The Bequeathed (2024)

A clever adaptation of “Chinatown” undercut by unreal storylines

“The Bequeathed” is well worth watching. The acting is fantastic. Its characters are quickly and effectively drawn with compelling backstories. And its production values, with its artistic aspects (cinematography, music, set design, etc.), create the perfect environment for a tense crime drama.

But the script is flawed. Its characters act irrationally, have bizarre motives and possess unrealistic abilities.

I’ll dissect its flaws in the below spoilers’ section. But please don’t read it before watching this drama. The show is relatively short, just 6 episodes. And the journey, with fascinating twists, is incredibly entertaining. But if you know the spoilers, it ruins the experience. (It’s like watching a taped-delayed football game after learning the score.)

Still, analyzing shows is also fun. So enjoy. Then come back to this review to see if my criticisms hold water.

Spoilers/Analysis:
This show is similar to Polanski’s “Chinatown” in style (film noir) and substance (incest, property rights). But, as mentioned, it suffers from unbelievable characters and illogical storylines.

Let’s focus on the main plot and its key characters.

1. Yoon Myung-gil; the property owner. Scheming locals killed Yoon Myung-gil to force the sale of his property, the family burial grounds.
2. Yoon Seo-ha; Myung-gil’s niece. She’s an associate professor whose career is floundering and her marriage is failing. Although she never met Myung-gil, she stands to inherit his property.
3. Kim Young-ho; an emotionally disturbed stranger. He claims to be related to Seo-ha and Myung-gil and seeks title to the property.
4. Yoon Myung-hee; Myung-gil’s sister and Young-ho’s mother. She’s the killer.
5. Choi Tae-song; the hotel owner/mobster. He needs cash to impress his future in-laws.

The problematic issues:

1. The main character, Yoon Seo-ha:
Seo-ha is an Art History assistant professor whose husband is unfaithful and is struggling to navigate the treacherous waters of workplace politics (backstabbing coworkers and an abusive, lecherous boss). A detective provides her with evidence that her husband is cheating on her. When her uncle, Myung-gil, dies intestate, she and her husband stand to inherit his property after the police determine Seo-ha is Myung-gil’s only living relative.

Complications regarding her inheritance arise when a mentally unstable stranger, Young-ho, accosts her at Myung-gil’s funeral, claiming to be the rightful heir. He stalks/terrorizes her.

Seo-ha confronts her husband with evidence of his infidelity and demands a divorce. He demands a share of her inheritance first. He’s killed shortly thereafter.

So, with her life in turmoil, what does Seo-ha do? She considers buying and operating a rundown hotel from a sleazy owner based on the advice of a shifty private eye.

In what universe does this occur? This is simply absurd.

But it gets worse.

2. The hotel owner, Choi Tae-song:
Tae-song needs cash fast. His great money-making scheme is to unload his fleabag hotel at an inflated price to a naïve Seo-ha who will be rich once she inherits Myung-gil’s property.

Really? That’s Tae-song’s solution to his money troubles?

First, why would he think Seo-ha would want the hotel, and would be able to quickly secure the funding? His genius plan to facilitating Seo-ha’s inheritance is – wait for it –to force Young-ho to release his property claim by making him an offer he can’t refuse (beating him up till he signs a quitclaim deed).

How could this plan possibly work? The police are already investigating two murders tied to this property. (Soon there would be three.) Would Tae-song really want to be drawn into a murder investigation?

This gets more outrageous when we learn Tae-song is a mobster with murderous thugs and a crooked lawyer on his payroll. Two things; this revelation means he would be even more motivated to avoid police scrutiny. And second, you don’t have to be a criminologist to know there are simpler ways for a mobster to raise money.

In the end, Tae-song decides to kill both Seo-ha and Young-ho. But with Seo-ha dead he won’t be able to consummate the hotel sale. Sure, the climactic kiln scene was cool, but completely illogical.

Finally, there’s his motivation. Tae-song needs the cash because his daughter is getting married to a doctor and he wants to impress his wealthy in-laws by buying the lad a clinic. Beyond absurd.

