This review may contain spoilers
NamGoong Min!!!!!
What can I say? This was really a masterpiece. I'm just not convince on how they end the story. It will be better if they end it like everybody should have been back into proper places and live a happy life as what they wanted in the first place. No romance at all and The Writer was really brilliant in this aspect because the Character of Namgoong Min here was very different. He has emotion here but he doesn't know how to show it. Actually, without the other characters, NamGoong Min can really pull off the story alone. He is one of the few Actors in South Korea that is very versatile and that what makes this series a successful one....Was this review helpful to you?
Interesting start that falls a bit flat near the end
Well made, but after 10 episodes or so we know everything that's truly important... The last episodes were much less interesting than the first, and so it falls a bit flat near the end. Still, a solid 8 in my opinion, and a thriller worth watching.What I really liked was the backstory and the interesting character of Namgoong Min. The background music was also very good and added to the dramatic feel of it all.
What I liked less was the scientific nonsense. It's to be expected in any story that attempts to incorporate sci-fi elements of course, which makes it forgivable as long as it is not too obvious - I could forgive it here because I've seen worse. It definitely paints scientists as people without a conscience though, willing to sacrifice anything for an endgoal. But then, every story needs a bad guy so that too is forgivable. And as opposed to other kdramas, they do make the police upper management not entirely corrupt but more of a grey zone, which is something I haven't seen too often: they're either made out to be the bad or the good guys.
Regarding the storyline. It starts incredibly strong: you're wondering who the culprit is, and then Captain Do is this fascinating mystery. But at a certain point half-way into the story, all of his mysteriousness is gone. We know exactly who he is and how he came to be at this point in his life, why he does what he does. And sadly, as his mystery is gone, so is the plot development and my interest. At that point, the story is just like this. Team Evil tries to get Captain Do, they fail, and Captain do tries to find their location and gradually gets closer but never close enough. The story just doesn't move along anymore.
And so, while it was interesting enough to watch the show completely, it doesn't match up with the best of the best thrillers out there.
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unreadable.
The main character is smart and can be said to be unreadable at all at the beginning of the episode I thought he was just an ordinary detective but all the cases he handled did not think that he was the one who made the problem and I always asked what happened 28 years ago but everything was revealed when I found out I was very surprised and felt sorry for the children who became test subjects and it was all the work of rich people who wanted to live forever. namgong min acting no joke i think.Was this review helpful to you?
the second best drama for Nam Goong Min ever
Korean drama "Awaken" is a 2020 Korean drama belonging to South Korea and is produced by Tvn. The drama I can say was one of the most beautiful dramas of this year's research that I was watching that gave me a special pleasure and a wonderful beauty, as well as the storywriter and director of the drama were at the top of it, and I don't talk about the actor "Nam Gong Min" because his works were always excellent and gave full importance to his dramas , Then the other actors of the drama were very good and there was a great chemist in it, which was very good for the dramaWas this review helpful to you?
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Great cast and director; weak female character development
This is a good series, but it does sag occasionally because the sequencing can be too long and limp for the actual plot and character development. Not enough attention is given to developing the female leads or the relationships between characters. It puts more emphasis on plot than on character development, but even then the writer leaves too many holes that she continues to spin, and not effectively. However, the series can definitely be recommended for its terrific cast and directors who keep the audience’s attention throughout despite the writer’s occasional oversights.Was this review helpful to you?
Worst drama this year?
ml is like an ex macchina and the only powerful person there , FLs are portrayed as useless af. FL aka seolhyun can't act to save her life, it's actually very unbearable, Jamie aaaah what a waste of Lee chang ah but yeah her character is so badly written that even she can't save it. Definitely would have liked to swap her with 1st fl. For me it's the worst drama or at least in my top 10 but I see some might enjoy it with its floaws you just have to skip so much. So really you decide. The best thing about it is that it has come to end. If you are looking for a good solid drama don't waste your time here. Go look somewhere else!
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This review may contain spoilers
Good but lacks some elements that would have made it great
8/10 is my rating. This is a 2020;2021 mystery, action thriller with 16, 70 minute episodes.First I provide a unique synopsis then review.
Synopsis
28 years ago an odd series of murders happened in a village that were labeled the “white night” incident. They never fully unravelled why people were committing murder in a gleeful melee. It is happening again and Do Jung-woo (Namkoong Min) who leads a special task force of homicide detectives, is determined to unravel the mysterious events unfolding currently and determine how they tie to the past occurrences. Jung woo is brilliant but unconventional and yet has the admiration of those around him for his ability to discern the nearly indiscernible. At times he knows things that FBI profiler, Jamie Leighton (Lee Chung ah) grows to suspect could only be known by the killer. Jamie was born in South Korea but adopted into an American family and only recently returned to South Korea. She is hired to help the special team in investigating and profiling these unusual cases. Not all is as it seems and as the two very different detectives work together they remember a shared connection they had as children.
