✒ ⛔️ The Strong Don't Bark Nor Do They Howl‼️°8.7° °Outstanding°
Wanna git that adrenaline blazing through your system? Take a number and have a seat. ASFK's 8 eps appear to be in real-time, but for the many flashbacks that clue us in on what led up to “today,” and a brief stop to see the breaking dawn of the following morning. It's all what's happn’in now, and it appears that it's ALL happening now! Bombs, IEDs, pistols, machine guns, robots, drones, mines, poison gas, regular gas (just add match), slashing, kicking, punching, and, yes, biting.
Jian buried her uncle today. The after party is way more than she bargained for. While the beginning is piece-mealed together, from jump, ASFK is never boring. A sniper has targets in his sights. Two of them are just kids! One of the kids is Jung “Jian”. She's played by Kim Hye Joon from Kingdom-8.3 and Inspector Koo-8.4 where she's a tantalizing psycho. She's unrecognizable here. She spends the entire show in the same track suit and her hair is a mess, but she can be super cute. Jian clearly knows how to fight back. She jumps from the top of the refrigerator to the sofa. Under the sofa is a sniper rifle!
ASFK is a 2024 release that is rated 91 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 8 51-minute episodes. As I started episode 6, I was already sad that it was going to end soon. Another season has been confirmed for release in 2026, thankfully. Just relax and watch. Ep1 raises a barrage (here, “barrage” means a garage and several basements worth) of questions that won't be answered immediately.
While the timeline is uncertain as the show flips around from hour to hour, month to month, and year to year, Jian gets word that her uncle and only guardian is dead. Lee Dong Wook (Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938) plays uncle Jung Jinman. I've only seen him in Touch Your Heart-8.2, which I loved. I haven't been able to check him out yet in the legendary Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, because I haven't gotten around to getting that Viki pass. Uncle.did.not.commit.suicide. No matter what the police say, that much Jian /knows/. Strange looking twins show up at his funeral. They look like dangerous men.
Locals are at one of the tables gossiping about the deceased. Did he really just sell commercial hoses online? One man says “I heard he used to head up the WASP agency.” Another one says that he heard Jinman was an anti-North spy for the NIS. The viewer has already had a glimpse of the guns and hyper-vigilance, so none of this is surprising. Jian is flustered: “I lived with him for 10 years. Yet I know nothing about him,” she realizes.
It's obvious that Uncle Jinman was not a simple guy. There's more to him than what we see on the surface, and ASFK will take us several layers beneath the surface. Jian had sensed something was off before, and she's now glimpsing uncle's bank balance, which can't be overlooked: Can someone make that kinda 💰 by merely selling hoses? It doesn't seem so. Hoses aren't in that much demand… are they?
One thing that's in plenty of demand is killin. Not many people out there can't think of 1 person they want dead. All that killing requires equipment and preparation. Uncle's Shop for Killers is a 1-stop operation. Uncle Jinman makes killin easy.
We meet young Jian in ep2. She's portrayed by Ahn Se Bin. I'm keeping an eye on this girl's career. She's fantastic. Starting as one of the orphans in Crash Landing on You-9.1, she nearly stole the show Racket Boys-8.3 when she hangs out with the elderly neighbors and teaches them how to read. It helps them get out of a shady deal. In Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7 she has a small but very important part as the ML's sister. The whole show revolves around the fact that her character went missing. Once again, she steals the show in The First Responders-7.8 S2, opposite of Kim Rae Won. She is a mega-talent.