3. The killer, Yoon Myung-hee:
This is where the story goes off the rails. Myung-hee is Myung-gil‘s sister. She had an incestuous relationship with their older brother, who is also Seo-ha’s father. Crazy Kim Young-ho is their unregistered/undocumented child.

There are all sorts of problems with this character. In the first episode, the police investigation revealed she was dead. There’s no explanation why they were mistaken?

Second, Myung-hee is a frail septuagenarian weighing no more that 115 pounds soaking wet. This brings into question her feats of strength. How was she able to dump Seo-ha’s husband’s body in the creek? (The coroner stated he was dragged by his collar to that spot.) How did she stuff the hulking detective back in his car? And how did she maneuver an unconscious Seo-ha into her truck, then her cave?

It gets worse. As acknowledged in the show, the person entitled to inherit the property is none other than Myung-hee. That’s right. When Myung-gil dies, as the sole surviving sibling, she gets it all.

Why doesn’t Myung-hee file a claim? Here’s how the show explains it. She suffered humiliation as a child due to disfigurement - a cleft palate. If she revealed her true identity, Young-ho’s illegitimacy would be revealed, subjecting him to ridicule. Apparently killing a few innocent people is preferable to name-calling.

Not only is this a ridiculous calculation, it’s not true. First, revealing her identity would have no impact on Young-ho whatsoever. She could still keep his identity a secret. She gets the property, sells it, and gives him the money. Who would know?

Finally, Even if Myung-hee was successful in her plan to kill Seo-ha and her husband, Young-ho still doesn’t inherit the property. He’s an unacknowledged illegitimate child. He wouldn’t have any claim to a blood relative’s estate beyond that of his biological parents. (Korean Civil Code, 2021.) He has no intestate right any other relative’s property. As such, that land would revert to the state/local village. Myung-hee should have consulted a Korean trust and estates lawyer before going on her meaningless killing spree.

A couple of final problematic issues:

1. The family plot. After being terrorized by estranged family members/lunatics over a parcel of property bequeathed to her by someone she never met, Seo-ha decides to keep it. That makes perfect sense. Because after all, this land holds so much meaning to her – it’s a treasured family legacy; her roots. Apparently, nothing’s more valuable to Seo-ha than those cherished memories of her family and the good times they shared. Yuck.

The underlying message of this show is the exact opposite. When a family is dysfunctional and the relationships are toxic; the best thing to do is to cut all ties. Keeping with the story arc, it should have concluded with Seo-ha dumping the property the second she secured title. (Incidentally, the detective subplot provided the family redemption theme.)

2. The poison. Thallium comes in a medicine bottle. It’s not packaged and shipped in bags that look like sacks of fertilizer, as depicted in the show. And ingesting a gram or two is fatal. The quantity found at the construction site would have killed the entire population of Korea (and cost a fortune).

3. The title. “The Bequeathed” is grammatically incorrect. Bequeath is a verb; e.g. Grandma bequeathed her wedding ring to Mollie.

At a minimum, the show should be renamed “The Bequest.” But that doesn’t really fit either since a bequest is an affirmative act; giving an item to another through a will. Here, Myung-gil didn’t have a will.

The correct title should be, “The Inheritance.”

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Too much story for too few episodes

Feb 2024
The story pretty much takes us straight into the mood of this gritty and dark drama, which is heavy, unsettling and pretty dreary.
There are no particularly nice characters at all.
Detective Choi Seong Jun is probably the only one I found ok, but his reaction to something in his past and lack of doing anything about it, knocked him down in my eyes, too.
There is zero humour in this, at all.
The creepy events that the death of the owner of land with a family burial site on it, sets in motion, are really mysterious.
There are gripping scenes and the feelings of threat rarely let up. It's not as violent as some recent dramas, by far, yet it still manages to shock at times.
The final reveal of the cause of the events following Yoon Seo-ha's inheritance, are a real twist.
I found her central character very hard to like. Some of her actions should have had consequences and her personality was so fake, just like her patience, which was actually supressed anger hidden behind a sycophantic lifeless smile. She stands up to her slimy husband, but not to someone she works for, who basically uses her.
Supposedly intelligent, yet her utter cluelessness and trust in people most of us would see as totally dodgy, was eye rolling.
I also got irritated by the character's stunted and emotionless response to things, which just wasn't believable.
Then there's the police unit tasked with solving the strange goings on, which like in EVERY other K-drama, it seems, cannot be totally effective.
There's a lazy does nothing but approve stuff Chief and an inept Police Captain, who has tunnel vision and history with Seong-jun. This creates additional tension to an already fraught relationship between the two and does nothing for the investigation either. I found it really frustrating.
Another plot line involving Seong-jun was unnecessary in its depth and only a vehicle for the main story. It just wasted time.
A lot (too much really), was crammed into 6 episodes, all less than 1 hour long. The story was told and concluded, but consequently lacked substance.
Overall it was an OK watch and pretty clever, but I was far from blown away.

