The Silent Sea (2021)

Minor spoilers below.

For the final review of the year, I’m focusing on the drama that just dropped Christmas Eve, The Silent Sea. The Silent Sea had been one of my most anticipated dramas since it was announced and I was really happy when it finally got a premiere date. I had some other things that I needed to do the day that it was uploaded, and didn’t think that I’d end up getting around to it. And then I did…at 10:30 pm and then stayed up all night watching it. The drama follows a crew as they depart to the moon to collect samples at a research base that suffered a catastrophe years prior, in hopes to find a clue for another source of water.

On a whole, I enjoyed the drama. It wasn’t everything that I had expected or wanted, but I by no means thought it wasn’t entertaining. It kept me interested and engaged, and there was no time in my binge that I felt the need to stop to return to it later. I did find with the first two episodes we kind of got baited into thinking that the drama was going to skew much more into the horror side than it ended up being, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a bit sad it didn’t keep that up. There were also a few parts in the middle of the drama that I felt were a bit draggy, but with the episodes being so short the drama didn’t spend much time in that area. I do wish we got a bit more look at the other members’ lives on Earth and found that the parts we did get with Yun Ja (Gong Yoo) and Ji An (Bae Doo Na) were interesting, leaving me wanting to see more about the situation on Earth.

Kim Shi Ah who played Luna was fantastic. I thought she did well in her role as the younger version of Ashin in Ashin of the North (the prequel/side story of Kingdom) and it was nice to see her in this larger role. Being so young and carrying a role such as hers is a challenge she pulled off effortlessly. Bae Doo Na was incredible as always, as was Gong Yoo. Kim Sun Young doesn’t get many leading roles, but I’ve had a fondness for her since her character in Because This Is My First Life. I thought she was great in her role and had good chemistry with Bae Doo Na and the rest of the cast. Lee Joon was also phenomenal. I wasn’t expecting a pseudo-serial killer angle to come, especially not with his character, and the drama played it up well grounding it with the backstory of what happened at the research center previously, and his PTSD that eventually led to his decisions, and Lee Joon carried that transition well.

Some of the popular takes that I’ve heard so far about the drama have been about how slow it was and thought that it left too many unanswered questions. While I did think parts were draggy in the middle, on a whole I loved the slow burn it gave us. Especially as it started to shift to a full-blown thriller from horror, and worked with the mystery of what was going on, almost mimicking the sense of silence and stillness that outer space inherently has. I didn’t think the questions that I had needed to be explained. The drama didn’t set us up to believe that we were going to get all the answers, nor would it have been able to. In a way, it mirrored the character’s journey in the drama. Their questions were left unanswered as well. Yun Ja spends much of the first part of the drama telling Ji An to stop asking questions and keep on task to collect the samples. Answering questions was not why they were there, and the answers they do get are not the ones they want.

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Come and Hug Me (2018)

Merry Christmas!

I got the idea to review something for today a couple of days ago, and set out to find one that was not only horror or thriller, but also worked for this time of year. While I was trying to figure it out I realized there was only one true pick, and that is my personal favorite drama, Come and Hug Me. Instead of doing a traditional review on the drama, I wanted to share some of the reasons and plots that attribute to why this drama is my top drama.

Come and Hug Me is a crime thriller intertwined with a melodrama and gives a look at how the world perceives crimes and the family members of the people who perpetrate those crimes, as well as the effects they and the family members had. But at its core, it focuses on families. What it takes to be a true family and how that looks different to different people, and that blood family isn’t the only family that matters. The drama stems from one significant event that happened in the childhood of the two main leads, Namu (Jang Ki Yong) and Nak Won (Jon Ki Joo). Namu’s father murders Nak Won’s parents in front of her, and almost kills her but is stopped by Namu.

While the drama is about that and their relationship, it weaves through the aftermath of that incident as well as the reintroduction of that trauma when Namu’s father (played hauntingly by Heo Joon Ho) writes a book about the murders of all his victims bringing the case back into light after almost ten years. The drama focuses on the discussion of whether evil is made or created. Hui Jae spends his time focusing on his son, thinking he could create the evil that he is, the public shame and belittle Namu and his family labeling them because of their association with Hui Jae. Journalists spin stories to support that narrative, confirming to the public that those prejudices must be true, while the main characters are constantly fighting that stigma.

It’s an interesting study on how psychopaths can see no wrong and lack compassion, empathy, and understanding - all traits the father has - and how it applies in various ways with others in the drama: the reporters, the public, the victims’ families. The drama connects the actions of the father with the public’s response to show the real damage that can be caused to people, and how close everyone truly is to evil even when they aren’t related to that evil. When the perception is changed, the understanding will follow, and the drama tries to show the characters as they start to understand their biases. There is this great scene when the police officer Go Yi Seok, who was assigned to the case right after the murders and is looking after Namu, sees Chae Ok Hee (Namu’s stepmother) comes to take him in. He mentions something along the lines of the job making him hate and give up on people, but seeing the compassion of Ok Hee to him gave him hope. We see it happen again with the reporter Han Ji Ho seeing the relationship between Namu and Nak Won and how they hold each other up even in great sadness and burden and that even in her position as a journalist on the case, she doesn’t know all the details.

