With popular K-pop idols often turning out to be addicts dependent on performance enhancers, violent criminal gangs creating a network of supply lines in and out of the country, legal and civil administrations cracking down on the dealers’ chain of command, and officers using drug-bust operations to rapidly make their way up their career ladder, the South Korean drug scene is intriguing enough to warrant a crime thriller treatment. However, South Korean director Hwang Byeong-guk’s Yadang: The Snitch is more than a basic crime thriller; it is an acknowledgement of the loss of faith in institutions that assume the power of kingmaker—only to abuse it by exploiting the powerless. Instead of adopting the usual gritty tone that is common in this kind of narrative, there is a unique blend of the somber and the humorous timbre, which works surprisingly well thanks to engaging characterization and emotional dynamics explored in the story.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Lee Kang-su Become a Professional Snitch?
Three years before the present timeline, Lee Kang-su, a cabby by profession, was framed for drug consumption by a group of cops working for the narcotics division. Kang-su was unable to convince anyone of his innocence and was thrown into prison along with notorious drug dealers. The narcotics department needs new cases at regular intervals to justify their budget, which often results in them opting to stage fake cases. Small-time defense prosecutor Ku Gwan-hee met Kang-su and was quick to realize that he was a victim of a similar situation. Observing Kang-su’s sharp intellect, Gwan-hee assigned him to mingle with captive drug dealers and pass on crucial intel, which led to the prosecutor’s office making drug bust operations, and in exchange, Kang-su got acquitted of all charges. This was a win-win situation for both of them, and Prosecutor Ku advised Kang-su to choose snitching, or acting as a middleman between drug dealers and police, as a full-time profession. With his charming personality and wit, Kang-su was rather gifted with his infiltration and intel extraction skills, and he didn’t think twice about acting as an official informant to the authorities. The inner workings of Kang-su’s operations are rather simple: he identifies and strikes a plea bargain deal with low-tier dealers captured by the police to rat on higher-tier buyers and dealers in exchange for reduced sentences. Kang-su gets his share of settlement money from the captives whom he manages to convince to take a plea bargain. Gwan-hee owed a lot to Kang-su for his rapid rise through the ranks in a short span of time.
Three years later, at present, Kang-su is living a lavish life and has formed a sort of brotherly relationship with Gwan-hee. Kang-su informs the prosecutor about a new, extremely expensive variant of meth, Blue (an obvious nod to Breaking Bad), which is being traded on the market by notorious gangster Yeom Tae-su. Nabbing him along with his goods will allow Gwan-hee to reach the top of the proverbial career ladder and become part of the special investigation unit of the Prosecutor General’s office in Seoul Central.
Why Couldn’t Sang-jae Keep His Word To Su-jin?
Meanwhile, Uhm Su-jin, a rising actress, gets detained by narcotics Unit Captain Oh Sang-jae, whose reputation as a tough-as-nails officer with an enviable record of drug bust operations has earned him the nickname Jade Emperor. Su-jin has been arrested with Blue in her possession, but seeing her feeling regret over her actions, Sang-jae takes pity on her and asks her to reveal the name of the dealer and the other addicts involved in her social circle in exchange for acquittal. Su-jin doesn’t reveal the name of the person who got her hooked on drugs but mentions the name of Yeom Tae-su as the dealer. In reality, presidential candidate Cho Sang-taek’s bratty, addict son, Cho Sang-hoon, was the one who made Su-jin an addict by spiking her drinks. Given how influential a person Cho Hoon is, Su-jin refrained from exposing him but agreed to inform the authorities of the location of an upcoming party where a number of her addict friends will be present.
Sang-jae and his team of cops wait for the perfect opportunity to nab Tae-su, but Prosecutor Ku and Kang-su snatch their target away from right under their noses, much to Sang-jae’s dismay. Later on, following Su-jin’s intel, Sang-jae prepares to raid the Laura Hill hotel, and once again, the chief prosecutor and his team, accompanied by Kang-su, beat them to it. Kang-su records the ongoing debauchery in the club, and using his video feed recording sunglasses, gathers evidence against Cho Hoon and other present addicts. Cho Hoon had forcibly injected Su-jin and had her join the party, which is why she gets detained by the prosecutor’s office as well. Sang-jae fails to keep his promise to Su-jin and gets into a heated argument with Prosecutor Ku.
