Same stuff as time travel

People moving from one body into another is just like people going back and forth in time, making a mess of who is who and the relatives. Some people enjoy it.
The development of the plot was confusing and slow, filled with meetings across 20 episodes, making it look like a play from Ancient Greece. The participants at these meetings kept rambling about the power structure in the Joseon-lookalike kingdom and an "ice stone". What was extremely unclear was the basis for what was legit and what wasn't in this magical world.
One thig was extremely clear: everything was fake as fake can be.

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Just like the US POTUS with the same name: no good

From the beginning to the end Carter is on a killing spree in order to ensure an impossible cure for a virus, which at first hit North Korea. The cure is impossible because you can't develop a vaccine from the blood of one survivor (it only works in Hollywood), and the virus makes no sense either in terms of contamination, incubation, symptoms, recovery, etc.
The pseudo-plot relies on murdering 300-400 people (I lost count) along the way, and in the end turns out that everything was done for naught. Yet, digging a little (femtometers will suffice) under the surface of the movie, the whole thing could have ended at the beginning or at any point in the movie: the threesome Carter, a "scientist" (the actor who was great in "The plan man", and should have avoided being associated with this trash), and the latter's daughter, was needed for the killing to go on.
Pure nonsense, just like the US president with the same name.

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Extremely disappointing series

It started OK, but soon turned out to be a pile of nonsense. I wish I had waited, giving people the opportunity to write reviews reflecting the vacuity of the production.
I gave it the benefit of the doubt in spite of the poster that looked like the one of the "Squid Game" (another pile of nonsense). There are too many impossible elements (e.g., guess who is among the hostages? guess the fooling strategy to get out by digging a tunnel [how many YEARS would that take? and with which equipment?] several characters changing during the episodes! useless stuff on which the hostages try to capitalize ...).
The acting is nothing special, and the subplots outside of the heist place don't add anything to the episodes.
I am actually too polite to state outright what I think.

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A really mixed bag

Neither the title referring to the green jackets worn when volunteering for the school, nor the poster showing a group of 5 women around age 40, reflect the series, which is more of a thing developing as it goes. Per se that is not bad as life is like that.
These are imperfect people, with very few characters emerging from the mess, ... again mimicking life.
We get to see rich people, middle class folks, people with debts in terms of money, earlier experiences and other forms of debt. Again, such is life.
The "sin" of the writer is that she could have done a better job at directing the viewers (e.g., all the stuff about the education of the kids is just abandoned somewhere in the middle of the series), which as per some comments, felt that they had seen different genres, different series all blended. Failure to do so renders the job of the writer redundant. Personally I have a huge problem with the coincidence of having so many people presented as neighbors and sharing a past.
Kudos regarding one detail: the step brother and sister adopted in France came respectively from Korea and China, and that is exactly what happens in the world of adoptions: Korea tended to allow for the foreign adoption of boys, while China tended to allow for the foreign adoption of girls. The French used by both is however really disgusting and cannot reflect the respective adoptions.

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Did the writer show herself in the story?

The story is so vivid, it must have been based on eyewitnesses, and then turned into a story.
I myself can testify to the realism. That Korea of 1986-1987 was so similar to the one I saw in Summer 1988 when I went there for the first time ( demonstrations at Ewha, tear gases in the street, German TV crew filming, signs in a Jamsil church asking the military not to gas the building, demonstrators meters away from the Catholic cathedral just in case the police would charge, ...).
The short segment with music only, showing the girl thinking about writing the illegal work, is nothing short of amazing.
A detail towards the end of the episode struck me. Among the students preparing for a demonstration a female student with a bandana in the background is writing a sign. She reappears holding her sign during the fight when the police throws tear gas. I asked myself: is that a cameo of the writer of the KBS episode?

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Caveat spectator! Watcher beware!

Slow dialogues extending until people fast forward, motionless actors, cookie-cutter stuff (everybody gets cheated, everybody gets divorced, everybody gets ...), endless placement product of horrible coffee, lousy music, ... The only redeemable features are a few smiles from a few actresses, the fight between would be daughter-in-law and crazy would be stepmother-in-law , and the two supernatural beings at the very end (quite different from the standard in other series).
Take home lesson: life can be messy, ... but I had already found that out prior to this series.