“Evil shall not wait to be proven. Evil shall prove itself.” - Hui Jae

Watching the drama a second time I didn’t realize the way they framed Namu was intentional in ways that were not what I initially thought. The drama leads one to believe it is focused on Namu as if he is a ticking bomb and at any point can stray from being good. He will somehow mess up and follow the footsteps of the father. When in fact the drama tells us clearly that it won’t happen. He’s proven numerous times with his actions and interactions with others throughout his entire life that he is not like his father, and that there should never be any doubt. The drama forces the viewer in a position of doubt even when clear information is given, showing that not only are characters in the drama susceptible to this negative thinking, the viewer is as well. It’s a neat use of that element, as it works to further the intent of the drama, but also plays up some of the thrilling aspects of the drama. It also furthers how the act of just believing in people and helping them at their lowest can turn them to the right path. Nak Won’s constant reassurance to Namu, Ok Hee (wounded) forcing herself inbetween Hyun Mo (Kim Kyung Nam) and the father’s wrath to save him. Even when Namu is about to hurt his father, it’s nothing comparable despite what the father tries to make him believe.

The stigma against non-blood-related families is prevalent everywhere, and the drama handles it beautifully. Nak Won and Moo Won (Yoon Jong Hoon) share true feelings for each other as siblings, being raised to just accept that they are family realistically and comfortably without burden. Seo Jung Yeon’s Ok Hee is my favorite kdrama mother having compassion and strength to take in not only two boys who were not hers, but the product of her failed and horrible marriage, and does so with loving arms. And while she falters a tiny bit at the beginning, she immediately sees the error of her ways. The little sister So Jin (Choi Ri) always views the two as her brothers, never questioning it or changing that stance no matter how distant they treated her. While the drama is on the surface about the murders and the two’s love story, the drama focuses on these other relationships as much as they do with the love story between the two and doesn’t try to take away from those essential storylines with those relationships. Even at the end, we see them confront their past selves to begin their journey in full healing and love in their relationship with themselves.

I can’t get enough of this drama, and this rewatch solidified my love for it as well as its position as my top drama. It’s everything I could want in a drama and more and I felt the same after seeing it again as I did the very first time I watched it. I don’t go over even half of the elements that make this drama great in this post, not mentioning other technical elements or favorite characters, this is just a glance at my love for it. I may return to at another point to give a tigher review. If you haven’t given the drama a try, maybe now is the time.

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Crime Puzzle (2021) Review

Crime Puzzle was a drama I had my eye on, but when no one picked it up when it started airing back in October, I figured it would have to be a drama I let go of. Thankfully, Viki grabbed it after it completed airing and uploaded all the episodes without much of a subtitle wait. For transparency, when I watched the drama a large portion of it was at various stages of translation, but as it was over 90% I decided I didn’t want to wait for it to finally get around to being all at 100% before finishing. I had no intention to talk about the drama, so I didn’t take notes nor screencap or do anything I would normally to prep for a review, but after finishing it up I did want to briefly talk about it.

Written by first-time writer Choi Jong Gil and directed by Go Jae Hyun (who previously worked on dramas such as Player and Black) the drama focuses on the arrest of a criminal psychologist (played by Yoon Kye Sang) after the death of a political candidate, and his girlfriend (Go Ah Sung), a profiler and the daughter of the deceased. The story winds its way around what happened in the events leading up to the murder, and things that are happening in the present as Yoo Hee (Sung) tries to figure out why he’s there and what actually happened. It’s an intricate plot, and the drama spends a lot of its time in twists and turns that were genuinely surprising and engaging. It took me a good couple of episodes to really get into it, however, but a turn in the investigation really got me into the story and it continued to be rather engaging.

One of the things that I found most interesting about it was how dark the drama was. I know this is weird to say, but I actually…enjoyed it? It added a lot to the general storyline and added depth to what was going on having it dive a lot deeper into the psyche of murderers and corruption and how truly and deeply unsettling and terrible it is. Not to say that you can’t pull off a drama like this without going as far as they did, but it did make the drama stand out on its own and differentiate itself from other crime thrillers. And when I say dark, I mean dark. The drama was broadcast on Olleh TV, a VOD platform, and had a lot more leeway because of it. Knives didn’t have to be blurred out, a lot of deaths were shown - and graphically. The drama was much more violent and gory than you will find in other dramas that have come out. Squid Game is mild comparatively.

Because of this, I do think that it’s not the drama for everyone. If you had intended to watch, be aware about it before you dive into it. If you do end up starting, the story and clues really keep you into the story. I felt that the acting was strong for everyone in the cast and while there were a few things here and there that I didn’t like, on a whole it was a solid crime drama and was glad I was able to get it in before the end of the year.

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Doom At Your Service (2021) Review

Doom At You Service had been on my list of dramas to watch this year, but by the time it came out I was just not feeling it nor did I have the time to watch it. I ended up being asked to record an episode with the K-BAE Podcast who have been recapping each episode of the drama. For the podcast I originally had decided to just watch the first episode and then skip to the episode that we were discussing (episode six). Their podcast is fairly loose, and that setup would have been fine for me to be able to participate, but when I started the watch one episode became two, then three…and by the time I recorded the episode I was half way through the series. Surprise, I liked the drama. I figured at that point I was already in the binge and ended up finishing the rest of the episodes the next day or so. Before coming into the series I had heard some mixed reviews from the people I knew that was watching it, and the general Twitter users I saw. Most of what I saw didn’t look favorable, so I was surprised when I started to watch it and found that I was enjoying it. The drama is by no means my favorite of the year, and I did find there to be faults, but it generally was a great watch. I had fun with the stories, I generally liked the characters, and found the overall watch to be a nice one. So much so that I decided that I should do a full review on the drama.

There are no major spoilers in this review, so if you haven’t watched it yet you should be fine reading this.

