Death's Game

What a ride! So many incredibly talented actors nicely packed in 1 drama.

Really well done. Brutal violence. Short story like format with each life experience. Fast and action packed.

Really good cast of folks including the long list of special appearance & supporting actors. Epic mix of very talented people. A must watch for this reason alone. With the story telling format its easy to watch in short sittings (1 ep at a time) but you'll likely binge this like me.

Some parts are OTT with the blood or mind bending twists but that's the story they had to follow.

P1 IS BETTER than Pt2 IMO, I'm not sure why 2nd half is rated higher.

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THRILLING AND ZERO PLOT HOLES

Only flaw of this show is that it finished too quickly!!! ):
I really loved it! Not only for the cast which is AMAZING! But for the plot too.
It's definitely something new, but it ate and left no crumds. The thrilling part were always delivering amazing results.
And i felt soo bad at some point for seo in guk that i started too cry and i was so emotionally involved with this show whish is a good sign in my opition.
The whole industry is in this drama and I'm not kidding. Kim Ji Hoon THIS SLUT always have me in a chokehold. Every drama he does he's a total psycho and I'm always enchanted by him. AND I KNOW IT'S NOT NORMAL OKAY!!
Anyways overall this is a masterpiece and so fullfilling in every acpects.

ps: in some poing i started to ship choi yi jae with death which was kinda psychotic, but nvm...

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⚰ Death Don't Play °7.8° °Excellent°

‘All I ever wanted was a clean death, so I can't die like this.’ Things aren't great for “Jae”.

Then we jump back 7yrs. First of all, though, what is /wrong/ w/ a person who says “all I want is a clean death?” That ain't normal. 7yrs ago Jae witnessed a horror. A man was hit by a car & died, practically in Jae’s arms. Jae proceeds to watch his own demise - in slomo. In present day, he's been job hunting all thos3 7yrs. Now, he might be unemployable.

In ep1, Jae realizes that life scares him more than death. Death is only an ‘end to my pain’ he yells to the darkness & jumps. So he thought. So, why is he opening his eyes again? What's that his ears are hearing? “You mocked me.” Death is talking to him. “You will be punished. You will enter the bodies of those about to die & you will die 12 times for what you said about me.” Death Don't Play. There's a loophole: If Jae can avoid death in one of those bodies, he will live out his life as that person. (‘But I don't /want/ to live,’ he thinks).

Special effects, all-star cast, elaborate sets… This is no small budget show. In ep1 there's an elaborate scene in purgatory w/ thrashing reanimated beings. Then there's a big plane crash. In ep2, school kids' faces morph into truly creepy zombie looks. There's also a thrilling fight scene. In one incarnation, he's an international assassin taking us on a 🏍 chase.

It's mostly well conceived, but not issue free. DG is making a philosophical point; it's not trying to explain the where/why/how Jae got into this insane mess. What happens to the souls of the poor bodies he's taking over? They are gone. He doesn't want to kill off one of his incarnations - more than anyone, he wants that person to live. But that person is already gone. That human is Jae, now. The first half of ep8 hurts. It really hurts.

Seo In Guk (The Master's Sun, Doom at Your Service) plays Jae. This is my first look at him. Kim Mi Kyung is his mother. She has been in about a third of everything produced recently, it seems. She looks great. I had to do a double take. Some of my favs she's been in are Her Private Life-8, It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, & Saimdang, Light’s Diary-8.5. “Had he been born to a smarter woman this wouldn't have happened," mourns Jae's Oma. It's painful. Then she looks at the plaque on the wall: "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.” So says the quote attributed to Napoleon. Her performance is strong in DG. It's heart-wrenching.

Park So Dam (Parasite-9, Record of Youth-5.8) portrays Death. This actress excels at playing a strong woman. In ROY she plays a sweetheart, but the show doesn't work. She's right in her wheelhouse, here. Nam Kyung Eup (Crash Landing on You-9.1, Misaeng-9.1) portrays Chairman Nam. Go Youn Jung (Moving-8.5, Alchemy of Souls-7.9) is Lee Ji Su, Jae’s girlfriend. She's a keeper. The rather beautiful Kim Ji Hoon makes an appearance as Park Tae U, CEO of Taekang Group. I've enjoyed him in Love to Hate You-8.9, Flower of Evil-8.9, & Flower Boy Next Door-7. He seems to be equally comfortable playing good and bad guys. How did someone who is so pretty end up playing such evil characters? He's attractive, but not simple, I guess. Ha Byung Hoon of Go Back Couple & 18 Again is the screenwriter & director.

Dying in 12 distinct incarnations requires many guest stars.