Things take a shocking turn when presidential candidate Cho Sang-taek offers Gwan-hee the lucrative deal of higher career prospects in exchange for acquitting his son of the charges and keeping the raid a secret from the public. Gwan-hee is an ambitious, driven, and determined lawman, which is why he made it this far amidst cutthroat competition between legal and civil divisions. But thus far there has been no indication that he would absolutely wreck his own moral compass in his greed. Gwan-hee initiates a fake case against Captain Sang-jae by linking him with Yeom Tae-su and has him detained, and to eliminate any unofficial account/evidence of the event, orders Yeom Tae-su to have Kang-su beaten, tortured, and injected with drugs. Death was a better escape for Kang-su, who gets his legs broken and burned by Tae-su’s thug and is forcibly turned into an addict. Su-jin, Sang-jae, and Kang-su—the crooked prosecutor ruined three lives in one fell swoop and secured his own position as the nation’s leading lawman.
Why Did Sang-jae Partner Up With Kang-su?
Kang-su’s life gets upturned within a night, as if fate balanced out his meteoric success with desperation and misery by slamming him back to reality. At this point, one of Kang-su’s dealer buddies, Chang-rak, comes to his aid as he gets him to stick to a strict rehab routine. With extreme difficulty, Kang-su starts building himself back up, and after months of rigorous physical and mental training, he returns to his former self. On the other hand, Su-jin is revealed to have become an addict and supplier after getting bail, and the false case made against Sang-jae doesn’t hold long in court, although he is threatened with more trials by Sang-taek’s lawyer after getting bail. Park Hyun-sook, spokesperson for the opposition party in the presidential election, reaches out to Detective Sang-jae to get dirt on Cho Hoon by mentioning the hotel raid, but Sang-jae is trying to move on with his family by his side, and he refuses to share anything regarding the case. On the other hand, Prosecutor Ku has built up a solid rapport with Cho Hoon and shows his loyalty by building a fake case of accepting donations from an imprisoned embezzler against Park Hyun-sook, whose recurrent probing into the hotel raid incident was causing a nuisance for Sang-taek’s election campaign. Yeom Tae-su is strengthening his drug empire by working directly under Prosecutor Ku’s protection.
Kang-su, who by now has an idea of Su-jin’s role as an informant of the Laura Hill hotel raid, manages to set up a meeting with her by using Chang-rak as a customer. Kang-su plans to get back at his tormentors, and at Su-jin’s suggestion, he approaches Sang-jae with the proposition of joining hands against their common enemy. Initially, Sang-jae gets infuriated at the sight of Kang-su, given his past role as an informant, and considers him to be involved in Prosecutor Ku’s devious machinations. However, upon learning about his predicament, that Gwan-hee had thrown him under the bus to cover up the hotel raid, the disgruntled detective lets his past grudge go. Also, the main reason as to why Sang-jae agrees to join hands is because he feels guilty for what happened to Su-jin, that he was not able to protect her as promised, even though he didn’t get a chance to do so given he himself became a target of the crooked prosecutor.
What was the plan to expose Prosecutor Ku and Cho Hoon?
The trio (also Chang-rak) plan to take the battle to Prosecutor Ku and Cho Hoon by working through two different angles. The first one is to get the video evidence that was recorded on Kang-su’s specialized sunglasses, which are now in the possession of Yeom Tae-su. The second phase involves Su-jin, who agrees to record the reality of Cho Hoon’s debauched cruise parties, gathering evidence of him being an addict and exposing him to the media and the authorities. Sang-jae and Kang-su approach Kim Hak-nam, a restaurant owner who’s secretly a drug supplier, who previously worked for Yeom Tae-su. Hak-nam acted as a mediator between Tae-su and a Japanese buyer named Yamamoto, but greedy Tae-su eliminated the second-party supply line from the equation and directly approached Yamamoto to do business with him, much to Hak-nam’s dismay. Pressuring Hak-nam, the duo learn about Tae-su’s supply route, and with a preplanned interference, manage to capture Yeom Tae-su and seize the drugs supplied by him. However, one of Sang-jae’s former deputies, now working as narcotics division chief, is revealed to be in cahoots with Prosecutor Ku, as he reveals to him about the trio working together, along with the news of Yeom Tae-su’s arrest. On the other hand, Su-jin manages to record solid evidence of Cho hoon’s drug addiction by attending one of his cruise parties and manages to leave with Chang-rak after returning to the shores. Unfortunately, Gwan-hee informs Cho hoon about the whole situation, and before Su-jin can meet with Kang-su and Sang-jae, she and Chang-rak meet a horrendous road accident—set in motion by Cho hoon’s men. One of Cho Hoon’s operatives takes her phone, where she had stored the evidence, and kills a grievously wounded Su-jin.
Did Prosecutor Ku and Cho Hoon Get Their Comeuppance?