Geum Hae Na (A Man's True Colors, The Boy From Nowhere) portrays So Min Hye… I sorta wanna be her. She's so bad@$$, and she looks bad@$$ while she's doing it. When the bad guys learn she's there, they pause the entire operation to negotiate for more money. She shines brighter with each episode. Seo Hyeon Woo (Uncle Samsik-8.4, Flower of Evil-8.9) plays the sleazy Lee Seong Jo. He's totally vile. Wow, long hair is his best look - by far. He tells all his victims to obtain enlightenment. He, himself, is “en-lightened” before the end. He's not the worst of the bad guys. That would be Bale (Jo Han Sun from Hot Stove League & Midnight Thriller). He's a psychopath serial killer type. The great Park Gwang Jae makes an appearance as the funeral bus driver in eps1&8. He's good in everything, like Moving-8.5, Revenge of Others-8.1, Big Mouth-7.4, Flower of Evil-8.9, Kingdom-8.3, & 100 Days My Prince-5.5. As for screenwriters, one is Ji Ho Jin of Newtopia, and Lee Kwon (Shut Up: Flower Boy Band) is the other screenwriter & the director:
There's an amusing sequence in which they have to vacate the home while it is being redone. Jian asks hopefully: “Where will we be staying?” “Jirisan Mountain.” As soon as she logs in the answer, she takes notice of the camping equipment he's gathered in front of him. Hopes are dashed. The next scene is the two of them alone in the dark and cold. His leg is injured and he's in danger of succumbing to hypothermia. She starts complaining. (Why didn't we just go to a hotel? Etc). Sure, who wouldn't feel that way? But her words, tone, and attitude made things worse. Her uncle says: “When you are in a difficult situation, instead of arguing over right and wrong, it's important to find a way to solve the problem and overcome the situation.” I've been thinking about how the phrase, ‘Timing in life is Everything’, is profoundly true. I've never had a good sense of timing. The time to Monday-morning-QB is after the crisis is over, not in the middle of it. Jian chose to feed her own emotional satisfaction at the expense of her uncle's. That brand of complaining is actually cannibalistic.
After some backstory we get back to the day at hand in ep3 - Jian is in the middle of the longest day of her life. Professional killers keep coming in droves just to wipe her off the map. That house redo? It's bulletproof, it's booby trapped, and there's lots of places to hide. Apparently the house is five times as big underground as it is above the surface. The bad guys keep coming. Uncle clearly made some nasty, very motivated enemies. They may get rid of one wave but then a new wave arrives with more weapons, more power, more men, and more technology. At some point Jian is warned: Bael is coming. He's the guy who killed her parents.
Most episodes have flashbacks so that we continue to examine the atypical way that this girl was raised. In a world of murderers, whom can one rely on? She runs into that problem pretty early on. “It's not about right and wrong, but who's strongest… The week must know their place and Choose Wisely” The biggest problem for Jian, with Unc gone, is knowing whom to trust. There's scenes where two other people in the room are each telling her not to trust the other one. It's a shady world and perhaps no one is trustworthy. In every dilemma, she recalls something her uncle told her that helps her. He's still guiding her way, even when he's not there.
By now, funerals are some kind of trigger for Jian. They always end in disaster and then yield way to a new life. In flashback we see Jian when she was little at her grandmother's funeral. Her uncle takes her home and they have a talk in the dark. It's a very creepy scene. On TV a lion is being eaten by cheetahs. They talk about death and how they won't see Grandma anymore. She says “death sucks”. He agrees but tells her to not fear death. The room is dark, death is all around, his voice is low and sultry but much like a typical movie-demon voice, while trepidatious piano music is playing in the background. “Don't be scared. Whatever makes you scared, keep your eyes open and face it,” uncle tells a tween-aged Jian. While this was going on, her parents were being murdered at the funeral home. Her uncle's going to be her guardian from now on.
When they get to his place (and a lot happens before they managed to actually get there) she trips and drops all of her things. She stays on the ground and looks at him. He's opening the door. He turns, and there's a long pause as he studies her. ‘I'm not your parent. No will I ever be. Therefore, I won't be able to do the things for you that they did.’ He turns back and enters the house. She's on the ground with all her worldly belongings scattered around her.
Everything that happened from the death of her grandmother until she arrived at her uncle's house was too much for a little girl. She develops aphasia (a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate. It can impact speaking, understanding, reading, and writing). Jian stops talking. This leads to bullying at school. There's an amusing sequence where they are cutting between a parent-teacher conference and their home life. The teacher asks uncle if he's helping her with her aphasia? We then watch them live out their lives without speaking a word. When she needed money she put a note on the fridge. Later, money appeared under the magnet. What hurts, though, is that kids are not kind to someone who's different. She's bullied cruelly at school. When the teacher brings that up at the conference, Uncle says he believes she needs to work it out on her own. It isn't long before Jian and her uncle are conversing.
They don't neglect the plot, dialogue, or character development, but primarily, ASFK is an action-packed ride with many thrilling elements. There's intense action in every episode. The dog robot is baaaad and scary! Supersonic sound weapons! Booyah! There's cool action before ep5, but towards the end of the episode it's leveled up even more. Totally super-charged. Ep6 continues ratcheting up the adrenaline. It's extra caffeinated.