Kim Kang Hoon is growing up! I've seen him in When the Camellia Blooms-8, Hotel del Luna-8.4, Racket Boys-8.3, and so much more. He is Jae’s 3rd attempt at life. He is very much like Jae: Raised by a single mom, bullied and overlooked, no advantages, and he commits suicide. All Jae has to do to beat the game is not kill himself. So Jae doesn't die instantly, like his first 2 incarnations. But he does have to work his way through a severe bullying situation at school. He utterly crushes the bully. He does it so effectively the bully retaliates ☠ lethally. Chalk up another failure!

Jang Seung Jo plays Jae's 4th incarnation. He's been in Familiar Wife-8.5, Snowdrop, The Good Detective, & Chocolate, among others. He's truly beautiful. Often playing someone corrupted or weak, in this incarnation he is an international criminal. He's got 💰. He stole 10 billion from his boss. Unfortunately, every bad guy & cop in the country is chasing him for the massive bounty put on his carcass. This incarnation is big budget.

Then Jae’s an abused infant. It's agonizing. He's entirely aware of what's happening, but he can't communicate. “How can such parents exist?” Jae is thunderstruck. “No one is guaranteed anything in life. You've just been taking everything for granted. You didn't care for life and chose death so flippantly, but that baby didn't even get to make a choice. There are many others like that in the world.” Death has no sympathy for him. That's the drum beat: When there's life there is hope. Appreciate your life and make the most of it. Don't just think about yourself. Have empathy. Others are suffering too. Thinking patterns are like habits, and bad thoughts are bad habits. We need to force our minds to stay positive, and to not give up, or the darkness will envelop us.

Jae is now a model (Lee Do Hyun from Sweet Home & The Glory is Jang Geon U) and he actually meets his own GF, Ji Su. He's able to strike up a friendship with her. She's a writer, so he pitches his idea for a book to her. You can guess what his storyline is: Exactly what he's been going through. He tells her that he had a girlfriend for 7 years, but he was never able to show his best self to her. She's impressed by his “creativity.” She's also impressed by the level of detail and how emotionally wrapped up he is in the story, just like he's experienced it himself, she notes.

🎬

Part 1 gives way to Part 2, which is the payoff for our suffering. We aren't rewarded until the end, so hold on to the ledge and endure it, as PT2 is more difficult to watch than PT1. The following is a rehash of my PT2 review.

In PT2, Kim Won Hae is a homeless man & Jae's 10th reincarnation. He's in 40% of everything made, I think. My favorite performance of his is in Black-9, but he's a plus everywhere he's seen. Most years he has at least 3 credits, many years he has 6, and in 2018 he was in 13 features! He has 133 credits on MDL. He's everywhere. Besides his many guest appearances, I've seen him in Signal-8.6, While You Were Sleeping-7.3, Clean with Passion for Now-7, The Hymn of Death-8.4, Start-up-8, Awaken-8.7, Revenant-7.4, and I'm currently watching Chocolate.

The great Kim Jae Wook (who is fabulous in Crazy Love-7.8 and Her Private Life-8), plays villain Jung Gyu Cheol, Jae’s 8th incarnation. Not a nice guy. One guy who chases him is Oh Jung Se, who appears in Part 1 but takes on a bigger role in Part 2. He plays a special needs character in It's Okay to Not Be Okay-9, and he's fantastic. In Revenant-7.4, he's a college professor. He also stars in the popular Mr. Plankton. Here, he's detective An Ji Hyeong. Jae’s incarnations get tangled up, partially because he chooses to tangle then, but fate is certainly at play, too. As his many living iterations unfold, a pattern emerges that reveals a certain bad guy who has a common tie to many of “his” lives. Soon, each of his incarnations turns into a mission in pursuit of this troublemaker.

DG gets progressively sadder towards the end of PT2, and when ep8 opens, things appear irreversibly bleak. “So you killed yourself because you felt hopeless? Think carefully, if you really didn't harm anyone.” Death is challenging Jae’s presuppositions. Jae’s been going on about his misery. In fairness, it's real. Life hasn't been pleasant. “It's over for me already so why should I?” “So that you can regret it, and repent.” “Will I go to heaven if I regret it now?” Jae is turning flippant. “Will repenting give me another chance at life? I won't do it.” “You really must not care about anything but yourself.” Death shoots straight. “What else should I care for other than myself?” Jae doesn't sound any differently than the entitled people he's been chasing after. He's been whining that the deaths are not avoidable. He usually dies as soon as he enters the bodies. “Figure out a way on your own; they are all avoidable,” Death assures him.