What I found most interesting with the drama and what I think pulled me in much more than I was expecting was the lack of a second male lead. The person closest in the second lead spot, Lee So Hyuk’s character, is not a love interest in a way. In fact, he’s barely a friend - he begrudgingly becomes a friend of Dong Kyung (Park Bo Young) and his story lies in the secondary plot between Hyun Gyu (Kang Tae Oh), and Ji Na (Shin Do Hyun). It’s an interesting device in the drama, as it is bulit like as a drama within a drama, and the usually tropes live inside of that secondary story line. Instead the main drama decides to focus the tension on the supernatural bits, and the general transformation of Sa Ram (Seo In Guk). The leads already have a lot of obstacles from the very beginning, and not having to drag them into a love triangle on top of that helped the story move along for me.

I saw that a lot of people found the Ji Na/JooIk/Hyun Gyu story line to be weird. I think the true hindrance of the story line wasn’t that it was written as a secondary story, it was that the the actors didn’t have that much chemistry between them. In fact the two male characters felt much more natural together and it felt off when pairing Ji Na with either of the two. I don’t think it was necessarily the fault of the actors, the main story line that they are given that pulls all three together didn’t work out as well as it could, and it didn’t mesh well with what was going on because of this and felt a little incomplete. These are characters that would normally not have much depth in favor of the main leads, and it’s felt in this.

Doom lies in the area of dramas I enjoy, less comedy and more romance and melodrama and found the drama enjoyable because of it. It had large breaks from the comedy, and it tended to not go as far as others. I suspect that this was also the problem with the drama for most. Because the secondary storyline was the ‘romcom’ story of the drama, and paired with the lead actors previous works, a lot of people came into this drama thinking it would be more comedy than it was. It’s largely a melodrama, a lot of parts tended to be bleak and dark and didn’t try to constantly be bright or happy until the jump back to the humans of the story. It’s actually part of a greater problem I’ve personally have run into with other dramas. A lot of people label dramas with romance and any level of comedy as romcoms. The lack of no popular genre tag in Asian dramas for the inbetween of romcoms and melos adds disjointedness when you come in thinking this was one or the other. While the main story line not being a true romcom didn’t bother me (in fact, I enjoyed it much more than if the main lead lived in the romcom parts) I can see how it would be a turn off, and nothing kills a drama faster than the wrong audience viewing it. I also suspect that this wasn’t as jarring for me because I watched it as a binge and not week-to-week, not having to wait long to figure out what was happening with the plot.

I generally like both Park Bo Young and Seo In Guk as actors. They are good actors and can handle leads well. I thought they played off each other really well and were good at focusing on the tension in various parts of the drama. I did find a lot of - at least the first half - of the drama and the couple’s dynamic a bit hard to watch. It lives in a tricky spot, where at it’s core it is an enemies to lovers where the enemy is an actual threat, one that is constantly talking about killing her and showing the power dynamic imbalance on how he could and would. It’s hard to get into a love story when you have that, and despite it being a supernatural and non-realistic take it still left an air of weirdness when they got close. I do think the drama did a fairly good job towards the later half of showing his character development and reminding the audience that he was essentially a dangerous non-human being that can’t be viewed as a human transforming, but felt the drama didn’t handle it well in the first couple of episodes.

One of the aspects of the drama that I was most surprised about, and heard next to no one talk about was the cinematography and set design. I think it’s executed really well and a lot of the shots were interesting and different. The director and crew used a lot of angles to portray the emotions and intent of the scene, well more than I had expected from the drama. It being a supernatural fantasy it also allowed them to set up fantastical shots. Showing Sa Ram’s world as black and white, only colored when Dong Kyung comes closer was gorgeous and added to the fantastical love story. Sa Ram’s bedroom melding into Dong Kyung’s bedroom was a fun set pick. A lot of the time the sets and shots were meshed together to bridge the fantasy/god world and what was going on in the real world and the drastic difference between the two was interesting visually.

All-in-all I thought the drama was an entertaining one, accomplishing what it personally set out to do, and am glad that I finally hit play.

Listen to my episode with The K-BAE now:

Doom At Your Service is currently streaming on Viki.

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Hellbound (2021) Review

I love and hate cult shows. On the one hand, I find them fascinating, and I love the look at the psychology that happens with the people who are involved. On the other, they annoy me to no end because I absolutely despise everyone involved. While I don’t have to love everyone, I have to at least care about them so they aren’t perceived as boring and meaningless characters. That wasn’t necessarily the case with Hellbound. I found that the way the drama dealt with the cult(s) for the most part was a different and interesting take, showing not only how they would advance in a world that has definitive proof of God’s intervention but the different ways people would take that information. That being said, while Hellbound had some good moments - and I generally liked the drama enough - it fell flat running out of steam after the time jump in the middle, creating disjointed circles trying to create a reason to have a cliffhanger at the end and story for future seasons.

Spoilers below.