The story is told cyclically. It starts in the current day, goes to the past, back to the current day, and then it goes further back in the past. The day of Grandma's funeral bookends episodes 1 & 7. Ep8 is not the end; it begins a new day. Jian's small band of allies is pretty beat up, but unlike most of the assailants, they are alive. Bael's alive, too. He really shouldn't be. It looks like S2 will continue his story and hopefully it will conclude it.
QUOTES🗣
There are always blind spots.
Only the weak bark.
We must take responsibility for everything we do.
IMHO〰🖍
📣8.7 📝8.5 🎭8.7 🎨8.5 🎵/🔊7 🔚? 🤗7 ▪ 🌞4⚡8.5 😅2 😭6 😱5 😯5 🤢6 🤔5 💤0
Age18 + violence. Dismemberment. Scary elements. Violence against women and children
Language: R-rated w/ F💣💣, b!+ch, $h!+. Rated: 18+ Restricted (violence & profanity)
Re-📺? booyah!
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5, Love to Hate You-8.9,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8, It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9,
Moving-8.5,
Why Her?-8, The First Responders-7.8,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
Tunnel 8.5, Itaewon Class-8.7,
Train to Busan-7.8,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Beyond Evil-7.4,
Blood Free-8.5, D.P.-8.4,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
Oldboy-9,
〰 Hulu Catalog 〰
Big Mouth-7.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
Call It Love-8.4,
Crazy Love-7.8,
The First 1st Responders-7.8,
Flex X Cop-8.5,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Han River Police-7.1,
High School Return of a Gangster-7,
The Judge from Hell-4.5
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 (this show is marvelous except for taking a quality dip in eps 20-22)
Light Shop-8.6,
Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7,
Maestra: Strings of Truth-6.8,
Moving-8.5
Pandora: Beneath the Paradise-3.9,
Parasite-9,
Revenant-7.4,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
So I Married the Anti Fan-6.8,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
What's Wrong With Secretary Kim-6.8,
Why Her?-8,
Wonderful World-7.8,
The Worst of Evil-7.7
Jian buried her uncle today. The after party is way more than she bargained for. While the beginning is piece-mealed together, from jump, ASFK is never boring. A sniper has targets in his sights. Two of them are just kids! One of the kids is Jung “Jian”. She's played by Kim Hye Joon from Kingdom-8.3 and Inspector Koo-8.4 where she's a tantalizing psycho. She's unrecognizable here. She spends the entire show in the same track suit and her hair is a mess, but she can be super cute. Jian clearly knows how to fight back. She jumps from the top of the refrigerator to the sofa. Under the sofa is a sniper rifle!
ASFK is a 2024 release that is rated 91 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 8 51-minute episodes. As I started episode 6, I was already sad that it was going to end soon. Another season has been confirmed for release in 2026, thankfully. Just relax and watch. Ep1 raises a barrage (here, “barrage” means a garage and several basements worth) of questions that won't be answered immediately.
While the timeline is uncertain as the show flips around from hour to hour, month to month, and year to year, Jian gets word that her uncle and only guardian is dead. Lee Dong Wook (Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938) plays uncle Jung Jinman. I've only seen him in Touch Your Heart-8.2, which I loved. I haven't been able to check him out yet in the legendary Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, because I haven't gotten around to getting that Viki pass. Uncle.did.not.commit.suicide. No matter what the police say, that much Jian /knows/. Strange looking twins show up at his funeral. They look like dangerous men.
Locals are at one of the tables gossiping about the deceased. Did he really just sell commercial hoses online? One man says “I heard he used to head up the WASP agency.” Another one says that he heard Jinman was an anti-North spy for the NIS. The viewer has already had a glimpse of the guns and hyper-vigilance, so none of this is surprising. Jian is flustered: “I lived with him for 10 years. Yet I know nothing about him,” she realizes.
It's obvious that Uncle Jinman was not a simple guy. There's more to him than what we see on the surface, and ASFK will take us several layers beneath the surface. Jian had sensed something was off before, and she's now glimpsing uncle's bank balance, which can't be overlooked: Can someone make that kinda 💰 by merely selling hoses? It doesn't seem so. Hoses aren't in that much demand… are they?
One thing that's in plenty of demand is killin. Not many people out there can't think of 1 person they want dead. All that killing requires equipment and preparation. Uncle's Shop for Killers is a 1-stop operation. Uncle Jinman makes killin easy.