As life goes by, Jae begins to soften. “Now that I've seen what hell is like, I've realized that being alive in itself is a chance.” Gradually, Jae starts to adjust his outlook. “That's why I don't think it's too late for you yet,” Death isn't harsh for once.

“I don't know who I am anymore.“ Jae moans. Then he recalls Ji-su saying: “People are happiest when they can truly be themselves. In the end, life would be meaningless if you can never really be yourself.” Jae's been living other lives. Sometimes for months. He's done some good. He attends the funeral for the man whose life he just lived - whose death he just died - heroically, I might add - but no one at the funeral knows who he is. Who is he? It's ep7. He is starting to crack.

They eventually show us the despair of Jae’s mother and his GF in the wake of losing him. Suicide just can't be the right option, but it looks differently to me now, after having gone through multiple traumas, then it did before living became so painful. I hate it when people say that those who commit suicide are cowards. I understand the argument and it's not without merits, but I think suicide is more often the result of unbearable pain. Yes, the person's only thinking about h/h self and not the people who have to go on without h/h, or the people that have to clean up and bury the body, but people who aren't well, and people who are in extreme pain aren't really able to think about other people. I've learned that physical pain is nothing compared to emotional pain, and pain is always isolating. It's difficult dealing with someone who's hurting, but if you don't learn how to show them care they will feel isolated. Healing is not in your words, but it might be in spending some time, watching a show together, helping h/h do something around the house. It honestly doesn't take much to make a person feel valued. Be prepared; perhaps what they say will be frustrating. I've also learned that part of love is learning what to ignore.

Jae finally realizes that the death of a loved one is more painful than immolation or death by dismemberment. Jae ends up realizing that he had always been afraid of failure and rejection. That fear is what drove him. Now what he fears is hurting others: “I just want to hug my mother one more time.”

Death made him realize that life is an opportunity, and a small life can be happier and more carefree than a privileged one.


QUOTES🗣

Isn't that what you humans do? You care more about the thorn in your own finger than the knife in someone else's body.

Death is contagious. As I disappeared from the world, my death remained behind with those who loved me.


IMHO〰🖍

📣7.8 📝8.3 🎭8 💓5 🦋3 🎨7.6 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚8.8 🤗4.7 ▪ 🌞4 ⚡6 😅1 😭6 😱4 😯3 🤢7 🤔6 💤0

Shazams: It's a Lie, by Sondia

Age 18+ gore, scary dead creatures w/ big sharp teeth. Language: d@mmit, $h!+, F💣; Rated TV-MA: Mature Audience Only.


Re-📺? I would probably give it another shot

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Unique storyline with amazing actors/actresses combination!

I love the story so much...Also everything is connecing each other. I actually started to watch this drama cause of the excellent actors/actresses.I didn't expect that the story is gonna be that awesome! That's so unique.

There's so much life matter messages that give in the drama..And they gave that messages so well to us,
I appreciate that.
Especially, between the main character's mom and his girlfriend connection, their feelings meaning a lot of things in his life, but he's not aware of this connection and feeling are so special...He forgot how he gave value his mother and his girlfriend in the old days.
In the end, thanks to death (girl) he aware how special and important they are for him and life is value to live.

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Unhappy about a couple of aspects

March 2024. Watched Parts 1 & 2 together on Prime

I thought the casting for this was incredible. So many actors I love, in one drama, was frankly too good to be true and the acting was, predictably, great.

I really enjoyed the ways in which events began to expose a troubling connection. It wasn't obvious what that was to be, however, and even when revealed, was still far from final.

There are shocks, tragedies, grief, unfairness, manipulation and the old favourite, money and power.

The struggles are real and I don't think anyone could blame Choi Yi-jae. Having said that, there were numerous times his character didn't speak up, or did some truly stupid things; where his mother was concerned, especially. It numbed my mind.

There were also moments of brilliance in the plot though, but it did vere sharply between that and "What?!", at times.

Apart from Seo In-guk, I absolutely loved Kim Jae-wook, Lee Jae-wook, Lee Do-hyun and Kim Mi-kyung in this. None of them overacted and given LJW's part, he could have. His scenes were the most visceral for me.
Nice seeing LJW and Yoo In-soo acting together again, although in vastly different roles to Alchemy of Souls.

I do wish the story had focussed less on Yi-jae as being cruelly punished and more on his realisations, growing determination and self-worth, through the trials, as being healing. Those are positive lessons to drive home.

However, I found myself getting incredibly angry at times, because instead, to me, it really felt like they were saying suicide is a selfish choice, made with no regard for those left behind and should be a punishable act.

