Elias
Belgium
Thoroughly dissapointing
Hear me out.If I watched this show 4 or 5 years ago I would be impressed and would've probably given it a 9 or something. After all, "serious" shows with a dark undertone are somewhat rare in the kdrama landscape yet they're my absolute favorite thing to watch. Shows like Stranger and Signal tick all my boxes: Serious, investigative, no random forced love tropes, some subtle humor between the characters at times without ruining the seriousness, etc etc. Through the Darkness follows this pattern, so I should adore this show right? Right?
Well, here's where my problems with it come in. This show is essentially a way, way worse Mindhunter. Where Mindhunter is one of the best shows ever made, masterfully painting real world killers on your screen, showing how the earliest forms of profiling took form, how the agents came to certain conclusion, Through the Darkness also attempts to do this exact formula, and misses the mark on literally all of these points.
The killers are just your typical edgy skinny dudes who are angry and evil, the start of profiling in Korea apparently boils down to "I know you're smart, here's an American book, let's catch baddies", and the way the "genius" profiler comes to conclusions during cases in this show is just straight up laughable cause he always just magically solves the case cause he's just so smart.
I tried loving this, I really did. The first couple episodes I thought this was on track to be my next big kdrama love, but it then rapidly dawned on me that this was just laughable. I know comparing it to a show like Mindhunter which has a budget so big that even Netflix didn't wanna invest in it anymore, and a genius director like Fincher is maybe a bit harsh, but while watching this show it's clear how much inspiration they took from it, yet executed things you don't even need a huge budget for so annoyingly bad, that I just can't recommend this show.
If you like darker kdramas I guess you could give it a shot and see for yourself, the vast majority of other reviewers did seem to like it, but I will take the liberty to say that the average reviewer on this website, me 3+ years ago included, rates mediocre shows way too high compared to other websites.
5/10, dropped after 7 and a half episodes cause I just can't be bothered spending my free time on this any longer.
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I definitely understand why the reviews of this movie bombed. Did I hate the movie? No. Did I regret watching it? Not really. Was I dissapointed? Quite. Most people complain about the story being all over the place. I disagree. It wasn't all over the place because it was clear at all times what was going on. The issue was that you understand what's going on, you just don't understand WHY it's going on. Such a big part of this 140 minute drag isn't necessary nor fun to watch. Reduce the running time to 100 minutes and you might end up with a lot better of a product.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone with a huge backlog. There are many movies with this cast that are a lot better. Woo Min-ho's Inside Men, Song Kang-ho's Memories of Murder or A Taxi Driver, and so on.
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The two things that jump out the most are the aforementioned story and the cast. The story takes many twists and turns and keeps you interested all the way through without being unconvincing. This is an important aspect because almost all of the movie happens in the same house.
I said the cast was good because they felt typecasted very well. I initially decided to watch it because I love Cho Jin-woong, but even tho he played a solid role, I can't help but praise Yeom Jung-ah, who played a stellar performance.
If you like movies that make you wonder what's next, some good tension and an engaging storyline, I'd recommend a watch!
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Misaeng was a really good drama. I'm impressed that they were able to keep 20 episodes of office-work interesting enough to keep me hooked. While I think Misaeng is a really good drama and a must watch, the reason I don't think it will suit everyone is for this exact reason: 90% of the drama happens inside of an office.
I appreciate many kind of dramas but I love "serious" dramas the most. If you're the type of person who highly prefers romantic dramas, I doubt you will like Misaeng.
In my personal opinion, the acting in this drama was its strong point. While everyone did an alright job, two actors blew me away: Lee Sung Min as the kind hearted and hardworking Oh Sang Shik, and Byun Yo Han, who's character Han Suk Yool who evolves from sleazy pervert to a reliable friend who looks out for everyone. If not for these two, I think the drama would be an 8/10 or worse. The lead actor, Im Shi Wan, has the whole story revolving around him but doesn't do anything with it. I don't have any experience with him from other dramas so I don't know if he is at fault or if it is just the role that made him look that way, but he besides being handsome he didn't do a whole lot to be memorable.
I want to finalize with a couple of key points that I want to point out:
-The character development in this drama is really good. Every main character evolves in a clear yet subtle way, which is somewhat atypical for a Korean drama.
-Some episodes don't end with a cliffhanger, which was actually really refreshing and nice. It was easy to lay the drama down but the next day you would still find yourself wanting to watch the next episode.
-There are many foreign languages being spoken by many different actors as they have buyers from all over the world. All of these were incredibly cringy, especially English and German sounded awful (Only Chinese sounded somewhat natural). I know this is a problem many k-dramas have, but I like to point this out as it is a pet peeve of mine.
-If you happen to love Kang Ha Neul (the last drama I watched was When The Camellia Blooms so he grabbed my attention) and want to watch this drama for him: He does a good job but his character is quite boring, don't expect too much from him.
tl;dr: I'd recommend this drama to everyone who thinks he would enjoy watching 20 hours of Korean office dynamics. If you want romance or action, this drama is not for you. If you like realistic Korean office politics and good character development you should 100% check Misaeng out.
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Hard pass.
Sadly I'm the type of guy who can't stop watching something once he starts. After a friend told me to watch Hospital Playlist and my sleepy nocturnal brain started watching Hospital Ship on accident, I had to finish it. Sadly, I also watch one drama at a time, and because watching this drama felt like a drag, it took me ages to finish it.The premise of the hospital ship is kinda cool, and the characters are very diverse and quickly everyone has a very distinct personality making for a fun group of individuals, making it seem fun at first.
Then you realize the "operation" bit every episode is awful, most of the actors either act poorly or got a poor script, and a lot of situations are just insanely timed that it becomes really unbelievable. I thought I could get through it with the eventual romance, but even that was very boring.
Ha Ji Won plays her character quite well, meanwhile Kang Min Hyuk plays the most boring guy with zero personality (He looks like a fun guy to be around IRL to be fair, but either his acting or his character are just unbearable). He gets a bit better towards the end but even then he's still a husk of a human being.
Lee Seo Won is actually quite enjoyable to watch, but he's got sexual assault charges these days so that makes it quite a bit harder to like him.
Kim In Shik and Mina play typical boring, below average intelligence characters who try to brighten the mood, and Lee Han Wi is simply unbearable.
I don't really know who the target audience for this show is. A lot of the show is cringe which makes me believe that it's aimed at 12 year olds but there's also a lot of blood and visual surgery which isn't that suited for children.
Would not recommend watching this one, unless you're a big Ha Ji Won fan or something.
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