Somebody (2022)

majorly missed the mark

This show needed at least 4 more episodes to delve deeper into the backstories of the characters. I was left feeling like I knew none of the characters on a deeper level or their motives. I needed a background on the cop’s accident, the serial killers past, the shaman’s past… this show introduced 5+ half-baked plot lines that went nowhere.

Because we had no background on the killer and no inside look into his motives, I couldn’t understand his change of heart. It was just the guilt and fear of getting caught I guess.

Also, the characters made some incredibly stupid decisions. People, never meet a man for the first time in the middle of the woods by yourself, even if you don’t depend on a wheelchair to get around. And don’t go meet that man again after he abandons you in the woods and destroys your extremely expensive wheelchair. I could not feel any empathy for the cop because she kept getting herself into stupid situations.

The music also felt off. There were multiple times when the music did not match the atmosphere of the scene. The music would be really quirky while the scene was tense. It took away from the immersion into the scene.

On a good note, the acting was awesome. The male lead did a great job being menacing and a little unhinged. He mastered the creepy smile.

Overall, this show failed to keep my attention most of the time and it has 0 rewatch value to me. I almost dropped it after the dumpster fire that episode 6 was, but I figured I could finish the last 2 episodes just for completion.

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Had a lot of potential..

This maybe a Psycho-Thriller/Crime/Suspense but all I get is the Psycho part, it's creepy with almost no suspense at all with a lousy police system.

From the get go, you'll already know who's the sexual predator hiding in an online dating app.

In their attempt to make it look mysterious, I think they didn't incorporate enough subplots to the story. All we know is that the FL is a young genius that developed an online dating app. Then there's her friends; a detective who'd been a victim of a sexual predator and a shaman who's willing to go beyond measures to help a friend.

The actors did good on their part. The musical scoring and OST were ok. All in all, it's an ok show. Nothing spectacular about it though.

Would I rewatch this? Not ever..

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Needs a redemption arc.

ok this is my first review because I just binge watched this absurdity... and I have so much to say about it. The title also means the show needs a redemption arc not the murderer(s)... if anything, they kind of got one anyway.

The filming direction of this drama was very creative. Not a new concept, but very well-done and very fitting for the theme and story of this drama. I really liked that! Props to the director for doing this as a first-timer and in a way that impressed me as a frequent media consumer.

Umm, the story was... I didn't really know how to feel about it. I appreciate the openminded-ness for the s*x scenes (I am asexual so I had to skip them but I did notice the change in music and filming styles as I fast-forwarded) and how it might contribute to the tension between the characters but are we seriously going to let this serial killer and someone he was taking advantage of (at least in the first place, will talk about this shift in his character later) for being on the spectrum - turn this drama into a hornfest?? I was very uncomfortable, but that might also be me. It just didn't feel right that they kept showing it as if it was this fantasy that viewers were supposed to... what were viewers even supposed to do?? Join them on their own? Fantasize with them? I feel like if all of those scenes had to be included, then the purpose should be more definite, like showing his eeriness. Of course, I saw that this was loosely based on American Psycho, which makes me seem like a hypocrite because there were explicit scenes of Bateman and his soon-to-be victims. But that was an exaggerated satire piece mocking the higher-level NPCs in corporate business where he was driven to madness from ~society~ so what is more reasonable??

Going on with the story, I read a bunch of other reviews and opinions on people and the main thing I saw was how most people agreed on how stupid "police lady" was. I honestly agree, even after seeing clever theories that she was wearing black the second time she tried to meet Yun-o because she wanted to just "let go," but who is she kidding... that is stupid no matter what... I really couldn't stand her character but that meant that the acting had to be incredible. Huge props to the actors. And also the shaman was a great character. In a lot of media recently shamans are viewed as kind of ridiculous and unbelievable (I've been watching The Glory) and I really liked the character... plus she was the only sane one. It made me pretty angry to see how Sum was ignoring her telling her that her "boyfriend" was literally a SERIAL KILLER but I guess I kind of understood when she coded the face-hacking-video calling thing.
Yun-o's character had so much potential. I liked how his backstory didn't have to be extremely bad or long, even though I was curious whenever the AI asked him about what he regretted/wanted gone in his childhood - but I feel like that could have been a reference to how nothing was really wrong with it and he became this way only recently when he got the Somebody app. It was easy to wince but also easy to be intrigued when his character appeared on screen, because the actor just nailed his vibe so well! I liked that he fell for Sum, I think it was not random - to find someone "like him" in a world where he is wrong for his actions (he still is, of course, and I'm very against him but I am defending the writers for once) who was not afraid of him would obviously make him feel some kind of way.