Demoralized and broken, Kang-su doesn’t feel like carrying on the good fight any longer and plans on giving up. However, Detective Sang-jae is now more determined than ever to do right by Su-jin; to honor her memory, he pledges to bring the culprits to justice. A new plan is hatched, as Kang-su now directly threatens Prosecutor Ku Gwan-hee by sending him a copy of the hotel raid video, where it is shown that Gwan-hee was arresting an intoxicated Cho Hoon. Gwan-hee meets up with Kang-su, and after confessing to being responsible for making his life miserable in the first place, demands the original video by threatening him with further consequences. Kang-su in turn warns him of payback, threatening Gwan-hee that he will expose him. With the presidential election approaching soon, Gwan-hee fears things can go out of control as Cho Hoon’s scandal becomes a recurrent topic of discussion in the media, thanks to the opposition party using the rumors to their leverage.
In Yadang: The Snitch’s ending, Kang-su and Sang-jae hatch an ingenious plan to beguile their adversaries. The duo go directly to opposition party spokesperson Park Hyun-sook with the intention to deliver the evidence, but Sang-jae gets abducted by operatives sent by Prosecutor Ku. Kang-su goes to Hak-nam to thoroughly investigate Yeom Tae-su’s drug network, and she ends up informing Gwan-hee of the situation—apparently to stay in his good books. The crooked prosecutor coerces Sang-jae to reveal Kang-su’s location by threatening his family and offers his job back in exchange for compliance. Sang-jae shares the location, and Gwan-hee sends Yeom Tae-su to take down Kang-su once and for all and destroy any recorded evidence he might have with him. However, Tae-su and his men arrive at the location and get a nasty surprise as Hak-nam and her thugs, accompanied by Yamamoto’s men, attack and brutally murder every single one of them. Yamamoto was furious with Tae-su for losing his shipment, and Hak-nam had a vendetta against Tae-su as well. Kang-su managed to convince Hak-nam to fool Prosecutor Ku to draw out Yeom Tae-su in exchange for the stolen shipment of drugs. After learning about this, Gwan-hee gets extremely anxious, and to keep his image clean, he decides to bring Cho hoon to a drug test, informing a reporter, Song, who helped him to put up false cases, to bring this to public attention. It seems that Prosecutor Ku is betraying Cho Sang-taek to save his own skin, but in reality, as he reveals to Cho Hoon at his office, he planned to falsify the test and reveal the result a week before the election day, just in time for the opposition to no longer be able to control the narrative. Which means Cho Sang-taek’s political ambition won’t be hampered, as his son’s image will remain clean. Prosecutor General office members join Gwan-hee and Cho Hoon in their preemptive victory celebration.
However, Kang-su, who knows how Gwan-hee’s devious mind works, anticipated something like this happening, and he had arranged for Sang-jae to be arrested in the first place to set an audio bug by switching Gwan-hee’s lighter. Kang-su stations himself at a rooftop from where he records the activities in Prosecutor Ku’s office using a long-focus telephoto lens and posts the real-time streaming of the video coupled with the audio on YouTube. Needless to say, people finally get to see the true faces of Gwan-hee and Cho hoon. Gwan-hee locates Kang-su on the rooftop and tries to take him down in vain, only for Kang-su to humiliate him further before leaving.
A coward, Cho Hoon dies by committing suicide before Detective Sang-jae and his narcotics unit approach him. Cho Sang-taek’s political campaign is ruined, and Prosecutor Ku gets detained by the authorities. In a somewhat funny mid-credits scene, it is shown that Kang-su has gone back to his old ways of acting as Yadang, or a snitch; he swindles Hak-nam and Yamamoto as, in the guise of handing them Yeom Tae-su’s shipment, he hands them over to Sang-jae’s team. However, Kang-su was planning to take the money seized from the deal, and Sang-jae handcuffs him. It seems this partnership will continue to grow in the future, and hopefully neither of them will end up betraying the other.
Cockroach Symbol
There is one prominent symbol that appears thrice throughout the movie, that is of the cockroaches, which Prosecutor Ku identifies with drug dealers. Merely taking down a single one of them will not solve the invasive pest problem; tracking the whole colony with the help of a single one is necessary to exterminate the lot of them. Prosecutor Ku’s approach of using snitches to bust drug operations by tracking the entire network followed a similar approach. During Kang-su’s struggle with addiction, it is also mentioned that during the recovery period, addicts hallucinate cockroaches and bugs. At the end, before getting taken away by the authorities, Prosecutor Ku hallucinates cockroaches, which symbolizes his addiction to power and greed finally getting to him.