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Could have been better

It's nice to see high-schoolers trying to figure out what to do with their life, and anchor the whole in real facts (Asian financial crisis of 1997, then to a minor extent the Sept. 2001 terrorist attacks), but looking a few below the surface, the series unravels, leaving much nonsense.
The series is full of monoparental families, or where parents are absent, and as such can't help their kids, which is seriously odd in Korea today. Extremely odd is the daughter of HeeDo who makes 0 reference to her father (she was somehow born! even if sperm donation was performed).
The whole spiel about fencing looks abnormal. Geographically, the high-school supplying half of the female national competitors and the national training center make no sense. Linguistically, the French sucks big time (school in "France", commands during Korean training, and at international events, ... the whole thing); the producers could have recorded a complete set of orders and then used it ad hoc throughout the series.
In the end, I am left with the feeling that the author didn't really know what to do, and thus took a bit of this (choose a sport, fencing), and that (some pseudo-rivalry among leads, a point in time for the main story and another for the results of the story), and then see what happens.
What happened is not much.

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Watch first 2 and last 2 episodes, skip the rest

Some supernatural thingy called Bulgasal has been affecting Korea for 1,000 years. Its identity and the genesis of Bulgasal is shown at the very end after the series goes for a reiteration of failed attempts involving the three leading roles to sort out what's going on. It's boring beyond belief, but at the time was the only new Korean stuff on netflix (Bulgasal enticed me to check out shows from other countries, and I found decent movies/series from the Hispanophone world, e.g. Toc toc, Tell me when, Outlaws, So much love to give, ...).
A lot of the stuff in Bulgasal actually makes no sense.
The writer and producer (and whoever approved and financed the project) should have made a 4-episode mini-series, paying close attention to stuff making sense, and highlighting the scenes in ancient Korea (the costumes are well made and very different from the standard Joseon stuff).

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Mixed emotions on this one

I had high expectations but the length (at least 1/3 too much) and the biological/physical nonsense heavily damaged watching this series.
I liked the idea of discussing the future of water, which covers most of the world today, makes up most of the human body, and was even understood as a principle in the formation of the universe in early Greek philosophy, and is threatened by human activities. I liked the experiment on the goldfish. I liked the clashes of interests regarding the mission on the Moon.
In my eyes, showing how lunar water had been identified, then mined, leading to the establishment of the base, would have improved the production.
The problems now.
The plot is meaningless as - even accepting the biological impossibilities presented - the company interested in putting its paws on the resources in the base could have just sent its own craft and crew. There was no need to infiltrate the space agency mission.
The plot is - separately - meaningless because of the many impossibilities presented:
1. One can't see a virus using the microscope used,
2. and can't even see a bacterium unless one prepares the bacterium by first staining it.
3. Genetic modifications in one biosystem cannot become antibodies in another one.
4. The girl would have died of starvation,
5. and if she had exited the base, would have immediately frozen to death and be without breath.
6. Water cannot replicate as reported.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The writer(s) should have consulted KAIST and/or some other group/institute to mitigate the nonsense in the series. Bae Doona could have done chromatography on the water, investigated the plants, worked under hoods, irradiated/autoclaved stuff, and she would have realized if liquid water exists inside the base, parts thereof would exist as water vapor and thus cause the same effects as the liquid, ...
Now "The Silent Sea" will negatively affect me watching "Stranger 3" (if it comes out), since Bae Doona would have the leading female role (like in "Stranger" and "Stranger 2").

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Messy and disappointing

Perhaps I am in the wrong age/ mental group. I found this stuff messy and meaningless, more or less centered (since it's neither) about who deserves to be killed (based on what?).
The series jumps from one killing attempt to the next, akin to what happens in many videogames, a point of which people are reminded in the end when the screen goes "thanks for playing". As such it shares much with "Squid game", which I found to be trash.
I expected more from Lee Young-Ae, here juggling videogames, booze, junk food, and occasional work.
Some acting was OK. The best element of the series is the music; some cartoons on which the series is based, are also OK.
I am afraid that tossing the serial killer in jail (could have shown the trial!), who hears a jail mate screaming that some guy deserves to die (as if she needs that to lust after killing!), is a preamble for a second series whereby the nutcase escapes for a new killing spree. May God have mercy on us, and block "Inspector Koo 2".

