REVIEW: ‘Narco-Saints’ is More Than What’s on the Tin

Look, I don’t like narco stories. In Hollywood, narco stories are the only ones deemed suitable for Latino and Latin American characters while often portraying the locations in which they’re set through a sepia-soaked stereotype filter. That said, Narco-Saints, despite the name on the tin wound up being way more than what I expected. Directed by Yoon Jong-bin, written by Yoon and Kwon Sung-hui, the six-episode South Korean Netflix Original stars Ha Jung-woo, Hwang Jung-min, and Park Hae-soo.

Narco-Saints revolves around Kang In-Gu (Ha Jung-Woo), a man crushed by an ever-growing debt. Having led a hard life, lost his parents, and now responsible for a family of his own, he’s just trying to survive, with his kids as his focus (even if his family started out of necessity and not love). When his friend approaches him at the prospect about starting a skate fishery in the fictionalized version of the South American country of Suriname, he’s thrust into a situation he couldn’t have ever thought of.

The skate he’s looking to profit from lands him smack dab in the middle of two warring Asian gangs and the cartels they work with to export cocaine to South Korea and China. Stuck between death and poverty, Kang is forced to cooperate with the South Korean NIS and Choi Chang-Ho (Park Hae-soo) to catch Jeon Yo-Hwan (Hwang Jung-min ), a preacher and drug kingpin running Suriname’s drug exports.

The entire main cast of Narco-Saints is firing on all cylinders. Drug lord Jeon, NIS officer Choi, and the guy stuck in the center of this criminal struggle Kang make for a dynamic that passes power back and forth. While Choi is orchestrating a larger mission of ending Jeon’s drug trade, Jeon is trying to expand his empire and become the only name in smuggling in Suriname. This allows the two to fight each other through proxies, outsmarting the other and despite having limited to any contact, feeling the impact of the other’s character. While actor Park has made a name for himself on other Netflix series as a brutal and unrelenting force in Money Heist and Squid Games, here in Narco-Saints, Park is calm, focused, and trying to be a bastion of morality while also manipulating Kang in his own way to bring an end to the drug trade.

Hwang Jung-min is scary as Jeon, but not in the relentlessly bloodthirsty focused on revenge the way that he was as the antagonist in Deliver Us From Evil. Trying to pass a mild-mannered pastor, Jeon is charming and his approach to charismatic Christianity helps him woo his followers creating a shield. One of the elements that Jeon taps into is the long history of cults based around Christianity that have sprung up to defraud practitioners, particularly for South Korea. While we see the element of how the facade allows Jeon to keep his cocaine trafficking we also see the real belief and lives being shattered by it, and that the practitioners don’t know.

Finally, as the story’s main character and the eyes we see everything through is Kang. He wants to survive, he wants to live, and he wants to bring home money so that his family can have a future. While his initial attempt at a fishery is to take advantage at a failed system that privileges foreign fisheries because of how cheap they are over Korean fishers, there isn’t anything inherently about it. Kang isn’t a bad man looking to become a narco but rather a man who is pushed by circumstance and thanks to his intelligence and quick survival wit that a hard life has forged, he manages to become an active player on the board instead of just a piece being moved around by Jeon and Choi.

Despite a name that seems the most unashamed use of a narco story, Narco-Saints is a great look at drugs and religion in South Korea that places the crimes and the onus of exports and imports on the United States, South Korea, and China. It’s an interesting look at the economic factors and class involved with the exploitation of religious experiences for profit and how it can work as a shield for larger criminal activities.

Additionally, while most portrayals of South America eras the existence of Afro-Latinos, the extras cast show South Americans as more than one shade of brown. That said, given the subject matter the bulk of those on-screen are criminals or government officials willing to take bribes. Which, I can’t necessarily balk at way South America is portrayed, especially given that the narrative shows how foreigners have taken advantage of situations for their own gain.

Narco-Saints is probably one of the best uses of a narco setting without giving into mountains of stereotypes and dangerous narratives about Latin Americans. But beyond that success in showing the drug trade and how Asia plays a part, the three male leads are undeniably dynamic. While I was skeptical about this series at first, it’s six hours well-spent.

Narco-Saints is available now exclusively on Netflix.