering it. Ok, Death Note isn’t so much about triggering a countdown as it is about morals, but still, what we’ve got in this series is a morally righteous orphan Jeong Jin-soo with a background of strict religious upbringing, who throughout the series is concerned about – you guessed it – people doing right things. Part of his beliefs is summed up in the following sentence, “humans need meaning, otherwise they’d destroy themselves.” Our Jeong Jin-soo, much the same as Light Yagami in Death Note, knows what’s the right meaning to find, and what’s – not so much.
The essential feature all of aforementioned films share with Hellbound though is some kind of supernatural executioner, which delivers death to victims by following certain rules that cannot be changed. In case of Hellbound the executioners are three similar beings that all look like mountain trolls from Scandinavia. In my opinion, their design could have been better, however where the beings don’t fail is to personify the blows of fate a person would get, that would all eventually get the unlucky one dead (the ritual of that happening in the series is called “getting the decree”). This is one reason why I have no problem with Hellbound reusing that old trope of countdown and predestined passing – it does bring something of its own to the table.

Overall, Hellbound, as far as watching experience goes, is seamless: it develops things well, builds upon them, and doesn’t want you to figure out where it’s headed next plot-wise. This latter factor even surprised me in the episode 3, where at one point I thought that Hellbound has likely showed me all the tricks it’s had in its hat, and the rest of the series is going to simply be about finding out how exactly Jeong Jin-soo got the “trolls” doing his bidding. Nothing of that sort; I once again had been assured that the series isn’t about uncovering secrets as much as it’s about philosophy – the questions it provokes about things that people cannot control, and how those always prove to be so tempting to various individuals who need an opportunity to be at the center of attention, to matter by peddling some agenda, or acquire influence and power by means of creating doctrines.
As a paradox, its strong philosophical focus also looks as the reason why at times Hellbound falls below good standards of avoiding trivial plot holes. One striking example of that is in episode 1, where Jeong Jin-soo asks questions to the detective Jin Kyeong-hoon about a close relative of the latter – a strikingly easy way of immediately involving a close relative aside, the situation gets played out as if the law enforcement was, first and foremost, concerned about delivering universal justice, and not upholding the law. In that same scene the detective also listens to Jeong Jin-soo’s story about Tibet, but hasn’t got any detailed questions about beings that had been filmed earlier wreaking havoc in the city. All of a sudden I didn’t have questions about mystery surrounding all the events in the series, but was left wondering if the authors had to edit something out at the last moment so that the episode gets its proper length. Fortunately, moments like that are very few and far between, therefore let that not put you off of giving the series a watch – there are questions in it that each one of us had probably been asking for as long as we remember ourselves, but to which there may never be any definite answers.

Peer Ynt