The drama is divided into two parts, the first half comprising of the start of the prophecies and the angels coming to earth, the latter four years later as the prophecies have become a normal thing, with the focus on New Truth’s solidified power. And that is partly the reason I didn’t connect with the drama. The first half really got me into the drama, setting up more like a crime thriller, where we see Kyung Hoon (Yang Ik June) trying to figure out what is going on with the angels and the start of the rise in popularity of the religion helmed by Jin Soo (Yoo Ah In). It was an interesting look at religion and God in the modern world, and I felt that it created a fascinating look at what God was capable of and sort of in turn forced the narrative that He was not in fact something to be revered, and yet people were still willing to do anything for Him. The cult’s presence started to pick up fairly rapidly, so we were able to see some of the mob mentality of people blindly following, to the point they too would (and should) have been considered sinners. The radicals that stir up the pot in different forms such as The Arrowhead and the bat-wielding teenagers that followed his streams, the new religions and cults that spur on top of it, the aggressiveness of everyday people trying to find sinners all formed a broader look at the newly forming society. We see this portrayed most stunningly with what is essentially the public viewing of the execution of Jung Ja (Kim Shin Rok). Seeing everyone excited for her death, clamoring to take a front-row seat with their cameras ready was a good modern-day interpretation of Jesus’s death.

Once we actually get to the focus of the New Truth cult as a fully infiltrated and established group after the time jump, they lacked anything super interesting for me. The time jump derailed a lot of what had been happening. I felt that not only did New Truth suffer from this, but also the Sodo group was not allowed depth, they both were just not given enough of a chance for the viewer to really connect with what they were because a lot of that information would have been given during the time period we don’t get to see. We get the before and after of New Truth and I felt it left a lot of emptiness to it not having the middle. The latter half of the series lacked direction, trying to force more storyline into it while simultaneously pivoting to a messiah story that it knew it would not be resolving, and also focusing on setting up the ending.

Netflix did what Netflix does best, and killed what is great and wonderful about Asian dramas, containing the entire show in one season. By leaving Hellbound on a cliffhanger, the plot suffered. I suspect that a lot of the lack that the latter half of the series had was because Yeon Sang Ho had to start winding everything down so they had a reason to give it a cliffhanger instead of just allowing it to be part of the story. And while it isn’t the worst thing to have to wait for more of the story, cliffhangers are a fairly new plot device in Korean entertainment. It’s a weak point in Yeon Sang Ho’s writing, as it isn’t worked into the story well. Also hindering everything is that there’s no word on the second season being filmed, thus making it a potential reality that we won’t get a conclusion. The only two kdramas that are Netflix originals that have had second seasons that come to mind are two dramas that were essentially filmed as one season and just split in half. At this time, there has been no word that they had already filmed more episodes for this drama, and so I’m just not that hopeful to ever see any of this resolved.

I honestly would have loved to see the messiah storyline with the baby play directly alongside Jung Ja's resurrection. The interpretation I have for the series is that this first half (as in these first six episodes) is supposed to focus on God causing destruction on earth to make everyone repent for not following His will, with the second about humans reclaiming it. Having the messiah storyline start at the beginning of the time jump left the plot disjointed and rushed, instead of allowing these six episodes to be squarely about God taking control and seeing the full growth of the New Truth cult in society and how those opposing were suffering. A more plausible cliffhanger would start with the baby being given his death date and Jung Ja’s resurrection, thus allowing the reclamation storyline to be played out during the (hypothetical) six final episodes (in this case, season two).

I feel like all I’ve done is bash the drama and have been overly critical about some of the plot in this post, but it does have good moments. I thought that the deaths were done well. The level of gore and spectacle (as in the spectacle of us, the viewer, not the people in the world) was tampered down by it not being constantly shown. It was a nice touch that focused more on the act of the angels being there as opposed to the kill itself. Speaking of the angels, having them stay close to the comic designs was a nice nod to the manhwa the drama is based on. They are a little bit cartoonish and silly but they worked for me, especially since they were tied to God and varied from what we would classically see in religious texts, and were an interesting variation of a monster design. In the beginning of the first episode, there is a group watching a video of someone being prophecized to die and the group thought it looked fake. I think the fact that they looked fake worked more because of what we expected these angels to look like (pretty, human-like, etc…), and surprises the viewer in that nothing is as we perceive or think, and that God’s power is not pretty and magical.

The drama has a solid cast, and the acting followed. I've always really liked Kim Hyun Joo, and her role as Min Hye Jin was my favorite of the cast. The rest of the production was equally as great. I really connected with the struggles of those outside the cult and enjoyed that it didn’t shy away from characters having a solidified anti-God narrative. Yeon Sang Ho has a way of focusing on the realities of how humans will react to catastrophic events (as seen in Train to Busan), and the drama highlights how different people would handle what is going on, and the reality of how selfishly most would act because their want to live outweighs their love or care of others.

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31 Days of Asian Horror: Betaal (2020)

Today’s drama is the short Netflix series, Betaal. Produced by American film studio Blumhouse with India’s Red Cillies Entertainment, the 2020 series was written and directed by Patrick Graham. A military unit is dispatched to settle a dispute between a remote village and a construction company regarding a closed tunnel. Despite warnings from locals, the tunnel is opened unleashing evil spirits.

What makes Betaal unique is how it uses spiritualism and folklore with the intrusion of modern day society. For years the locals have been able to live peacefully with their rituals helping contain the curse in the mountain and it isn’t until a commercial contractors greed unleashes the evil. This also plays into the spirits themselves as they are much closer in appearance and to that of modern zombies. The difference between the two sides makes for a really interesting first episode, and I was really excited to see how it was going to play out throughout the series. However, this doesn’t carry over for most of the series. All the locals are gone by the time the tunnel opens, and we don’t come back to them.

Even with the intrigue of the new take Betaal falls flat. The plot is kind of messy, it’s largely boring with storylines that go on and feel like needless filler and the reveal of the truth behind the zombies just doesn’t live up to what it could have been. I also felt that there was some weirdness in direction, as there are times when the group would be serious and the acting fine, with other times almost purposeful campiness and weird line delivery. The series is relatively short, which helps a bit, but on the whole feels like it would have been better as a movie, especially it focused more on the butting of heads of modern vs tradition and less exposition. That being said, I do think it’s worth giving a shot. With the episodes being about 45 minutes apiece, it’s a fine way to spend an afternoon and an interesting new look at the zombie genre.

