There are TV shows that become instant crowd favorites just by having high-profile stars as cast members, and ‘Prison Playbook’ is the exact opposite. All the cast members are already very talented. It had been a hit. In this drama, there’s Kim Je Hyeok (Park Hae Soo) and Lee Joon Ho (Jung Kyung Ho) will show you what true friendship means. Krystal of the K-pop group F(x) was also cast in the role of Kim Ji Ho, who supports Jae Hyuk no matter what happens. One thing noticeable about the characters here is the friendship they form with their cellmates or the guards. How they support each other with whatever it is that they are going through. They have fights that will bring you laughter, but if one of them is going to be attacked by someone who is out of their circle, each one of them makes sure that nothing bad happens.
And while this is all happening, through character interactions, and the unfolding of the story itself, each main character’s story gets touched upon, without anything feeling too forced or too rushed. Like, the gangster Kim Min Chul (Choi Moo Sung) who, was involved in a murder and was prisoned for 25 years and now regrets his past life. He can scare you with his looks but you will love his good heart. Jean Valjean (Kang Seung Yoon of ‘Winner’), treats Kim Min Chul as his father. Captain Yoo (Jung Hae In) was framed for killing a soldier and everyone started labeling him as the "Demon Captain." KAIST (Park Ho San) was an engineer prior to his imprisonment because of a gambling scam, and you'll see how good he is at fixing things while he's in jail.
Other cellmates call Yoo Han Yang (Lee KyuHyung) Looney because he looks and acts like a crazy person. Han Yang is a Seoul University graduate who ended up in prison for taking illegal drugs. The withdrawal was so hard on him that he even developed a different personality when he's clean. What he did is not right and he will make you realize it. But he will surely make a space in your heart with his honesty and comedic remarks.
We all thought that those convicts inside the jail are evil, and those who have done something against the law. Once you're put in prison, you'll be stamped as a criminal or judged as though you have done very serious wrongdoing. But again, are all the inmates criminal? But little did we know that they all have stories to tell and they are not all necessarily evil. Some went in for certain reasons like they were falsely accused, they were hopeless, or they were forced to do it. Many various factors can lead someone into prison life. It is easy to point your finger at someone's flaw and mistake. From this Korean drama, you'll figure out why you shouldn't do that. You may find the answer that all the results may be constructed by our past actions or encounters and so intertwined with the current state and your future. Sometimes a good person must do something 'wrong' to make everything right and sometimes even a bad person do something 'good' under such circumstances. Life is completely unpredictable.
Another important message that this show seems to want to give out is that there is always room for improvement. And every people do deserve a second chance. However, there are also those that take second chances for granted and those who refused to do better as well. Though this drama has a serious theme revolving around prison life and a little bit of politics with plenty of dark humour, it is still a much-recommended must-watch. The ultimate lesson of this drama will teach you that prison life imparts to all walks of life is to learn how to roll with the punches that life throws our way and to begin again and again no matter what, no matter how.
