This review may contain spoilers
My disappointment
The killing vote and the whole thing is good but we can easily guess some characters role in this drama no one questioned heroin sister for being in the live with gaetal and the boy who killed jihoon is escape easily.. no one talk about that.. at some points there is no logic and there is no explanation why that doctor helped kwon and why the police office help to mix nicotine in Lee's drink and who is he or how they make him to help. and the people who helped to escape jihoon from Hyun how did they know jihoon is gaetel who texted them.. if you watch this drama just for thriller without expecting perfect logic this is good dramaWas this review helpful to you?
Intriguing yet frustrating, worth the watch
To start off I had a really hard time starting this drama. I watched the first two episodes when they aired. I’ve only now completed it as a posting this. The first two episodes are pretty good, I had a hard time understanding what was going on to the point where I had to rewatch episode 1 twice. Even on my second viewing, I was still kind of confused, which is why I stopped watching on the second ep. That being said, if you’re anything like me, and it takes a while to gain your attention. Please give this drama until episode 3 to fully bring you in.For the plot of this drama I think it’s really solid. There are some things that could have been adjusted, but I think that’s all due to how the characters acted and their motives. I don’t have much to say on the story most of my worries and problems with the story are from the characters. I will say though, the ending being opened for a season two made me annoyed, but also curious on how a season two would play out. as well as whether they will fully develop the characters that needed improvement.
I think the cast are super awesome. They all did a great job at acting and you can see that by how annoyed and frustrated I got with their characters. But my biggest complaint is how the adults in the story seemed more childish than the characters that were supposed to be the children. Almost every adult character acted in ways that I would think that the teenage characters would act. I know the situations that they are being put in were very strenuous and emotional, but for the two main teenage characters to have more composure then the adults that were police was very jarring to me. I think that this was very prevalent in any scene that had action, all the adults seem to be very hesitant an not in a safety or percautious way. The way they acted almost seemed like they didn’t know what they were doing and they didn’t have a protocol to follow. The perfect example of this is during the Hospital scene that situation was very difficult to figure out a solution, but in that moment, all the adults seem to not know how they should go about things. Although the teenage characters weren’t very prominent in that scene, they still seem to have more composure, emotionally, and with their ways of going about things. You can say that the two teenage characters have so much composure, because of trauma and having to grow up early and I can agree 100% with that. The things that they had to go through and witness, they are most definitely going to be very mature for their age. But for the adults that have had the same experiences and more, while being in position of power, acting more childish was very frustrating to watch.
Besides how the adult characters acted, I don’t have any more complaints. It was a really solid drama with a good plot and frustrating characters. But with the content of the drama, you almost expect to be frustrated, which is what made everything that happened in the last two episodes very impactful.
✧If you’re contemplating watching the drama or not, I would say go for it 100%. It’s 12 episodes super short in drama world and it has a really intriguing and emotional story that pulls you in and makes you want to know more.
Was this review helpful to you?
Okayish
I mean till episode 12ish I kinda enjoyed and was actually engrossed into knowing the underlying truths behind the crimes but the ending was really predictive or rather chaotic. It felt very boring somehow and I found myself mostly skipping every 10 secs for the sake of finishing the series.Its worth watching till 13 ig but the way they kind of bring a parallel between revenge and show the criminal mindset next to the judicial system is good. It asks great questions on the law and social justice system but kind of fails to completely answer them as well. We are just left to accept what happens in the series and no proper reasons are highlighted which just makes me feel like they just made the show for the sake of action and plot. Somethings are dragged a lot so it kind of drains the essence of the series. Love the action and cyber pull offs in the show as they were very intense.
Some characters like the FL, her colleague, Lee-yun-sung really nailed it. Don't know about the ML he tried his shot but his character was not appealing maybe because thats what his nature is.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Prepare yourself mentally before pushing play!