Betaal is streaming on Netflix.

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31 Days of Asian Horror: Ju-On Origins (2020)

If you’ve seen the original Ju-On, or even the US remake, you’ll know the basic story of Ju-On and the idea that when an incident happens in a place that is so tragic or horrible, it’ll stay with it forever haunting anyone who encounters it. While the original does focus a good bit of the story on the house itself, the Netflix original series Ju-On: Origins places it in a new light.

The series heavily focuses on the house, and the way it is presented is from a paranormal researcher’s quest to find out about all that happened there, interviewing other people’s accounts, and in turn, uncovers the horrific stories that happened. The drama series is much more darker than its original, really honing in on the idea of the grudge and what type of evil creates it. The series gives the distinction a little more weight, in that the grudge happens when the worst of the worst tragedy and events unfold and that it’s abnormal making the house so much more special.

I enjoyed the series the first time I watched it when it premiered back in July of last year, and still enjoyed it after a second watch. I always found that the original movie’s downfall was that it tried to separate the movie into each individual story and didn’t work to make it cohesive enough like it was trying to be more of an anthology, which I feel the series worked well within. Some of the stories are ongoing throughout the episodes, but because it’s broken into individual episodes, it allows for the jumps to previous incidents in time to flow better within the plot.

Placing the series in more of a documentary style or a faux-true story viewpoint was interesting and I think worked in that sense to keep up the scares when normal jump scares were not used as much, as it focused the horrors onto terrible humans doing terrible things and almost drawn to the house’s evil to carry out their acts. It still has the same flare that the movies do, though, and nods to the original with the use of the closet being a central place and a child's horrific death the catalyst for the grudge. The episodes are fairly short (under and half an hour) so it’s a quick easy binge.

If you are a fan of the series of movies, I do think you’d get something out of the series as it does kind of tie up loose ends regarding the grudge and its specificity of it being at that house thus showcasing how terrible the house is, but it does take the levels of the stories to a whole new extreme that is far enough removed from the original that I could see there being a divide in its reception. They are much more graphic and violent, the focus being on the worst of humanity which can be sometimes hard to stomach. I didn’t find that the series had many scares of a normal horror film, but more of a general sense of uneasiness the entire time that escalates as the series progresses and the stories get much more tragic.

Ju-On: Origins can be found streaming on Netflix.

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31 Days of Asian Horror: Goodnight DJ

Today I’m focusing on the Malaysian drama series, Goodnight DJ. I’m a bit unprepared to talk about the drama, as it was scheduled for later on in the month, but when I went to go start watching I saw that dreaded notification that the series would be pulled from Netflix towards the end of the month. I’ve found that no one has been talking about this drama, and wanted to make sure you have at least some time to check it out before it goes away.

And that’s the big problem with this drama, no one is talking about it. It’s not a country MyDramaList keeps in their systems, I haven’t seen any sorts of reviews on it past those “All about this Netflix series” info dump sites. Barely anything. So I wanted to talk about what I did find about the drama. Netflix only has two seasons of the drama up, but as I searched I found that the drama was actually pretty popular. Goodnight DJ is a horror drama that debuted in 2008 and ran for 11 seasons ending in 2011. The show's premise is about a radio program that tried to "bridge the living and the dead, taking on unresolved deaths, ghosts and ghouls as they bring the life to the stories that haunt the night" (source)

Netflix seems to only have the first two seasons of the drama, although it’s unclear if they are the first two of the series as Netflix has their year date based on when it was uploaded on the site. The first season’s premise and pacing is a bit more mild than the later season, the episodes are shorter and the ghost stories are a little less spooky. There’s no real gore and very few instances that are actually creepy - think stories closer to Are You Afraid of the Dark than Tales from the Crypt. The second season ramps up the scares a bit more and doubles the episode length, possibly because they had a bigger budget. The first season’s episodes, while tied in some way to the radio station, stray a bit more. Sometimes it’s because of a letter sent in, sometimes a connection with an employee. All of the stories focus on romantic relationships as their main tie.

The drama isn’t the best, I’m not going to lie to you. It’s campy, the pacing is weird, and the acting isn’t very good. But it has this nice simplicity to the episodes. They are very reminiscent of the mid 90’s shows you’d find on SciFi. Do you remember that show Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction? That’s the level I’m talking about. It reminded me of what I grew up watching in my preteens and I think the nostalgia of that kind of worked more for the show than anything else. The episodes do go by fairly fast, so while it wasn’t the best drama I’ve seen it was any easy binge. It might be a good watch for the family if you have some older kids but I would be warned that it does show it’s age.

Goodnight DJ is available on Netflix till the 26th of this month.

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31 Days of Asian Horror: The Guest (2018)

Today I’m focusing on a drama that I have had on my watchlist for much longer than it needed to be. I tried watching it back when it was airing but had some other things happen that led to not having time for it, and since Netflix picked it up the end of last year it’s been a drama that I knew I needed to rush to the top of my list. That obviously still took till now, but I still finally got around to watching it now, and am really glad that I finally did. While I probably missed a lot waiting this long, it was nice to go into the drama without having to wait for it to air, and binged it in a couple of days.