Review
This is a good addition to this trope and if you are looking for something that focuses more on crime, mystery and action than romance this is it. It is fast paced and kept me interested the whole way through. I would recommend this to someone that likes crime shows with a supernatural component. It ends well and happy.
Spoilers
The start of the series is very complex with a lot happening so that if you can’t focus completely on it you are likely to miss things. It would lose me sometimes just because I am not one that likes to have to focus that intently for such a long period. For some that complexity would be part of the charm.
The former FBI team member from the United States was not entirely credible. She spoke English well but with such a heavy accent it was hard to believe she spent such a significant amount of time in the United States. It may not have been as big of deal but they emphasized her “Americanness” enough that it highlighted t and not in a good way. I think the script would have been fine if they made it so she went to the US but didn’t make it like she was essentially American.
I was a little irritated that Jamie, and other team members, would not let go of their suspicion that Jung Woo was the culprit when virtually every fact pointed away from him. They were like “yeah he wasn’t there but he probably did it remotely.” Based on what? How did they come to believe so strongly that the lucid dreaming could be influenced remotely?
I get that South Korean ‘s are very filial but totally looking away from a parent that commits the murder of hundreds of innocents? I don’t think even a child that lived in a culture where respect of elders is key could forgive and accept that. And they kept saying/implying if you show remorse then things can just be forgiven. No they can’t. Having seen over 300 Asian series at this point I have seen several where the parent has done something so egregious the children write them off. If committing mass murder isn’t one of them I don’t know what is.
They set a bomb or series of bombs to go off at the secret research facility with a timer set for five minutes. Why? They knew their people and others were in there and should have suspected something could go wrong where they couldn’t get out in that timeframe. There was no program kill switch? These people were brilliant and yet they can’t figure out how to abort the bomb detonation? I found that to be not bey believable as the super geniuses from the program should have been smart enough to undo that trigger and/or to foresee that things could go wrong.
So the super genius level scientists can’t figure out that there is no plan to use their work for the betterment of humanity but rather for a few very elite people? If they had just portrayed that they were really super evil and didn’t care at all that would have been one thing but they made it out like they really thought their work would do good. So they tried to make them more sympathetic characters than I felt they deserved.
It did end well and mostly happy but I really wanted to see the young woman detective and our main guy get together. It was so obvious they had feelings for each other but they danced around that possibility with the plot. And, at the end, she sees him and goes chasing after but he is gone. Like smoke. So it is obvious it is being left open for another season. I don’t like that. Make another season or don’t. Holding your viewers hostage or making them decide how things went after, I don’t like that. I don’t think it was enough to say don’t watch it, but I definitely find the more nebulous endings annoying. I don’t want to tel the story myself, I want you to tell it to me screen writers.
#Awaken
#LeeChungAh
#NoomkoongMin
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The drama stands on amazing performance of Namkoong
I have to say Namkoong made this drama. As always he delivered awesome performance.To be honest I was slightly loosing the interest half way through the drama if not for Nam maybe I would drop the drama. The first half was so good but after that the storyline was getting weaker and no proper development of characters. It is disappointing as the storyline is really interesting and it could be a great drama. The chemistry between leads is great.
overall the drama is good but mostly because of Nam as he stolen the show.
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This review may contain spoilers
For lovers of genre
I watched "Awaken" based on VIKI's introduction, expecting a crime thriller maybe in the style of "Flower of Evil" or "The Devil", two series I really adoredAt the beginning, I followed with good expectations, thanks to a rather impressive incipit and with intriguing subsequent suggestions, even though the typifications of the main characters were not particularly original (the usual typecasting of the variegated team at work always reminds me of certain Japanese robot cartoons of childhood with the leader, the beauty, the clumsy and the nerd, those things, in short...).
However, as the episodes went on, I began to have more than one doubt about the direction of the series with a growing sense of annoyance, a red alert for a scenario completely different from the initial perspective; getting to the point, the expansion to Sci-Fi and things of this nature I had not really planned for and at that point the interest really dropped exponentially...
I mean, it's not that the story is particularly boring, it's reasonably elaborate and repeatedly tries to revive the attention with impactful cliffhangers, but the problem is that 'Awaken' really does come at a very late stage and smashes open doors from so many previous ones...
With everything we ‘ve had, from 'The X-Files' to 'Stranger Things', via 'Dark Angel' and their many epigones with 'special kids', it's a moment's notice to find yourself in such trite situations that you're able to understand much of the unfolding almost immediately.