The ending was creative (cool reference to the blade that the shaman hated and given in the first episode) but also NOT ENOUGH!! It's my love for revenge dramas that drives me to write this mostly, but also he killed probably over a dozen people and more that weren't on screen (in the story, not in real life). And when Sum killed him, I didn't know how to feel either. She was right for killing horrible people who wanted to and DID commit crimes toward women, but I felt like the showrunners wanted to justify her doing it and calling her "emotionless-ness" or "euphoria" when she did so to her being on the spectrum, or mental illness/neurodivergency... I understand why she had to do it and the way she was written to do it in the end, but the whole drama revolves around this idea of mental illness = connection to a murder = a ton of cinematic sex. That's only my take though, and I can see different points of views and how people would like this drama. I'm not a drama writer nor a formal critic, but I felt very strongly about some parts of this show, even though it was 8 episodes, so it definitely did its job of being compelling and provocative.

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Acting is better than the show itself

The premise was interesting and it had such a strong start but it soon turned into a meddled mess. Literally what happened?

Given the plot I couldn't help but think of Love Alarm while watching this. When you mix technology with murder things can get interesting, and for at least the beginning of the series the killings were enough to sustain my interest. However as time went on the buildup towards that last episode wasn't satisfactory AT ALL. I'm not gonna get into the ending for spoiler reasons but with such a good setup, why was the ball dropped?

Kim Young Kwang was captivating as Yun O. I don't think it's unpopular to say that he was the best part of the show. His natural performance made me feel like the killings were a part of his everyday routine. I also have to commend how raw and intimate his sex scenes felt. Especially the ones between him and Kim Sum. They were so good I felt like I was partaking in something I shouldn't be. Their chemistry and honest acting together carried the show. Gi Run was pretty good. She played a disabled person extremely well and despite the character's shortcomings she was still very capable. Wish she had a bigger role in catching the bad guy. Mok Won was rather forgettable and her storyline was difficult to keep up with but I'll give points for representation. Overall the character's could've been better fleshed out because the skeletons were pretty good. We just needed a bit more flesh to complete them.

I wouldn't recommend this tho. The payoff isn't worth it at all. There's better thrillers out there so def skip this one.

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Oddly shaped and weirdly paced

The premise of Somebody is captivating. A serial killer, a psychological thriller, triggering storyline of flawed characters, a doomed romance, a technically flowered murder plot. Yet everything is wrong with it.

I dragged myself through episode 3 until I just couldn't bear it anymore. The pace was incredibly slow at mutliple times and made me want to drop this at episode 2 itself. With uniqueness in every corner, from LGBTQ characters to a unique female lead, Somebody still failed to impress me with its execution.

The immersive acting is the only thing that is good in this series. The production value and masterful acting of the actors is wasted at a convulated script and bitter direction.

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Bitter is the disappointment ....

I had seen the start of a review from my friend on a FB group we are in. I realised she had mixed feelings, but I liked the premise of the drama and thought it could be interesting. Sadly, on returning after my viewing and reading what she had said, yes, she hated it and she was right. That's OK - we don't always like the same things, and I would still have wanted to check for myself.
I made it to half way through Episode 4 before absconding. I'm 67, life's too short.
Disappointing, though - intriguing premise with good potential, and the actors were all great, and somewhat beautiful, which never hurts. If even I had been left in charge of the writing it could have been better!
Instead women are used throughout in the tired old trope of "thrillers" from the last decade to engineer themselves into positions of danger for the so-called thrill of us seeing them nearly get killed. With - to add insult to injury - bead lighting and bad music. The whole plot line was littered with fake after fake after fake. Shoddy nonsense and sad to say this cast was wasted on it.
The plot depends entirely on people making ridiculous decisions and behaving in completely unbelievable ways; on the total inadequacy of the police "investigations"; on random characters doing random things; and on the uncharacteristic ability of FL to kill someone with a razorblade - I just don't believe it's that easy, even if you have had a fetish about killing since you were a child.
I had hoped that at least a good part of the plotline would cover measures taken by the three women to catch the serial killer, but, here, too there was nothing but ineptitude - despite one being a cop, one a genius, and one for goodness' sake a shaman, with "powers".
I also thought that this was a very very sad, prejudiced and unrealistic depiction of someone with Asbergers syndrome. People who live on the spectrum of this disorder face enough prejudice and other issues when trying to build relationships and a life - this did them a disservice which is just shameful.
For me ... 2/10 - pretty people, good actors ... maybe squeeze out a 3 for the presence of nice broad shoulders and a pert bottom. I'm 67 but I'm not dead.

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Misunderstood

I'n only writing this after reading lots of reviews that bash some of the plot choices they chose to make in the drama. I think the direction of the story and character development is partly misunderstood by most people. I do share some opinions but i want to lay out other possible meanings.

