Dramas like
My Name

The comparison worth making, and the one that wins it. Same appetite for a woman who has organised her entire adult life around one debt, and the same refusal to let her come out of it whole. Difference: it works by manipulation rather than fists, sixteen patient episodes of a plan being executed, where this is eight hours of a body being thrown at a wall.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the board is set and you can see the shape of her plan.

Undercover, and in love with the people you are betraying. Same central bind of an identity taken on for a mission and then worn too long, and the same willingness to make the criminal the most sympathetic person on screen. Difference: 1995 period Gangnam, twelve episodes, and the violence is sustained and ugly with no relief valve.

Hooks early Episode 1. The undercover assignment starts immediately and the marriage is already a wound before the first hour ends.

A woman who was trained for this without being told. Same pleasure of watching somebody who should not survive keep surviving, staged rather than edited. Difference: the structure is the trick, a present-day siege cut against a childhood of quiet preparation, so every flashback pays off as ammunition instead of grief.

Hooks early Episode 1. The uncle is dead, the house is under attack, and the flashback structure starts working straight away.

Women against a class that has never lost. Same shape of an ordinary person walking into an organisation that eats people, with money in place of a syndicate. Difference: it is a plot machine at pace 4 rather than a body under strain, and the danger is legal and financial before it is physical.

Hooks early Episode 1. The money goes missing inside the first hour and the show never slows down again.

Same writer, and the exact opposite mood. Kim Ba Da again, with Ahn Bo Hyun again, on a partnership that grows without a romance being forced into it. Difference: it is a comedy procedural with cases that close cleanly, so it is fun where this is grief, and nobody is asked to lose their name.

Hooks early Episode 1. A rich heir gets dumped into a violent crimes unit and the tone is locked in immediately.

Fists as the primary language, filmed like they matter. Same commitment to real choreography over cutting, same world of loan sharks and men with no legal options. Difference: it runs on friendship rather than revenge and it stays warm in a way this show has no interest in being.

Hooks early Episode 1. The boxing gym and the loan-shark hook are both done inside one episode.