So there’s an anti-hero who’s taken justice into their own hands. But their way of doing it is crazy. They hold a vote via text messages! I mean think about that - what would your reaction be if you received these kinds of texts?!So anyways - when the justice system doesn’t properly handle the seriously messed up people in society, this masked “vigilante” lets the people decide their fate instead - let them live or watch them die. Ironically they never seem to quite grasp that in their quest for “justice” they themselves are becoming villains….
As the interest & participation in this Killing Vote grows, the cops become more desperate to catch the culprit(s). Leading the charge are two complete opposites who’ve never gotten along. This duo starts as enemies with very different opinions on the ethics surrounding the investigation. Overtime, though, as they race to stop the killings, they come to form a bond of partnership that gives hints of brewing romantic feelings. (Are we getting a Season 2??)
Amidst all this there’s a known villain character who is completely psychotic. Honestly, the actor deserves an award for undertaking & owning this role. He was hecka creepy & I absolutely hated him which means the actor did his job phenomenally so kudos to him, seriously!
This is a dark & gritty drama that showcases the twisted side of society & how the mob mentality can have such an impact on people. It’s scary how quickly they voted to end a life, as if they weren’t willingly becoming accomplices in a murder. It should never be so easy to sentence someone to death (even if they 100% deserve it)…
The heroes are operating in the grey. The villains are depraved & fully black. The citizens are pulled into the “game” without knowing all the facts.
When given the option to either save or condemn, what would you choose?
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Good Plot, Disappointing Ending
I’m honestly a bit conflicted on how I feel about this show. it started really strong and had me on the edge of my seat, but the middle does drag a bit. Honestly, it could’ve been 8 episodes.One thing I’m really confused on is if Jihoon is alive? They make it seem like he’s dead dead and they even tell Kwon Seokjo that he’s dead (Jihoon being really his only reason to maybe stay alive now), but then he texts Joomin at the end? was that real or her delusion of grief? I mean, I hope he’s alive because his death was bullshit.
Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was Muchan in episode 10 to how he was at the end of episode 12. He was hellbent on saving Minsoo, who very much deserved to die, with the victim being the daughter of someone he was extremely close to. But, episode 12 insinuates at the end that he decided “ah screw it, now that everyone I care about is dead because I tried to stop them from seeking justice, I’ll become dog mask now.” Like brother, you could’ve just joined the train from the beginning and most of them would still be alive/around.
Also, unless I missed something, they kept it from us the entire show until the end that the reporter was the one who killed Hyun’s parents?? I’m sorry but the tension and anger from Hyun to the reporter absolutely was not strong enough if that’s the case, because their dynamic just seemed like they’ve had disagreements and backstabbing in the professional lives.
Again, it was a good show with a mostly enjoyable
plot, but some choices just seemed very out of character for some of them. Some stuff just didn’t add up in a way that would make sense. Like, after all that, you can’t tell me they really let the assemblywoman off the hook for everything?? When they had it lined up that her husband was leaving her and they found evidence, so she completely screwed??
I guess I do have a lot of complaints, but I did thoroughly enjoy the first 2/3 of the show.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Mist disappointed drama of 2023 so far
Firstly i would like to mention the good things.It's the Acting of the cast. Most of them did a wonderful job. My most fav is the one who played kimJiHoon.
Story : the concept of the main plot was good
Now dissappoinments - I can write an essay for several pages. It started off so good . I was really hooked up after a couple episodes. But then I started to get irritated more and more. I was like ,How come all the good people got screwed up and only bad people live a good life. But then I realised that's how the world we live in works.it's the real life. The drama depicted what happens in real life I guess.
But hoped atleast KimJiHoon would live.but they killed him too. I wanted to drop this drama early on. But I forced myself to every episode in hope that it will change.
Now I regret I continued on.
Park Hae Jin character looked so dumb most of the time. He shouldn't have chosen this project. And female lead too. Her character had no significance at all. I am sorry for the actress that she ended with a dumb character. Another dumb one is the professor. All the leads were dumb ,but they are alive and well. The only well written sane character was KimJiHoon and they killed him.
