Advertisement

K-drama Decoy: Jang Keun-suk, Squid Game’s Heo Sung-tae star in sombre but unconvincing mash-up of con artist and murder thrillers

  • Heo Sung-tae, in his first leading role following his appearance in Squid Game, stars in Decoy as a con man and Jang Keun-suk is the detective on his case
  • The series by Kim Hong-sun is cleanly put together but unremarkable; Jang’s character is thinly sketched and some plays at eliciting audience sympathy are crude

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Jang Keun-suk as detective Gu Do-han in a still from Decoy, a K-drama mash-up of con artist and murder thrillers.

The emotional devastation of scams and the rush of the serial killer thriller combine in K-drama Decoy – formerly known as The Bait.

Advertisement
Jang Keun-suk, last seen in 2018’s Switch: Change the World, returns to the screen for the first time in five years, performing alongside Heo Sung-tae (Squid Game) and Lee Elijah (Chief of Staff) in this brooding tale of police and con artists.

Like many Korean thrillers, Decoy – available to stream on Viu – begins with a stylised nighttime sequence as a voice-over gives us the lay of the land. The voice-over tells us that 200,000 cases of fraud, involving over three trillion won (US$2.4 billion) in stolen funds, are recorded every year in South Korea.

Heo, in his first leading role following his appearance in Squid Game, plays No Sang-cheon, a swindler who has amassed a fortune by promising untold riches to investors through his Bigs Network, a gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Decoy | Official Trailer | Prime Video

He first appears, in a flashy suit and with slicked-back hair, on stage during a presentation that is designed to whip his audience of investors into a frenzy.

Advertisement
Advertisement