REVIEW: ‘The Price of Confession’ Gets Under The Skin

There’s something about a good thriller that knows how to get under the skin, and Netflix’s latest KDrama, The Price of Confession (Jabaegui daega), knows how to do just that. Pitting two women against each other in a series of murders, it’s anyone’s guess as to who is actually innocent and guilty in this winding chase. Spanning twelve episodes, the pace is crisp and quick, never relenting with each revelation unearthed to muddy the waters. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with this series for a good, solid binge. It’s just that enticing from the jump.

The Price of Confession opens with a marriage ceremony, a spot of joy in art teacher An Yun-seo’s (Jeon Do-yeon) life with her husband, before everything falls apart with her husband’s murder. From the start, a target is on Yun-seo’s back, with the prosecution team, led by a former cop-turned-attorney Baek Dong-hun (Park Hae-soo), declaring her guilty from the jump due to her acting outside the norm of what they believe a grieving widow should be.

Every step of the way, Yun-seo declares her innocence. Even as the prosecution team launches smear campaigns against her, ruining her life and reputation without remorse, she holds strong. Everything comes crashing down when she is declared guilty, and she is sent to prison. Faced with such a drastic change, along with never wholly processing her husband’s grief, Yun-seo is left numb. That is, until coming face to face with the “witch,” Mo Eun (Kim Go-eun). The meeting plants a spark of hope, but it ends up tainted by the task Mo Eun gives her.

The Price of Confession uses Yun-seo as a mirror, reflecting society’s biases at us.

Directed by Lee Jung-hyo and written by Kwon Jong-kwan, The Price of Confession easily hooks with how it captures the biases Yun-seo faces by the time the police enter the picture. She doesn’t fit the image of a perfect victim, with her directness, penchant for smiling, and tattoos drawing suspicion. By not behaving outside the norm, the label of “suspect” is almost immediately attached, instantly opening up discussion of how quickly judgment is passed when someone is different or “other” in society. 

We see this most blatantly in Baek Dong-hun’s attitude towards Yun-seo as soon as he observes her in the interrogation room. He is convinced that she is the murderer, breaching protocol and committing flagrant violations in pursuit of making his version of the truth become reality. Through his relentless quest to prove her villainy, writer Kwon Jong-kwan paves the way for a damning indictment of the criminal justice system and shows how far it is willing to go to drag criminals down, regardless of actual guilt.

It’s no wonder, then, by the time Yun-seo enters prison, that sides are easily drawn. Jeon Do-yeon’s expressive openness as Yun-seo makes it all the easier to believe her truth, and as she is forced to deal with her new situation, her smiling visage crumbles into something stark. Juxtaposed against Kim Go-eun’s cold and stoically masked Mo Eun, the question of whether or not she’s innocent seems answered. At least, for a time.

Kim Go-eun is at her peak in The Price of Confession with a chilling career-defining performance. 

Once the deal is struck between Yun-seo and Mo Eun, The Price of Confession turns into a lesson in simmering tension. As the circumstances of the deal grow more intense and urgent, the question hangs in the air – will Yun-seo do the unthinkable? How the editing plays into this dances around the question, leaving crumbs here and there for us to follow, but never fully giving away the hand until the final two episodes. 

The many twists and turns the story takes ultimately muddle the perception of characters who are once more easily pegged. Characters we thought were good slowly develop the capacity for great evil. Others, easily seen as the devil incarnate, might not always have been so. And how everything ultimately ends up connected and woven together results in a twist that not only surprises but also makes sense once the pieces are finally pulled together. 

How everything comes together satisfies, but the feeling gained from The Price of Confession comes from more than the writing. The fascinating display of performances from the entire cast creates a compelling tableau of characters that feed into themes of criminality, its manifestations, and the justice system’s complicity in maintaining and – sometimes – generating it. At the center are Jeon Do-yeon and Kim Go-eun, both of whom are already well known for their phenomenal acting talents.

Everything that comes together is built by what the actors put into their characters.

As Yun-su, Jeon Do-yeon lends the character vulnerability and honesty that never reads as forced or dishonest. It paves the way for Mo Eun’s inevitable assessment of how the legal system could so easily ensnare someone like her as she has. Everything the character feels shows on Jeon Do-yeon’s face; Yun-su can’t lie or hide anything, and it shows, yet because of the system’s nature (and potential bias). Yet, despite each twist in the story, we’re still forced to question Yun-su’s true motivations, making for an intriguing viewing experience.

While Do-yeon is incredibly expressive as Yun-su, Kim Go-eun is stone-faced as Mo Eun. With a limited range of motion, Go-eun faces the challenge of discerning the nuances in Mo Eun’s physicality. The result is a character so spine-tingling and chilling that you can’t help but be unnerved. Once her layers are peeled back, however, there’s a darker tragedy that colors everything Mo Eun does, with The Price of Confession paving the way for what may be Kim Go-eun’s strongest performance to date.

From absolute chills to agonizing tension, The Price of Confession absolutely succeeds at getting under the skin. With Jeon Do-yeun and Kim Go-eun at the helm of characters that are equally memorable in their own right, it is impossible to look away. With its many twists and turns, it’s anyone’s guess what is truth and what is fiction until the final reveal drops, making The Price of Confession a must-binge viewing experience. 

The Price of Confession is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.