Selfish? Perhaps that is true, but only to a point. The reason being, it is a decision very, very rarely made by someone in a normal state of mind. Suicide isn't something a happy, mentally stable, rational person, would commit.
If life has become painful, terrifying, utterly hopeless, everything else becomes irrelevant in that person's mind. Death is, indeed, no longer frightening, but an escape.
So why portray it as though it was (is) done as a normal, conscious decision, with no care for loved ones? In that frame of mind, rationality has long departed, together with being concerned about the impact on others.
Were they trying to send a message, due to the frighteningly high number of suicide cases in S.Korea? I sincerely hope not, because it's cruel (especially to those left behind) and it's wrong.

The ending was totally perplexing, to me, for one huge reason, which I can't actually say, because it would be a spoiler... unless all the things he went through were indeed part of an elaborate game and not 'real'... but then, he wouldn't have been standing on the ledge.

Whilst I enjoyed the many actors, characters and their stories, the plot fell a little short and I wasn't happy, at all, with the unkind assumptions made around suicide.
I haven't seen the webtoon of the same name that this is based on and, therefore, don't know how close to it this drama is.

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Good message, but little character development

Starting this show, you will be left a little confused, but it progresses very fast, making the show very binge-worthy. However, even after watching everything, I feel like the character development is very poor, not taking into account the last episodes, it is almost non-existent. The character shares some valuable insights in the meaning of life and why we should always try, bur at some point it got very repetitive and death's arrogant personality did not make it a lot better. What I was hoping for was a little bit more character development, although it seemed like the Choi Yeejin learned his lesson, he did not really seem to progress and that made me very frustrated.

Apart from that, it is quite a masterpiece, seeing how the story gets clearer and clearer with every episode, therefore I highly recommend to watch it, especially if you like mystery!

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I thought it was gonna be an intense thriller but it was actually very heartwarming?

The line-up for the actors was insane. Everyone did their role so well where every death had a completely different vibe and lesson to be learnt. I was also amazed by how smart yee jae was while going through the lives. The transition from him being a high school student to the MMA fighter was my favourite cause Lee Jaewook and Yoo Insoo were so good. And of course Kim Jaewook and Kim Jihoon in the same frame AMAZING!!

Plot wise actually very simple to follow it felt like i was watching a drama that is teaching us lessons more than a thriller show. Some of the thriller scenes were lol funny cause the CGI looked so weird haha but other than that it was a good show!

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interesting plot

8,4/10. Plotnya menarik tapi sensasi thrilling-nya kurang bgt, yg feelnya dapet cuma pas bagian detektif an jihyung sama jung gyuchul. Untuk acting ga mengecewakan sih soalnya castnya udh pada mantep bgt 😃👍🏻 ada beberapa sinematografi yg aku suka, selebihnya biasa aja. CGI-nya kurang........ MAAF.... eps akhir agak ga nyangka sih dia bakal reinkarnasi jadi ibunya, gokil. Part ini menurutku yg paling sedih, sama waktu dia reinkarnasi jd gunwoo pas ketemu jisu (((banjir air mata))) endingnya GANTUNG,,, smoga s2 nya ga lama2. Takut kburu lupa bjir sama plotnya 🤯 OHYA dari series ini banyak juga pelajaran idup yg bisa diambil, jadi sebenernya ok aja buat ditonton 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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2023's best show and for indian audice ( banao to asa show banao warna rhne do?)

This will be 2023's best show I watched I thought My Demon was going to be the best show but now after watching this I'm totally sour this is the best show for 2023 I don't know why people give him less rating than 10, this show gives Super Chilling action and also differents story that keeps entertaining his audience.
this show is perfect for fans of action, thriller, and fantasy genres.
creators did an excellent job of how they show the element of life and death it gives a very different view of what death is like.
It makes a thrilling and engaging viewing experience. each cast gives a memorable performance for their role you will love it.

overall this series a pervoking and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I know I did not do a very good job reviewing it but all i want to say is you won't regret it,
it's a must-watch

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It was offensive. Did not like this drama

The story was mediocre at best. The drama made Death more powerful than God when Death is a mere transition from your physical body at the end of your life. The use of a gun for Choi Yi Jae to die every time he assumes the life of another person is so jarring to the senses and it takes on a violence that I find too extreme. It was painful to watch.

What's up with the different characters he had to take? He made a personal choice to end his life and to make him realize he made a mistake through all those characters is kinda too late. For me, it was just a lazy writer's way of creating a story from a very weak premise.

Death has no control over man because man was created by God and granted free will. As the bible stated, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, [39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God..."

I have watched numerous depictions of death and they were good like "Meet Joe Black" but this drama was just too unreal for my taste.

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