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This review may contain spoilers
A Different Kind of Thriller
This is basically a serial killer thriller but with a pretty interesting reversal of the usual formula.
Normally....these kinds of dramas are about detectives trying to catch the killer while we follow along as they slowly piece together the clues. Here....we don't really get that. We follow the victims first and the one constant connecting all of them is the serial killer. We are not really watching the aftermath of the murders either. It's more like the beforemath lol. We see these people living their lives, getting to know them and whatever is going on with them, and then suddenly... he strikes.
And that honestly got me. The drama does a really good job of making you think you are watching some ordinary life drama getting invested in someone is story and then BAM. The guy appears and everything goes to hell. You already know you are watching a thriller but the way it hides the actual threat until he appears makes the whole thing work.
And I HAVE to talk about the music when the bodies are discovered. Good fucking god. It was genuinely nightmare-inducing. There is something about the music kicking in at that exact moment that makes the whole scene so much worse. Sometimes you do not even need to see much. The music alone tells you that something is very.... very wrong.
I also really liked the length of this. It does not feel like the story is being stretched out just because it can. Everything feels pretty contained, and honestly.... dramas like this really benefit from that. Quality over quantity.
Major spoilers ahead.
What I found most interesting is that by the end, we're still left wondering....is he even real?
Because almost all of the deaths can be explained as suicide or accidents. There is not really any physical evidence pointing to murder.... which is why most of the detectives don't see these cases as connected at all. There is one detective who becomes convinced that there is actually a killer behind them....but even she has very little concrete evidence to work with.
And this is where the drama gets really interesting because we are obviously shown the killer. We see him interact with the victims. We see the connections between him and these deaths. So as an audience we are naturally going to believe that what we are being shown actually happened. But the drama keeps leaving just enough room for another explanation.....we do not see him kill.
Maybe all these connections really are coincidences. Maybe the detective is seeing patterns because she believes there has to be a connection between the cases. And because almost every death can technically be explained without a murderer being involved....you can't completely dismiss that possibility either.
Except for the hair cutting.
That is probably the strongest piece of evidence that something really is going on. It is such a specific and bizarre detail that keeps connecting these cases and it is much harder to just brush it off as coincidence.
And then there is the final murder..... where the guy is deliberately choked. There is no suicide or accident explanation to hide behind this time. Someone actually killed him.
So by the end I think the question shifts from "is this guy even real?" to "okay, if he is real... what the hell is he?"
Because the way he appears with different identity, appearence and disappears, the way he seems to be able to show up anywhere, and how effortlessly he kills people makes the supernatural explanation feel weirdly plausible. I know that sounds completely far fetched lol....... but the drama does such a good job of making him feel almost unnatural that I genuinely would not be shocked if there was something more to him than just being some random serial killer.
And honestly a huge part of why that works is Kagawa Teruyuki's performance.
He creeped the fuck out of me.
The man barely has to do anything. There is this one particular thing he does with ...each victim... exactly once. He just stares at them. And not a normal stare either. He holds it for this ridiculously uncomfortable amount of time, without saying anything, until the silence itself starts feeling threatening.
And once you have seen him do it with one victim,....you immediately recognise it when it happens again. The second he starts that stare....you are just sitting there thinking, "oh no".
You know something is coming. It is almost like a little ritual that tells you this person's time is up.
That is what made him so creepy to me. He doesn't need to constantly act threatening or go around looking like a psychopath. Sometimes he is just standing there....looking at someone, and somehow that is enough.
I also thought all the supporting actors were great. The drama relies pretty heavily on us buying into these people's lives before everything goes wrong, and they all did a good job of making their individual stories feel convincing enough that the murders actually hit.
Overall, I really liked this. I like that even after everything, the drama doesn't completely hand you an answer and walk away.
And that fucking music when the bodies are found is going to stay in my head for a while.
8.5/10. Highly recommended.
Normally....these kinds of dramas are about detectives trying to catch the killer while we follow along as they slowly piece together the clues. Here....we don't really get that. We follow the victims first and the one constant connecting all of them is the serial killer. We are not really watching the aftermath of the murders either. It's more like the beforemath lol. We see these people living their lives, getting to know them and whatever is going on with them, and then suddenly... he strikes.
And that honestly got me. The drama does a really good job of making you think you are watching some ordinary life drama getting invested in someone is story and then BAM. The guy appears and everything goes to hell. You already know you are watching a thriller but the way it hides the actual threat until he appears makes the whole thing work.
And I HAVE to talk about the music when the bodies are discovered. Good fucking god. It was genuinely nightmare-inducing. There is something about the music kicking in at that exact moment that makes the whole scene so much worse. Sometimes you do not even need to see much. The music alone tells you that something is very.... very wrong.
I also really liked the length of this. It does not feel like the story is being stretched out just because it can. Everything feels pretty contained, and honestly.... dramas like this really benefit from that. Quality over quantity.
Major spoilers ahead.
What I found most interesting is that by the end, we're still left wondering....is he even real?
Because almost all of the deaths can be explained as suicide or accidents. There is not really any physical evidence pointing to murder.... which is why most of the detectives don't see these cases as connected at all. There is one detective who becomes convinced that there is actually a killer behind them....but even she has very little concrete evidence to work with.
And this is where the drama gets really interesting because we are obviously shown the killer. We see him interact with the victims. We see the connections between him and these deaths. So as an audience we are naturally going to believe that what we are being shown actually happened. But the drama keeps leaving just enough room for another explanation.....we do not see him kill.
Maybe all these connections really are coincidences. Maybe the detective is seeing patterns because she believes there has to be a connection between the cases. And because almost every death can technically be explained without a murderer being involved....you can't completely dismiss that possibility either.
Except for the hair cutting.
That is probably the strongest piece of evidence that something really is going on. It is such a specific and bizarre detail that keeps connecting these cases and it is much harder to just brush it off as coincidence.
And then there is the final murder..... where the guy is deliberately choked. There is no suicide or accident explanation to hide behind this time. Someone actually killed him.
So by the end I think the question shifts from "is this guy even real?" to "okay, if he is real... what the hell is he?"
Because the way he appears with different identity, appearence and disappears, the way he seems to be able to show up anywhere, and how effortlessly he kills people makes the supernatural explanation feel weirdly plausible. I know that sounds completely far fetched lol....... but the drama does such a good job of making him feel almost unnatural that I genuinely would not be shocked if there was something more to him than just being some random serial killer.
And honestly a huge part of why that works is Kagawa Teruyuki's performance.
He creeped the fuck out of me.
The man barely has to do anything. There is this one particular thing he does with ...each victim... exactly once. He just stares at them. And not a normal stare either. He holds it for this ridiculously uncomfortable amount of time, without saying anything, until the silence itself starts feeling threatening.
And once you have seen him do it with one victim,....you immediately recognise it when it happens again. The second he starts that stare....you are just sitting there thinking, "oh no".
You know something is coming. It is almost like a little ritual that tells you this person's time is up.
That is what made him so creepy to me. He doesn't need to constantly act threatening or go around looking like a psychopath. Sometimes he is just standing there....looking at someone, and somehow that is enough.
I also thought all the supporting actors were great. The drama relies pretty heavily on us buying into these people's lives before everything goes wrong, and they all did a good job of making their individual stories feel convincing enough that the murders actually hit.
Overall, I really liked this. I like that even after everything, the drama doesn't completely hand you an answer and walk away.
And that fucking music when the bodies are found is going to stay in my head for a while.
8.5/10. Highly recommended.
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