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The Bequeathed

TW: suicide, murder, shooting, loss, death.

just saying the whole reason I watched this is because of the actor park sunghoon / jae jun from the glory.

the first episode of this kdrama was very slow, the 'step-brother' creeped me out during the funeral and thought he was going to be this creepy kidnapper, and when they were looking at the uncles dead body, park sunghoons characther covering his nose is really funny, because his reaction to the dead body was completly true. and the ending of the epsiode completly shocked me because when i saw the description of the show I never expected that there was going to be a killer and my boy park sunghoon got shot in the head :cries:

the middle of the series, the 'step-brother' still freaked me out because his eyes and doing some weird thing with chicken blood or something, and a lot more murders happend and the detectives that were looking after the victims didn't make sense, because one detective got stabbed in the leg by the other detectives soon and that shocked me to be honest, and not visting your son in prision is messed up.

then finally for the finale episode, the sweet home alabama in this episode is crazy the 'step-brothers' mother is in love with her 'step-daughters' father :skull: it's crazy bro and her being the killer is crazy and i don't understand why she did it. and the detectives are really smart in this episode, then finally it reached to the part where the 'step-brother' is in the fire thingy, and protecting his sister is amazing, and i feel like he has mental problems but he still cared deeply for his sister, and the mother full on dedicating her life just to save her son is crazy. and the detectives having a cute little bromance driving super slowly WHILE THEIR VICTIMS ARE BLOODY FUCKING DYING IN A BURNING BUILDING, AND THEY HAD TO SAVE THEMSELVES. and when they got there they barely did anything. and they let the mother walk into a burning building and *kill herself* and the detectives just stood there so that's fun. I got a bit mad at the ending because the women didn't even visit her 'step-brother' and i wanted to see his reaction to the photo of his family, the father, him, and the sister.

i rate it 8/10

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this is how you start a year correctly

INI SERU SIH dari eps 1. Beneran dibikin penasaran gitu sama plotnya walaupun plotnya banyak maju-mundur 🥲 dan CUMA drama ini bjir yg aku harus fotoin karakternya satu-satu sama inget bener2 namanya biar ga ketuker & ngeh. Soalnya seconfusing itu??? Tapi confusingnya tuh yg seru bukan yg bikin stressful gitu ngerti ga sih??? Sinematografi ok sih. BIG plot twist di eps 5 AWKAHAKZHAM beneran ga nyangka bgt 😁🫵🏻💔 i thought her stepbro yg jahat gitu tAPI taunya kaga anjirrrr gw jadi kasian akhirnya. Dan menurutku ini epsnya terlalu DIKITTT. Pas eps 3, baru sadar kalo cuma 6 eps dimana konflik masih seru2nya. Jadi ya for the ending kaya... abis gitu aja ga terlalu WAh bgt. Minusnya itu aja sih. Untuk sensasi thrilling ini ok banget sih 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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Well done crime drama / mystery

Unusual in that it's only 6 episodes, and the conclusion wrap-up is only minutes long. Usually these dramas last 12 or 16 episodes with a full hour devoted to what happens to each character. Here this was extremely abbreviated. The main story drops several hints pointing in the right direction to figure out who was behind the crimes without giving anything away. The separate arc involving the two detectives is particularly well done and arrives at a satisfactory conclusion. Of course, rewatch potential is for following closely the early hints leading to the conclusion. The best measure of a series is the urgency felt to watch the next episode and I found myself looking forward to each next episode.