It seems there will be another season and HongJong Hyun joined the cast. It's his come back drama after so long. But he ended up with messed one
Was this review helpful to you?
when embarking on a journey of punishment, make sure to dig two graves
a previous reviewer mentioned that show could have been squid game-level iconic, and i would like to extrapolate on that concept b.c i completely agree. if only they would have committed to the promise of the sordid premise, we would have gotten a compelling narrative and narratively complete story.i'll start with our lynchpin, superintendent kim muchan. we're introduced to a character (and a team) that has an end-justifies-the-means approach to criminal-napping without regards for procedure, shame, or morals. i was really looking forward to that because i only watched tkv /for/ park haejin, and morally-gray really brings out the colour of his eyes... but this is not the character we get throughout the show. several times, the superintendent contradicts his own values, and i'd even go so far as to say he loses focus. too often he shows regard and places trust into people that at minimum have no reason to do the same to him! or they have straight up (ostensibly) betrayed him. so many factors would be different if only he were more consistent, and i believe the scriptwriters did this to portray him sympathetically—unnecessarily, i will underscore.
on a similar note, i was very confused by all the blurring in the show. what is the point of creating a show like this when you're going to censor not just mutilated bodies but also graffiti and knives? if you care so much about viewers' sensibilities, then produce a romcom instead. much of what made squid game so successful was how visceral it was, even for non-gruesome scenes (the tongue stuff during the dalgona event comes to mind). in my opinion, censoring visual aspects the way tkv did is not just a disservice to the story they're telling but also an insult to the audience.
finally, tkv did not lean into the moral quandaries enough, which is a shame because messages/themes stay with viewers far longer than cliffhangers and plot twists. how complicit are the public who votes, the media who elevate gaetal's platform, the legislature for generating laws that can be abused? so much focus is on the police (and really, #acab) that none of these other systems are called into question, which is a major shortcoming of the show. gaetal creates a "national death penalty," but not enough of the nation and how it works is involved in the story.
if these aspects were rectified, i would have been much more satisfied with the show, regardless of how i felt about certain characters.
but now i will go onto my personal disdain for certain characters lol i grew a strong disdain for the sisters as the plot progressed. joo hyun is too incompetent as a field detective to have attempted over half the stuff she did in the show. why was she always going places without backup?? if you're gonna work in cyber, you /have/ to accept that half of your worth is playing guy-in-the-chair for the brawn enforcement. plus, she was always emotionally compromised by her little sister's well-being. i'm not saying she shouldn't be worried, but i /am/ saying she shouldn't be going out in the field if she's going to lose her composure so easily. leave that to the traumatised and unattached members of the special investigation unit, please. (half-joking) i have these same gripes with her sister, but magnified tenfold because she's literally just a teenager and hurt more than she helped every single time she got involved.
i will wrap my review with this: park haejin explained in an interview that he asked the writers not to include a romance between the main leads as it would have distracted from the show. before watching, i disagreed with him - i'm of the opinion that romance is never extraneous. however, finishing this show made me appreciate how he is apparently the only one on this show who cared about the intended story. this show would have sucked even harder if they made me sit through a jank and haphazard romance subplot xD let's ignore the fact that i ended up really disliking joo hyun and being disappointed by the characterisation of kim muchan: this show is ~860 mins long. with all that time at its disposal, it /still/ didn't tell the story it should have/that i was wanting to see. if any of that time was relegated to developing a romance, who knows how much more the mystery-thriller aspects would have suffered ☠️ we all need to bow and thank park haejin for his service!!!
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
An Interesting Watch
I was keeping up with this drama’s updates since it was announced. I kinda wanted to read the original Manhwa but then I thought otherwise because I didn’t want to spoil anything for myself.The first half is interesting to say the least. There’s lots of characters, we see a bunch of side stories and the the cat and mouse game begins. But right after that it almost felt like they were just dragging the storyline a bit too much. The underage characters annoyed me so much to the point I went through the comments to check if anyone else was finding them annoying. Lo and Behold, some people did.
