‘Villains’: When bad guys take lead

‘Villains’: When bad guys take lead | Daily Tribune

Korean crime-action series Villains, led by acclaimed stars Yoo Ji Tae (Money Heist Korea: Joint Economic Area, Vigilante) and Lee Min Jeong (Fates and Furies, Once Again), is set to premiere on HBO Max on 18 December.

The release comes at a time when Korean dramas continue to shape Filipino viewing habits, consistently topping local charts and influencing trends in fashion, beauty and online fandom culture. Filipino audiences remain drawn to K-dramas for their high production values, emotional nuance, and their distinctive approach to portraying good and evil.

This rise in demand has driven OTT platforms — including Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and HBO Max — to ramp up their slate of Korean titles. These services have reported strong engagement numbers for Korean originals, prompting more investments in thrillers, romance dramas and genre-bending series.

For Filipino viewers, who are among Southeast Asia’s most active K-drama consumers, this expanded catalog means greater access to both blockbuster hits and niche titles that were once harder to find.

A major driver of this popularity is the way Korean series portray villains and morally ambiguous characters. Rather than painting antagonists as purely evil, many K-dramas explore the motivations, traumas, and systemic pressures that mold them. This complexity has paved the way for shows that center on antiheroes or villain leads. Notable titles like Vincenzo (a mafia consigliere antihero), Flower of Evil (a man concealing a dark past), Big Mouth (a lawyer entangled in a criminal conspiracy) and Beyond Evil (morally gray detectives confronting buried secrets) have solidified fans’ appreciation for layered storytelling.

The eight-episode Villains from TVING taps into this growing appetite for darker, character-driven narratives. The series follows criminal mastermind J (Yoo Ji Tae) and master forger Han Soo Hyun (Lee Min Jeong), who are thrust into a brutal power struggle over the “Supernote,” an ultra-precision counterfeit bill sought by crime syndicates and monitored by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. Betrayals, shifting alliances, and psychological warfare drive the tension as the characters navigate a world where survival often requires becoming the very villain one fears.

Directed by Jin Hyuk (The Tale of Lady Ok, Sisyphus: The Myth), the drama features Park Jin Young and Kim Young Chan as executive producers, with Jang Hye Min and Kim Soo Young as creative producers, and Yang Chang Hoon and Lee Jung Joo as chief producers. The screenplay is written by Kim Hyung Joon and produced by Taewon Entertainment and CJ ENM.

With its morally complex leads and gripping underworld intrigue, Villains is poised to become the next Korean series to capture Filipino attention as OTT giants continue to expand their K-content libraries.