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PHENOMENAL! PHÉNOMÉNAL! FENOMENALE! PRIMA!

WAIT before watching something after "Beyond Evil": subsequent series/movies will feel bland or boring. "Beyond Evil" (I don't like the title, hence I left it to watch it when there was nothing else on Netflix) requires concentration and you'll get rewarded BIG time.
One thing that is amazing is how you can at times barely guess what is going to happen. As a rule of thumb, you can't. Let yourself immerge in the events shaking fictional Manyang village next to fictional Munju town.
Unsure whether the lack of romance adds or detracts from the series. There was the possibility to develop something, and my bet would have been Oh JiHwa (ladies first) and ML DongShik as well as Yoo JaeY and ML JooWoon. The author chose not to.
The music fits both in terms of when it appears and what it sounds like.
"Beyond Evil" is another high light of 2021 kdramas, and bodes well for the future.

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Another great series in 2021

2021 has been great in terms of Korean productions as exemplified by "Sweet & Sour" and "Move to Heaven". "Hellbound" is a series for everyone, but not everyone will appreciate it.
The title and the reactions in the series to a repeated supernatural phenomenon, gives the viewers an insight into mass psyche in front of God/the transcendent.
Then, in the middle of the series one person makes a smart remark that goes against mainstream: in reality we are facing an unexplained set of phenomena and some people are exploiting these phenomena.
The author and/or movie maker will make everything crystal clear in the last seconds of the last episode, and I won't spoil it.

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Another letdown

Episode 1 was OK, and from then on, it felt like meaningless junk.
I appreciate the fact that the plot was based on the interactions of three FL, which makes for a very unusual and potentially creative series. However, I couldn't find almost anything interesting.
I didn't like almost everything. I didn't like the clothing. I didn't like the sets where people "lived", "worked", "walked", "ate", etc. I didn't like the imposition that titles were replaced by English names at Barro. I found a lot of events (e.g. the smashing of the car and the owner and wife showing up) only being fillers.
One thing I liked was the short violence scene in the elevator. A cad touches the derrière of the FL, who then massacres him. As the elevator stopped at a floor, the FL tells another woman who wanted to take the elevator that it was broken. The FL then proceeded to press the button for the 33rd and last floor ... I wonder whether that came from a real event.

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Solid. Try to watch it on a binge.

Interesting short series. It could have dragged on with fillers (e.g. more about the budding love story, more about the past of the dad, more about stuff in the high-school, more about this and that), but the author and/or movie maker decided for the more compact version.
Some stuff is predictable (e.g. who killed the dad), though one must wait a sec to find out the motive behind.
Gladly, I didn't see much product placements. I am sure that people better versed than me in that field would have noticed more than the few cars, and other items, which I noticed.
Last but not least: for several episodes one is left wondering what the title means until ... (won't spoil it).

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Sometimes stop for a sec and look at what is positive

The leitmotif is the unraveling of what happened to the FL. Why did she try to adopt a different personality and name to outsiders,? Why did she try to retain her earlier self in front of her friends?
The crux of the matter was the fact that after she reached rock bottom, she met a man by pure chance, and they mutually fell for each other. Thereafter, her friends didn't give up on her, he didn't give up on her, and she realized that she had not given up on herself either.
Around this display of human all too human activities, we find the people with whom she interacts, and their own issues: money issues, love issues, personality issues, drinking issues, image issues, ...
Notice that all this is done without killing, gore, explosions, hostage takeover, politically correct preaching, and other nonsense that plagues so many other productions (HINT: if Hollywood-style stuff is what you are looking for, this show is NOT for you).
Personally I didn't like the product placement (can't stand the stuff they label as pizza in the show), but otherwise it is extremely sweet, with real sweetness and not fake carbohydrates.
Of particular charm were the scenes throughout the series where one could see that people cared for each other.
The police cared for the drunk ML and other hosts at the station. The actress wanted her first kiss from someone she liked and not some famous "pig". Both FL and ML cared about his wedding ring, which he threw in a fit in a canal (him trying to retrieve it after she had gone there and found it, was particularly ironic/good). The restaurant owners at the beach give food and a chance to the FL. When looking for the usually drunk girlfriend, one guy mistakes another drunk for his gf in the street.
Sometimes it is important to stop for one second in life and look at what is positive. This series does that.
Please enjoy it.

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