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not entertaining enough

i was looking forward to this drama and had high expectations, so it was really sad when i started and it wasn't able to keep me hooked enough to watch all the episodes. the story is interesting, but too slow paced (how can a show that only has six episodes be so slow?), and that doesn't particularly please me. i wanted to know how the story would end and i thought several times about just watch the remaining episodes to finally finish it, but the first episodes failed to make my want to know the story's conclusion strong enough for me to be willing to watch the rest after three boring episodes.

there are many great mystery/thriller dramas out there but this is definitely not one of them.

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Good Acting but Lacking in Depth

This was well-acted but the story itself was only 6 episodes, and I feel like it lacked some depth and suffered some bc of that. It was not very scary or thrilling, but I was intrigued at where the story was going and it was enough to keep me entertained on a Sunday afternoon. Overall, it was alright but definitely not as good as his other media (Train to Busan, Hellbound, etc.). I just couldn't help but feel that the FL was rather selfish, and it made me hard to sympathize with her. Also, I wish that we had more time & follow up with the two detectives bc their story itself was interesting. Overall giving this an 8/10 bc the cast truly was very good. Would have been much better with more time spent on thrilling twists & character development.

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A protagonista não sustentou

Eu queria ter gostado bem mais, no entanto, "A herdeira" não foi nem de longe algo que eu esperava de um kdrama de suspense. São 6 episódios bem fracos que mesclam duas histórias com planos de fundo interessantes, mas que não entregou muito.

A história gira em torno de Yoon Seo-ha, uma profissional da educação que herda um cemitério após a morte do tio. A trama se desenrola com a chegada de seu meio-irmão, Kim Yeong-ho, que também reivindica parte da herança. Então, a vida dessa mulher muda drasticamente ao ser ameaçada tanto por uma cidade que ela não conhece como por policias, pois assassinatos começam a acontecer.

A personagem é frágil em todos os aspectos da vida, e isso me incomodou demais. A resiliência beirava a idiotice, sendo que tudo o que tinha como "certo" desmoronava e ela lá, impassível.

O que me manteve no enredo foram os dois detetives, por já terem sido grandes amigos e hoje haver uma guerra fria entre ambos. O que motiva isso é muito interessante, além de causar um problema familiar gigante, que é bem desenvolvido.

Enquanto os episódios se arrastavam para uma trama que beirava a discriminação com assuntos religiosos bem comum em kdrama, ia crescendo com flashbacks uma narrativa familiar estranha, e foi o que salvou tudo no final. Ter um tema tabu, algo fora da curva e que rende uma boa reviravolta é o que às vezes salva pra mim.

Eu gostei muito do final. Os dois pontos da narrativa foram ótimos, só queria que a protagonista não fosse tão panguada porque rla ficou desaparecida na trama, sendo conduzida pra algo que ela não tinha forças pra sustentar.

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Gostei muito da atmosfera de suspense do drama construída pela trilha sonora sempre bem colocada, do mistério em torno da herança familiar sinistra (um cemitério) e da tensão dos relacionamentos familiares, tanto dos irmãos herdeiros do terreno, quanto do detive e seu filho.

Até o quarto episódio (ou meados do quinto) o mistério e a tensão dos episódios vai nos deixando numa expectativa angustiante. Afinal quem está por trás dos assassinatos e qual o significado daqueles rituais xamanicos? Quando finalmente é revelado a natureza das relações desviantes que resultaram na atual disputa familiar pela herança, por mais compatível e coerente que seja para as circunstâncias ali apresentadas, parece que essa revelação desfez totalmente a atmosfera de suspense e a partir daí o drama se transforma num caso de família. Não sei, acho que minha expectativa era de que a resolução caminhasse mais para uma esfera do fanatismo religioso, do sobrenatural mesmo. Além disso, sempre fico frustrada quando o perpetrador dos atos criminosos tem o "final fácil" e não sofre as consequências da lei. Mas gostei de como a Yoon Seo Ha lidou com a herança familiar no final.

No geral, acho que foi um drama competente dentro do que se propõe. Conseguiu me deixar interessada até final e, apesar de algumas ressalvas, recomendo a quem gosta do gênero suspense.

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