After a powerful demon is found possessing the weak, a trio consisting of a psychic born to a shaman family (Kim Dong Wook), a Catholic priest (Kim Jae Wook), and police officer (Jung Eun Chae) are forced to join forces to stop the demon. The drama was directed by Kim Hong Seon, who's previous works included the first season of Voice and Black. It premiered on OCN's new Wednesday/Thursday slot on September 12, 2018. There's been some talk of a season two, and back in 2019 a movie was in the process but neither projects have had more momentum.

While the drama is an exorcism story and focuses a good chunk on the possession, demons, and religion, it ends up not living in that world for most of the show. One of the most surprising aspects of the drama was in the investigation storyline. I thought it was going to center more heavily on the exorcisms or dive more into religious topics, and I was taken aback with how much the show was spent on it - almost like I was watching a crime show. Setting the show as more of a crime thriller than a horror really worked well for me. While exorcism stories aren’t something I avoid, they are in a grey area for me. If the plot is too heavily into religion I find myself not caring about the show or the characters and so it’s always a tricky venture for me. With the differences in the characters, and the heavy crime thriller elements I enjoyed it throughout.

Don’t get me wrong - if you are a horror lover, I think you would really enjoy this series, and it does have some truly great scenes that are disturbing and creepy. However, I do think it starts to follow a bit too formulaic pattern for the insertion of the horror. As I talked about above, the story follows much more closer to that of a crime thriller, and a lot of the storyline is based on that. The horror and scares tend to always come at the end of the episodes, and so a lot of the scares are too predictable. Despite this, what we got of the horror is interesting and deep. It’s creepy and dark and focuses much more on the realness of the evil as opposed to the antics. It also helped the reveals to be not only surprising but more devastating. Coming back to the realness of the world and how horrible it is in the viewpoint of demons worked well for the series and the real horrors of the world integrated well.

The dramas shines most in its the focus on characters and their relationships. The trio are interesting and fun together, all being strongly independent from each other in their beliefs and actions. In any other other drama, this might be used as a main conflict point, but the show focuses their relationship as more of a trio of siblings and despite their differences understand that they have to fall on each other because they share the same grief. All have been affected by the demon in some regard, but their differences are vast. The drama doesn’t try to hide that, and develops a real relationship between the three that allows for each of their personal beliefs to shine through and grow, with the understanding that they need each other. Not just to be able to heal, but because what they are fighting can not be fought alone. Each brings something to the table and their differences are interesting to watch. The trio spend a lot of time together and I came to really love the energy all three brought out of each other. It creates some great scenes together that not only lighten the mood, but also ground the horror. It’s a great found family plot.

Because the drama focuses more of the investigation of the trio, we don’t spend too much time with the main group of cops that Gil Young works with, and it adds an interesting dynamic that allows for the drama to not fall into a lot of the stereotypes that are prevalent in other crime dramas. I really enjoyed this aspect, as I was not spending my time annoyed with the investigation and how the cops were handling it, especially since this was in an area that was supernatural and a harder sell to the general population. Gil Young and her partner, Go Bong Sang (played by Park Ho San), have a great relationship together. He has taken her under his wing since her father’s passing and is a constant support to her. Even towards the end of the series when he has to face some developments that would question his faith of her, he trusts her enough to value her decisions.

I’m really happy that I was able to pick up the drama now, and happy that is now easily accessible for a much larger audience. I think the Netflix audience is a good choice for it. The cast and storyline are solid, and it’s hard to stop once you start. If you are looking for a darker show to watch for the season, or anytime, check out the drama.

The Guest is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Squid Game Review

Squid Game came out this past Friday and I, having no will and strength, binged the entire thing on Saturday (save one episode that I watched on Friday, but I had other things to binge on Friday so I had to wait). I was really excited to watch, it being one of the only dramas premiering this month that I had my eyes on, and I generally like these survival game thriller horrors, so it’s not too surprising I would finish basically the drama in one sitting. While the drama was a great binge and I did enjoy a lot of it, after sitting with it for a while there was more that I wanted to talk about than just a quick non-spoiler review and some plots that I had issues with.

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Squid Game follows the contestants in a secret game where they will be given a set amount of money if they win. To win they have to be the last person standing, playing various games to win. The setup for the games is a little more interesting than most in this drama, as they aren’t complicated puzzles that you have to figure out a la an escape room. All the games come from childhood and are easy, familiar games. I liked how the games being played out the way they were relatively adaptable for any of the players. While with some games the player could have a disadvantage being elderly or not as strong, some of the games were based on luck or simple mind games. The game contestants had an age range that was much more skewed the older side (although we had a few main characters who were young), most of the main players being middle age. It was a good set up the reason why they decided to play the game. All were down on their luck and for most the outside world was just as bad as this blood-filled game.

One of the comments I’ve heard from multiple people online is the predictability of the games - not just in who was going to win. And it’s true, it’s pretty clear what’s going on from the beginning and most of the reveals weren’t that shocking. Especially if you’ve watched any of these types of dramas, or even if you are just a general kdrama watcher. I think one of the biggest problems with kdramas is that they follow the same format (no matter the genre) and very few ever fall out of it - there’s very little exception. And for this drama, for all that it does right, it still lives in a kdrama world. Everyone is always tied with everyone. Always. As soon as I realized it was too easy for the cop, Jun Ho, to enter the grounds and become an employee with access to weapons and gear, I knew his brother who he was looking for was the guy behind the mask. How else was he able to infiltrate a highly organized game that has not only cameras but a scanning system. By kdrama trope standards, his brother not being a contestant but the guy behind the man was the only option for those two. I knew that the old guy was more than just a contestant who was magically good at everything, and magically falls completely apart in a matter of minutes (you also don’t see him get shot while the others were shown, so if you didn’t know before, that solidified everything). Kdramas tend to focus on the differences between the rich and poor which I don’t think is much of a factor in Western shows. Because of this, I never assumed that the one controlling could be some crazed psychopath serial killer, it was gonna be a bored rich guy.