The usual secret labs, the usual child-guinea-pigs, the usual mad doctors, between Dr. Frankenstein and the many crazed demiurges in a delirium of omnipotence, perhaps even parents of the aforementioned lab subjects
In overall terms, for fans of the same genre, it is certainly something that can intrigue and involve, but at the same time, for the aficionado with a little knowledge of the material, it is impossible not to notice the incredible accumulation of references, clichés and tired stereotypes that make the nose twitch, as well as the usual holes in the logic that often screw up the elaboration and development of many situations...
And it's a pity, because in my opinion the moral dimension of the story should have been highlighted more, thanks to the excellent performance of the main character Namkoong Min, capable of casting for several episodes the classic shadow of doubt on his true nature; it's also a shame for the little in-depth analysis between our super-child and the really disturbing mad scientist-mother, limited to the last episodes; the same goes for the police-daughter/father-scientist relationship, with an always excellent Kim Chang Wan in a role that would have deserved a better deepening, but then the police daughter (who we are told is also of great merit) really knows practically nothing about her father's work, for all those years! ?
The lead character in the guise of a wanted possible multiple homicide who calmly drives around the city, in defiance of roadblocks, checkpoints, camera recordings or phone interceptions (as seen in so many dramas or movies) is inexcusable, as is the Terminator-turn with the relative moving of trucks with his hands (but why?), with sudden and opportune super-powers...
A comic anthology is the three days wasted by Jamie (by the way, she, Lee Chung Ah, really beautiful -nda) and the nosey reporter waiting for the rain to cease so they can go by boat to the island-laboratory, and then the two 'super-boys' who come and go in a flash, at night, and how do they do it, maybe flying!?
It gets to the end rather tiredly due to the too many twists and turns of the drama with a pretty predictable and practically inevitable ending that leaves that inevitable sense of déjà-vu and general discontent quite marked...
Personally my rating is 7/10, fairly generous, more for the first part of the story and for some of the acting performances:
Of course Namkoong Min who certainly doesn't need me to tell him that (he's a class actor!) and something in the minor characterisations but at the end of the whole affair there are no particular desires left for second viewings...
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Just wow!
Let me start by saying that this is not my go-to genre. It's kind of hard for me to rate, because usually I rate on my enjoyment of a series. I, truthfully, can say that I didn't really enjoy it - wait, before you jump down my throat, hear me out. I didn't like the way it made me feel. It was dark and depressing, with the barest hint of clever repartee to lighten the mood slightly every so often. So, bottom line, the show achieved what it set out to do. It was so well written, and the acting was absolutely top-notch. I felt uncomfortable while watching it, watching morally/mentally gray characters. It raised a lot of questions while watching it: Where is the line between right and wrong? Is it hard to keep trying to straddle that line? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Do we ever really know those around us?Most of the actors I had seen in other works, and they all seemed to be different versions of themselves than I had seen before. The sign of good acting.
If I didn't have to have a minimum word count, my review would consist of these two words - Namkoong Min. Always brilliant. I do have to make a complaint about the makeup on him. It looked like they went overboard on the self-tanner. His skin was so much darker than everyone else, it really bothered me. And I could have done without the sleazy moustache.
So, my suggestion is that you watch it, but be prepared to want to give up your daily life until you've finished it. It's just that good.
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Ups and downs in an overall decent drama
This drama goes through essentially 3 different stages so it's hard to talk about it as a whole. The first part is the classic murder mystery with a serial killer who seems to be able to do the impossible. It's pretty interesting and I liked how the story was evolving case by case. After about a third of the drama, the story changes and it becomes very fractured. Essentially it's like the table was flipped and now the pieces are all scattered. Characters get moved around and the status quo is broken in order to have some of the characters discover things on their own. Eventually they come all together for the last third of the story in a somewhat solid resolution. The last episode has some issues that trip it up and logically there were different ways for the story to unfold in the finale. Overall I would say that the first half is pretty interesting, second half also has some good plot reveals and twists, and the third half barely is able to make it all wrap up. My biggest critique is that there weren't palpable stakes. The actions of any of the villains were always against a third party or another villain. Very rarely were they actually acting against the main characters and there were very few moments where I felt there was real danger.Another thing was that I just finished Kill It which had some very similar themes to this drama. That was a mistake in my opinion as I started getting details from both dramas mixed up.
Surprisingly I would say this is one of Nam Goong Min's weaker acting performances. There were moments where he shine or was given room to actually perform. But the moments where he was acting smarter than everyone else started to get boring for me. Seolhyun wasn't amazing but she gave a decent performance. Nothing to noteworthy besides Lee Chung Ha as I thought she has some really unique character traits in the first half of the drama. It got kinda lost as the story started centering mainly around Nam Goong Min's character.
Overall, solid watch and a good drama. Things could have been different or better in my opinion. If you want something that has a little bit more of a punch to it, dramas like Stranger are far superior in mystery and stakes.
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