I really wanted to see character development for some characters especially Mu Chan. Man it hurts so much to see him being the way he is 😂 even in the end. If I were to say the ending just brings us back to square one then it wouldn’t be an understatement. We basically end up at a dead end. Unless they’re planning a s2, it was a very half assed ending in my opinion.
Coming back to the characters, Kim Mu Chan my boy you let me down. The FL was okayish. The professor’s character was good and my favourite has to be the teacher guy (don’t mind me I finished watching this like a month ago so I cannot remember their names)
I shipped the main protagonists 😂 and loved their banters in the beginning. When she goes to his house, how he experience a “nightmare”, when she picks up a gun and decides to shoot the villain guy. I really wished they had more moments together because in the later half they started acting like strangers. All that chemistry just for them to be estranged? tsk tsk
Now the plot. I hate how Korean cyber unit couldn’t trace the IP address for the life of them. The whole steaming thing was very unrealistic but I get it, it’s fiction. I let it slide but still it was just hard to swallow.
The character motivations often didn’t align with their personalities. I hate how they killed that ONE character in the end. It was so unnecessary. (unless they’re planning on playing a trick on us??)
Where’s the backstory for our protagonists?? Kim Mu Chan lost his mother but what happened next?? What’s the story behind the FL’s scar? Why do we never find any closure for their traumas? Maybe they’re planning all of that for S2. 🤷🏻♀️
But this Kdrama did bring me out of my Kdrama slump. I feel like 2023 was a bad year for crime-thriller genre. This was a good addition to it and a good way to end such a terrible year.
Was this review helpful to you?
Revenge because law didn't effective
The story is about a man who has his daughter killed by someone and in the court, He wasn't satisfied with the law and sentence that was given by the judge. Later on, He killed the killer without knowing who's the real killer and behind all of this. In the future, there was an anonymous person who hacked the electronic device and installed an application to all people in Korea to vote about the person that he had captured along with the crime that had been committed. It's actually similar to The Devil Judge. That's where the story becomes interesting.Was this review helpful to you?
.
En general me costó mucho terminar la serie, ya que no es que sea mala, pero había ciertas cosas que me aburrían demasiado y no me daban ganas de querer seguir mirándola, y por eso mismo la abandoné por mucho tiempo. el último episodio. encuentro que es muy bueno, y la primera mitad, o diría que un poco más de la mitad de ese episodio, me gustó mucho. Pero cuando ya va terminando, como que va a perder perdiendo algo. Y este mismo patrón ocurre en varios episodios: parten muy bien, tienen cosas muy bacanes, y se vuelve un poco aburrido de ver no la hace muy memorableWas this review helpful to you?
Очікування не виправдались…
Почну с плюсов: стильна музика та картинка, класні актори у роли командира та шкільного вчителя. Також, така бісяча Лім Джі Йон у «Слава» тут гармонійно вжилась у роль. І на цьому з плюсами все.Перші кілька серій наче створили враження цікавого детектива, де нам обіцяють противоборство розумів головного злочинця та поліцейського. І їм ми подовше притримати інтригу, хто є головним злочинцем. Але ні, нам майже на початку першої половини серіалу все зливають. А от передивляючись другу половину в мене склалось враження, що сценарист не знав, як закінчити те, що почав. Наче і цікаво, і натяк на другий сезон нам кинули. Але розвʼязка якась прісна. Все так передбачувано і через це чарівність перших серій була зруйнована. Ще нам доволі стисло показали минуле головних героїв, по суті не достатньо розкрив їхні мотиви.
В цілому, очікування були значно вище.
Was this review helpful to you?
Good watch, great murder mystery genre
Great murder mystery, no real romance per se. Very good story, binged watched most of this, great chemistry between lead characters, good cast ensemble. Ending a but drawn out. But excellent concept. Makes you wonder about what you would do in that situation, questions ones values. Ost average. Acting and cast superb performancesWas this review helpful to you?