While knowing these things made some of the surprises not as enjoyable to my watch, that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a bad thing overall. The predictability led me to focus on other characters a little bit more closely without the added view of trying to figure out if they would be the ones to survive. The character arc of Abdul Ali (No. 199) was solid and engaging because we knew the inevitable end of his character. His last moments with Cho Sang Woo (No. 218) were heartbreaking and real, leading to one of the most devastating deaths of the games. Since I was focused on what Jun Ho was going to do, I didn’t spend time focused on who the actor playing his brother could be. I am not kidding, if you heard the shriek that came out of my mouth when Byung Hun appeared. I don’t know if there was a rumor or spoiler floating around that he was going to be in the drama, but for the most part, I steered clear of everything (except for a last minute Gong Yoo appearance spoiler) so I was genuinely shocked it was him.

My main problem with drama fell squarely on a typical kdrama trope that I didn’t think was going to have such an impact on my viewing, nor take me out the games so much: the random English-speaking white guy. We always joke about how terrible they are when they show up in a drama, but I don’t think it’ll ever compare to the detriment they did in this. For them being the VIPs - the people betting on players, and supposed to be key characters - yet given the lines they were given was almost insulting to the script. I was supposed to feel disturbed watching them bet on players, they are part of the villains in this story, and yet all their lines made me cringe. It’s such a shame that it was so far into the drama as well and during key moments with Jun Ho and his escape. I assume their childish retorts were to mirror the childish games they were watching and betting on but the execution lacked any of that depth. This was Netflix produced, you’re telling me you couldn’t find anyone in Korea who could deliver lines better? Or any person who knew English to rewrite the lines and tighten them up? With such stellar acting for the main cast, it was a let down and took me a while to get back into the drama after.

More than anything that I got out of the drama, the visuals won. The set design is outstanding and I could easily watch detailed tours of each room. With its Willy Wonka oddness and the bright pinks, blues, and yellows, the whole design added a layer to the entire drama that really added so much to the overall story. It was also done without CGI, opting for real sets, which always helps out the world immersion not just for the audience, but also the actors and I really think it showed. The design fell into the molded conformity of humans as they grow up, having to enter into the capitalistic society while learning those things at an early age. The familiar location of the sets - key places you would remember from your childhood - the bright colors all added to the dreamlike world they were living in that was oddly familiar and yet skewed like your own memories of things when you were young. Everyone in lines or formations and in the same gym outfit, it was a great contrast and visually appealing aspect. I always love when time is spent on world-building, especially when you can tell that the director and creative team feel that is important.

In the end, Squid Game did have some solidly interesting stories, suspenseful games, and stellar acting but there were a bit too many important unanswered questions that left the end lacking and yet somehow had too much downtime filler to fill the 9 episodes. I understand that some of the unanswered questions were purposely done for the set up of a second season…but I have a problem with a second season. I don’t think it should be done, specifically in how they are setting it up to be. Could they do a second season with different characters and different games and it be good? Absolutely. But the ending of the first season told us that was not the route they were going to take, opting for the potential for him to be back in the games, maybe to infiltrate? It doesn’t seem right that he would go back as a character, especially as he is just getting back to being a human and obviously had fixed things with the relationship with the daughter.

I also wish we had gotten to see more with the employees. The small glimpses you get were intriguing and made me really want to know more about them. Why they were there, what they were promised or told about the games. We see tiny peaks with the cop, but it’s so small and doesn’t accurately portray the greater world they live in that is obviously very different than the players. It would be an interesting look. If I had the pull the second season would focus on them, not the contestants.

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Review: The Master's Sun (2013)

In honor of The Master’s Sun having premiered today 8 years ago, I decided to finally sit down and watch the drama and review it. I know it’s a pretty universally loved drama as it is always brought up by a slew of people, even those that don’t like darker dramas and its MyDramaList score is fairly high. Going in the drama had a pretty big shoe to fill and sadly it never filled that for me. In fact, by the first episode I knew that it wasn’t going to be an enjoyable watch for me, but I continued for all seventeen episodes because I wanted to try to see what I was missing.

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The Master’s Sun follows Tae Gong Shil (Gong Hyo Jin) a medium who is plagued with being able to communicate with ghosts. She meets stoic rich businessman, Joo Joong Won (So Ji Sub), who had suffered a tragic loss when he was younger and in trying to find out what happened, developed a disdain for anyone who says they can see ghosts. They meet and develop a relationship as she deals with her ability and he uncovers the truth behind his first love.

One of the biggest problems I had with the drama was the relationship between Gong Shil and Joong Won. The relationship is entirely based on him controlling her. Consistently. There was never a time I thought that their relationship was sweet, or that there was some push for me to believe that they should be with each other. Usually, these types of yelly/grumpy male interest dramas at least change the guy to a passable person that you can imagine the female being with, but that never happened here, he stays consistent till the end. I guess in a sense it’s the most realistic option as people don’t change like that (especially not with professional help)? An exhausting realistic option for a drama that’s main focus was romance.

