junipercrumbles
“I gave up everything trying to protect you two.”
i went into this thinking it would be just another subpar drama. and not for a second did i think it would be one of the more prodigious ones i'll ever see. a lot of this i attribute to the the masterful way in which everything is shown rather than told, and the creator's ability to construct their own unique world. much like jean-pierre melville's delon trilogy or gilda, while maintaining a sense of realism, it operates within its own code, removed from the banalities of mundane, everyday life. a criminal underbelly isn't an appropriate term, either. it's more of an uncanny parallel world coexisting alongside our own, deftly concealed from its non-inhabitants.
i love its unmistakable soul and stylistic edginess: chain-smoking, gaudy wardrobes, characters that leave an indelible impression without needing to utter any words, characters that remain sleepwalking straight into their doomed fate; the impersonal noir overtones that omit any sentimentality (which would've ultimately weakened the story's ability to incur true devastation in you).
as for the story, i've probably not been affected by the ending of a series this immensely since cowboy bebop, and that was like, 7 years ago. i dreaded the moment it would come to a close, and it was worse than what i envisioned. and aside from the director's deliberate decision to underdevelop eui-jeong for the sake of noir, as he stated in an interivew (and thereby, her relationships with each respective character), i found few issues with it.
i've seen people justifying what happened to gicheul, but i don't think many understand just how not-evil of a person he was. selling drugs, eye-for-an-eye killings, overthrowing your boss, favoring some over others — most of these things are depraved, and they make you a bad person, but they don't make you evil. not when you treat the innocent with respect, refrain from abusing others, show clemency and magnanimity to those you love in the face of treachery, and are willing to die for and give the world to someone who shows you a smidgen of care or loyalty. i think things like piracy and things that constitute genuine malevolence exist in two different realms entirely.
and maybe it's because i've seen the worst of evil, but what i can most definitely say is, it was not gichuel. not only that, but those on the side of the law surpassed his depravity. not just in the vile extent of their betrayal, but in terms of their principles, too. but they'll never know true peace, and for now, that is enough.
i love its unmistakable soul and stylistic edginess: chain-smoking, gaudy wardrobes, characters that leave an indelible impression without needing to utter any words, characters that remain sleepwalking straight into their doomed fate; the impersonal noir overtones that omit any sentimentality (which would've ultimately weakened the story's ability to incur true devastation in you).
as for the story, i've probably not been affected by the ending of a series this immensely since cowboy bebop, and that was like, 7 years ago. i dreaded the moment it would come to a close, and it was worse than what i envisioned. and aside from the director's deliberate decision to underdevelop eui-jeong for the sake of noir, as he stated in an interivew (and thereby, her relationships with each respective character), i found few issues with it.
i've seen people justifying what happened to gicheul, but i don't think many understand just how not-evil of a person he was. selling drugs, eye-for-an-eye killings, overthrowing your boss, favoring some over others — most of these things are depraved, and they make you a bad person, but they don't make you evil. not when you treat the innocent with respect, refrain from abusing others, show clemency and magnanimity to those you love in the face of treachery, and are willing to die for and give the world to someone who shows you a smidgen of care or loyalty. i think things like piracy and things that constitute genuine malevolence exist in two different realms entirely.
and maybe it's because i've seen the worst of evil, but what i can most definitely say is, it was not gichuel. not only that, but those on the side of the law surpassed his depravity. not just in the vile extent of their betrayal, but in terms of their principles, too. but they'll never know true peace, and for now, that is enough.
Was this review helpful to you?
