3
2
Salatheel
The show didn’t deserve the quality of its actors
I write my reviews as I watch a show and often most of it is written by episode 8 and I tweak it where necessary as I finish watching. So I wrote something for this show, then found that I was watching a totally different drama in the second half.
The start of the show is a touchy-feel of romance, a pinch of mystery, a spoonful of trauma, a litre of tears and absolutely no spice. Mix all ingredients in the bowl and bake for 8 long hours to create a MacDonalds style bun - bland and inflated with not a lot of substance and awash with OTT sentimentality.
Then, about two thirds of the way through it changes completely. I could see the plot twist coming from four episodes previously and was thinking, please don’t go down that route, that’s just way too obvious and cliché. But it ignored my advice and blundered on with a totally predictable and off the wall plot involving a complete psycho with murder, mayhem, memory loss and every other cliche in the book.
Then in the last couple of episodes it found a balance and ended on its best effort.
But somehow through all of that it was watchable and what made it so was the acting. This show really does not deserve its leads. Ji Chang Wook and Choi Soo Young put in really good performances that were way better than the sentimental script and ridiculous plot deserved. They have very believable chemistry, but Ji Chang Wook always manages to have good chemistry and being such a likeable person in RL I’m sure he makes it very easy for actresses to be relaxed around him.
Not only them but the raft of experienced supporting actors really kept it afloat when it was in danger of going under. Especially Nam Tae Hoon (Jang Seok Joon) who put in a sensitive, believable and moving performance. According to his bio on MDL he has only had very small parts in the past, let’s hope this launches his career and he gets better parts in the future.
I criticise thrillers for not doing the psychology right, so now I’m going to do it here because this one really bugged me.
Censorship and taste are strange bedfellows. You can have as much gory, vicious, annihilating, sick and twisted violence as you like, but whatever you do, don’t show the real impact of the trauma which violence begets. And in the first half of this show we had another sanitised version. The sentimentalisation can be just as sick as the gory violence. It pretends that a sickly smile and a nicey-nicey attitude can paper over all woes, and healing from them just needs someone “nice” to smile at you so you can learn how to behave “nicely” in public. I really wish it was that easy…
OK rant over.
So this one is a mixed bag and I’m finding it difficult to know how to remember it and rate it. I think I’m just going to have to give the credit to the actors for pulling it off.
What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.
The start of the show is a touchy-feel of romance, a pinch of mystery, a spoonful of trauma, a litre of tears and absolutely no spice. Mix all ingredients in the bowl and bake for 8 long hours to create a MacDonalds style bun - bland and inflated with not a lot of substance and awash with OTT sentimentality.
Then, about two thirds of the way through it changes completely. I could see the plot twist coming from four episodes previously and was thinking, please don’t go down that route, that’s just way too obvious and cliché. But it ignored my advice and blundered on with a totally predictable and off the wall plot involving a complete psycho with murder, mayhem, memory loss and every other cliche in the book.
Then in the last couple of episodes it found a balance and ended on its best effort.
But somehow through all of that it was watchable and what made it so was the acting. This show really does not deserve its leads. Ji Chang Wook and Choi Soo Young put in really good performances that were way better than the sentimental script and ridiculous plot deserved. They have very believable chemistry, but Ji Chang Wook always manages to have good chemistry and being such a likeable person in RL I’m sure he makes it very easy for actresses to be relaxed around him.
Not only them but the raft of experienced supporting actors really kept it afloat when it was in danger of going under. Especially Nam Tae Hoon (Jang Seok Joon) who put in a sensitive, believable and moving performance. According to his bio on MDL he has only had very small parts in the past, let’s hope this launches his career and he gets better parts in the future.
I criticise thrillers for not doing the psychology right, so now I’m going to do it here because this one really bugged me.
Censorship and taste are strange bedfellows. You can have as much gory, vicious, annihilating, sick and twisted violence as you like, but whatever you do, don’t show the real impact of the trauma which violence begets. And in the first half of this show we had another sanitised version. The sentimentalisation can be just as sick as the gory violence. It pretends that a sickly smile and a nicey-nicey attitude can paper over all woes, and healing from them just needs someone “nice” to smile at you so you can learn how to behave “nicely” in public. I really wish it was that easy…
OK rant over.
So this one is a mixed bag and I’m finding it difficult to know how to remember it and rate it. I think I’m just going to have to give the credit to the actors for pulling it off.
What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.
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