Another part that was hard to watch with the drama was the fact that we never saw real growth from Gong Shil in any real sense. The drama wanted you to believe that she does, but she doesn’t. What little growth we saw was only tied to Joong Won, and that was only through her falling in love with him. She never believed in herself the way that she was and accepted her faults, and didn’t see the real good she was doing with helping the ghosts. She blamed everything on herself, and Joong Won never provided any true or lengthy support to help her see her strength or to make her know that it wasn’t her fault. She never got to grow the way she deserved. The imbalance in the power dynamic between the two stayed present and dominating throughout, making the relationship feel messy and uncomfortable. And that’s really sad. It was entirely a one-sided relationship that I was never rooting for and never felt good about.

While I did like the sub-story about his first love, I found that it was nothing like the rest of the drama and didn’t work well when paired with it. It was darker and felt like the writer was constantly forcing two completely different stories together. Even the stories of the ghosts tended to not be consistent, and while I do think the format of focusing on a different ghost and its story for an episode or two helped with the entertainment, you could tell their only purpose was to bring in the horror element and clashed just as much as the first love story. It just never fit for me, and I do think a lot of that had to do with Gong Hyo Jin’s character and how scared she was at not scary things it just made it seem like they were trying to hit you over the head that this was a horror drama through her (or just a catalyst for her to constantly run into Joong Won’s arms). I feel that a lot of times the ghost storylines were rushed to the point that I never connected with them, which is a loss because a lot of the heart and warmth of the drama was supossed to be pulled from those stoylines and fell flat, especially when they weren’t accomplishing that warmth through the main relationship. As far as it being labeled a horror drama, they do mean this in the loosest of terms. While some of the ghosts had a little bit darker storylines dealing with their death, for the most part they are the scare level of Disney’s Haunted Mansion.

While I didn’t like the drama, I don’t want to spend this entire review bashing it, because that’s not fun and not realistic. There were parts that I enjoyed about it and thought worked well. I specifically loved the assistant character played by Choi Jung Woo. I’m a sucker for the gentle fatherly type of presence, and I thought his character really did this well and was not only good for Joong Won, but all of the other characters. He developed realistic and healthy bonds with all of them, and I think that if anyone learned anything in the process of the drama, it was from him.

In a drama that is so fraught with the generic tropes (and I’m serious about this, they used every trope from wrist grabs to amnesia to random separation), the one thing it did surprisingly well was handle the evil mother in law. While she was a presence of nonacceptance, she was level-headed and not over the top. It was real and refreshing to see the character be handled that way, and I really enjoyed that her husband was equally as good and that their relationship was not a relationship of hatred, but of love and acceptance for their differences. It was really nice.

The second female lead was also not over done and drawn out as I thought she was going to be in the first couple of episodes. She was annoying, and created some minor barriers, but overall she was fine and allowing her to not be an evil character helped her storyline. I liked her parts with Seo In Guk, even if she was a tad too pushy, and their storyline was generally cute and not draining.

All-in-all I’m sad that the drama didn’t live up to what I thought it would be for me. With a strong cast of actors and the praise it constantly got, I thought that it would be a fun watch for me and it was anything but. Make no mistake, I know that the drama is outside of my genre tastes a bit, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed other romcoms and with the addition of the horror element I was sure that this one would be at the least a fun watch but that just wasn’t the case.

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Coma (2006) Review

Not very many horror dramas premiered during the summer, and of the few only a couple were fully horror and didn’t lean into comedy. The short five-episode OCN drama, Coma, is one of them. Premiering July 21, 2006, Coma is about a hospital that is closing and the secrets that are unearthed when an insurance agent comes to check on the hospital’s remaining patient who is in a coma. The drama was co-produced with the production house Sio Film and was shown at the 7th Jeonju International Film Festival in 2006.

I really didn’t know anything about Coma going into the drama, and so when I added it to my list of things to watch and review that premiered during the summer I knew that I was playing a dangerous game that it could very well turn out to not be something I would enjoy. But to my surprise, I was really into Coma and it caught me from the very beginning. The mystery of what happened unfolds well, with each episode focusing on a specific person tied to the events and what part they played. The drama goes much darker and creepier than I was expecting. It had a good grasp of incorporating a creepy tone and well-played scares that were consistent throughout the drama. I really wasn’t expecting it to go as dark as it did. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did it stay that way throughout, but was constantly adding more to the suspense and mystery of the drama throughout each episode.

I did find it hard to keep track of some of the characters, and this is mainly due to it jumping back and forth in time. It used time jumps pretty regularly and in different ways and along with some of the character’s being children during the time of the incident but grown in present day, it added to the confusion when some of the main older characters didn’t also have a defining age or appearance change. There are also jumps to incorporate the storylines of the previous episodes (that occur in the present time) and the characters do “see” what had happened in the viewpoint of the ghosts as well as the actual jumps into the past. But the story’s mysteries were intriguing and the scares kept me engrossed dispute the confusion, and once I finished the drama it had worked itself out. It’s definitely a drama that you need to watch all episodes for it to make sense, and I would suggest watching them as close as possible.

I really did love this drama. I think the episode number length works in its favor, along with it being an OCN production, so that it wasn’t tied to normal viewing regulations. Its director for the first and last episodes, Gong Su Chang, worked on horror films R-Point and the Ring Virus and so the drama really had a good creative team attached to it to make it work. I know that with it being an older drama it will detract people from picking it up, but it’s a great mystery with good scares and atmosphere. One of the darker and creepier revenge tales you can find in a kdrama. Its definitely been added to my list of favorite horror dramas that I’ve watched so far.

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