Barrack O'Karma 1968 (2022)

Loved it, but it's not as good as S1.

The long-awaited second season of the supernatural drama Barrack O'Karma (金宵大廈, lit.: Twilight Mansion) has finally been aired. Since the second season is a sequel to the awesome season 1, I couldn’t help but compare them both to reach my final rating.

The story starts with Ella and Maurice who have been happily together for a while now. When he returns from a business trip to Taiwan, she suddenly discovers a wet umbrella in his luggage, even tho it was neither raining in their city nor in Taiwan that day. She assumes he might be cheating on her, so she follows him. Turns he has been at Twilight Mansion, where she finds him, but he seems to have suddenly lost all his memories and behaves differently than usual. Both are now eager to find out the cause. What exactly happened to him?

The concept and storytelling are the same as in S1: there is one big main story pulling through all episodes. And then, there are 8 eerie sub-stories, happening to the residents and shop owners of Twilight Mansion. This time too, the drama plays with the butterfly effect and the possibility of the existence of different dimensions.

What I disliked compared to the first season were the sub-stories. They felt way more random, and didn’t fit well into the main story. The pace was also a little unbalanced, with the first episode being a little slow and the second episode being too fast. I also didn’t get attached to the residents, which is caused by the main story: this time the main leads didn’t have much to do with the building at first, so they didn’t have many interactions with the residents. Thus the audience didn’t get to know them well before their stories started, which made it feel random.
The main story didn’t have enough screentime, in my opinion, even though it is the most interesting part about the drama. The story also started a little too fast-paced and didn’t take much time to explain or introduce. Maybe because they assumed the audience has already seen S1 and is familiar with the setting and concept. Which applies to me, but probably not to everyone.

I think the drama can be watched as a standalone, but it is definitely connected to s1; and some scenes make more sense if people watched s1 beforehand, especially the origin of Lam, the cat, and the main leads, lol. Anyway, I can definitely recommend s1!

Even tho this 2nd season had quite some flaws, I’m a very big fan of the concept and story. I love the fantasy and the mysteries around Twilight Mansion. I love that the building has its own soul and how it is portrayed. And I think the important roles of the cat and Lam are super cool. I adore the love story, and the big palette of genres, as well as the eventful and sometimes confusing main storyline. And I’m happy they made this season loosely a continuation of S1. I also want to praise Selena Lee’s acting in portraying 3 very different characters – 5 even, if we count S1 too. I liked the ending of this season very much too, but it left some storylines open and some questions unanswered. So, if they ever think about making a 3rd season, I’ll be right here waiting for it. Next time, please give poor boy Lam his own lovestory too. xD

So, all in all, it was lacking compared to the amazing first season. But the main story always catches my heart, and Twilight Mansion, Lan Bo, and Lam give me the chills -in a positive way.^^

*This time, there were some things that stirred up drama outside of the series; and some things that made me a little disappointed in the production team overall. But I don’t want to deal with that in my review – here I just want to focus on the series itself.

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