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The Penthouse: War in Life korean drama review
Completed
The Penthouse: War in Life
2 people found this review helpful
by alexhendrix
Jan 27, 2024
21 of 21 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 8.5
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 9.0

Unapologetically overdramatic makjang

This is a makjang, through and through. If you're out looking for blood (in television, of course), this is the drama for you.

This was always going to be polarizing. It's got a lot of glaring flaws: unrealistic setting, convenient plot devices, plot holes, and a whole lot of need for a suspense of disbelief. But heck if it isn't addictive if you're willing to turn off your common sense. Approach it as if it were a fantasy show, because you're probably going to need that mindset.

Anyways, this has everything you want in a soap opera. It primarily features extremely wealthy families constantly at each others' throats, out of jealousy, desire for power, and sometimes for no reason at all. All this leads to affairs, backstabbing, bullying, and of course, deaths. At its very core, there is a revenge scheme, one that causes ungodly amounts of collateral damage.

The show only follows a loose sense of logic, but it doesn't abandon it entirely, which would've made it impossible to follow. Everything is exaggerated, but it's built around the foundation of the real world. But the real reason you'll be staying is that the show is absolutely one thrill of a ride. For some reason, everyone in the show is obsessed with training their child to become an opera singer, but the show makes singing seem so high-stakes it's borderline hilarious. But then it really hits you with the consequences, and you're just suddenly invested in this war of opera singing because you want someone to end up very badly. That's basically how it is with the show. You're mainly driven by hate, and you're going to hate different characters in the different stages of the story, and you're going to keep watching because you want something unfortunate to happen to them.

In all, it's one heck of a ride, because you never know what's going to happen next. Most of the characters are villainous, some comically so, but it all works in the show's favor, because you're rooting for whatever causes them misfortune, and you're just dying for them to get their comeuppance.

In short? CRACKTASTIC.
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