The story feels quite purposely made to be open to interpretation, but it also explains a lot about the characters in a way that it's not directly conveyed, but rather "alluded" unto, and it can easily be missed depending on how you take it. Let's tackle different points.

Yuno's victims: it's easy to question why did his victims ever go to meet a stranger that they knew absolutely nothing about. Yet this does happen in real life. Hell, even i am guilty of this. So it's not that unbelievable. Besides, Yuno might have tried to lure other people that were not shown maybe because his tactics failed and they were smart enough not to pursue him, so they never fell to be his victims. Maybe they only showed us the women he succeeded into luring, and coincidentally, only the women that were lonely and horny enough to take such a risk.

Yuno's backstory: this is most commonly misunderstood as something that was not dwelved into enough, and while it's true, they actually gave us important information during a scene where the bestfriend trio was talking about how mentally deranged individuals work. They talked about childhood trauma being closely connected to one's mental health and such, but they also said that some people just never want to change, be it traumatic childhood or not. This could very well be our peak into Yuno's past. We know his mother abandoned him, but that can be the reason he became a sociopath as well as a fruitless detail, as we know too little to establish if it was traumatic enough. Maybe Yuno was born with sociopathic tendencies that were only accelerated by certain things happening such as his mother's abandonment, or the first time he's shown killing a woman by choking her during sex. Maybe his mom abandoned him exactly because she feared being around her son, so it was not a trauma induced disorder at all. Or maybe his mom (or dad) absolutely abused the shit out of him and they made him be what he is (was) today. Could be any of these.

Gieun: this is the one thing i agree with as her being dumb asf. I just kept forgetting that she was a cop because she made choices so dumb i hardly believe anyone would make, let alone a cop, such as the second encounter with Yuno. She really thought she did something when she showed up the second time alone in her scary wheelchair, ready to confront the very same FLEXIBLE man that let her out to die. Great thinking. I couldn't empathize with her.

Shaman lesbian: while i get that that was thrown into the plot randomly, i feel like it adds to the realism of the show. It shows that people have unconventional upbringings, it makes it feel less "planned", if it makes sense? Just like real people. She goes out clubbing, she goes with many women, she is dedicated to her shaman lifestyle be it for family reasons or whatev, that's fine. This is a character that has a life outside of her usefulness to the main story. That alone deepens her character. I felt like the very fact that she was a lesbian but opposingly also a shaman, showed her character well.

Besides these misunderstood points, i can only criticize some of the dialogue. I get it - it's made to be driven by silence. Subtlety in the acting, in their expressions. Even selfinterpretation. But sometimes i feel like they overdid this side, only to take a lot from the dialogue, leaving it almost superficial and nonsensical at times.

But again, this can also be interpreted as it being intentional. Yuno and Kim Sum fell in love not over talking for hours and hours about all kinds of things, but over saying only what is necessary, and most importantly, they fell in love over recognizing their similarities and shared needs. They needed each other for what they lacked and what they had. They needed each other because they were both alone, because they were both misunderstood by the rest of the world. It's something deeper than saying "its unrealistic how they fell in love, they barely even talked."

Overall, i think this was a fine drama. The actors showed impeccable acting, as the acting was what held this drama up. The ost had some memorable moments for me, like when they played that beautiful cover of Scarborough fair. I liked how they managed to fit that song into a sadder, more grim rendition.
My score is not a 10 because of the poor dialogue in certain parts (where it was needed) and the weird ass blunder by Gieun. And also because i did not think it was THAT great of a story.

Thank you for reading my take on it.

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Subjectively dreadful

This review is not a synopsis of the storyline, but rather a rant about the cinematography.

While I personally found the story itself interesting, and the characters initially intriguing, the whole show was awfully produced. From unnecessarily long, one-cut scenes (imagine a regular show where a scene sometimes feels long-winded, slow and awkward, then multiply that by 10) and a lot of silent, eventually extremely boring moments, each episode became exceedingly more dreadful. I understand the producers were attempting to create an eery, uncomfortable feeling with this, but they dragged each scene on for a lot longer than needed. This type of cinematography might be perfect to some (few) people, but I would argue the average person would lose interest rather quick and find it annoying.

I found myself yawning a lot and skipping 2-3 minutes every time there was a sex scene or emotional scene, because basically nothing was said or done for most of the duration that could not be summarised in the first 10 seconds. It's not that it even made me feel awkward (which it did), it just felt so insanely and dreadfully boring.

The show had so much potential and the two main characters were well-written, although sometimes irrational and confusing (I assume that's what psychopaths are like and the producer wanted to convey that). I feel it's a shame it got butchered by an awful attempt at being different and "edgy".

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