We meet young Jian in ep2. She's portrayed by Ahn Se Bin. I'm keeping an eye on this girl's career. She's fantastic. Starting as one of the orphans in Crash Landing on You-9.1, she nearly stole the show Racket Boys-8.3 when she hangs out with the elderly neighbors and teaches them how to read. It helps them get out of a shady deal. In Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7 she has a small but very important part as the ML's sister. The whole show revolves around the fact that her character went missing. Once again, she steals the show in The First Responders-7.8 S2, opposite of Kim Rae Won. She is a mega-talent.
Geum Hae Na (A Man's True Colors, The Boy From Nowhere) portrays So Min Hye… I sorta wanna be her. She's so bad@$$, and she looks bad@$$ while she's doing it. When the bad guys learn she's there, they pause the entire operation to negotiate for more money. She shines brighter with each episode. Seo Hyeon Woo (Uncle Samsik-8.4, Flower of Evil-8.9) plays the sleazy Lee Seong Jo. He's totally vile. Wow, long hair is his best look - by far. He tells all his victims to obtain enlightenment. He, himself, is “en-lightened” before the end. He's not the worst of the bad guys. That would be Bale (Jo Han Sun from Hot Stove League & Midnight Thriller). He's a psychopath serial killer type. The great Park Gwang Jae makes an appearance as the funeral bus driver in eps1&8. He's good in everything, like Moving-8.5, Revenge of Others-8.1, Big Mouth-7.4, Flower of Evil-8.9, Kingdom-8.3, & 100 Days My Prince-5.5. As for screenwriters, one is Ji Ho Jin of Newtopia, and Lee Kwon (Shut Up: Flower Boy Band) is the other screenwriter & the director:
There's an amusing sequence in which they have to vacate the home while it is being redone. Jian asks hopefully: “Where will we be staying?” “Jirisan Mountain.” As soon as she logs in the answer, she takes notice of the camping equipment he's gathered in front of him. Hopes are dashed. The next scene is the two of them alone in the dark and cold. His leg is injured and he's in danger of succumbing to hypothermia. She starts complaining. (Why didn't we just go to a hotel? Etc). Sure, who wouldn't feel that way? But her words, tone, and attitude made things worse. Her uncle says: “When you are in a difficult situation, instead of arguing over right and wrong, it's important to find a way to solve the problem and overcome the situation.” I've been thinking about how the phrase, ‘Timing in life is Everything’, is profoundly true. I've never had a good sense of timing. The time to Monday-morning-QB is after the crisis is over, not in the middle of it. Jian chose to feed her own emotional satisfaction at the expense of her uncle's. That brand of complaining is actually cannibalistic.
After some backstory we get back to the day at hand in ep3 - Jian is in the middle of the longest day of her life. Professional killers keep coming in droves just to wipe her off the map. That house redo? It's bulletproof, it's booby trapped, and there's lots of places to hide. Apparently the house is five times as big underground as it is above the surface. The bad guys keep coming. Uncle clearly made some nasty, very motivated enemies. They may get rid of one wave but then a new wave arrives with more weapons, more power, more men, and more technology. At some point Jian is warned: Bael is coming. He's the guy who killed her parents.
Most episodes have flashbacks so that we continue to examine the atypical way that this girl was raised. In a world of murderers, whom can one rely on? She runs into that problem pretty early on. “It's not about right and wrong, but who's strongest… The week must know their place and Choose Wisely” The biggest problem for Jian, with Unc gone, is knowing whom to trust. There's scenes where two other people in the room are each telling her not to trust the other one. It's a shady world and perhaps no one is trustworthy. In every dilemma, she recalls something her uncle told her that helps her. He's still guiding her way, even when he's not there.
By now, funerals are some kind of trigger for Jian. They always end in disaster and then yield way to a new life. In flashback we see Jian when she was little at her grandmother's funeral. Her uncle takes her home and they have a talk in the dark. It's a very creepy scene. On TV a lion is being eaten by cheetahs. They talk about death and how they won't see Grandma anymore. She says “death sucks”. He agrees but tells her to not fear death. The room is dark, death is all around, his voice is low and sultry but much like a typical movie-demon voice, while trepidatious piano music is playing in the background. “Don't be scared. Whatever makes you scared, keep your eyes open and face it,” uncle tells a tween-aged Jian. While this was going on, her parents were being murdered at the funeral home. Her uncle's going to be her guardian from now on.
When they get to his place (and a lot happens before they managed to actually get there) she trips and drops all of her things. She stays on the ground and looks at him. He's opening the door. He turns, and there's a long pause as he studies her. ‘I'm not your parent. No will I ever be. Therefore, I won't be able to do the things for you that they did.’ He turns back and enters the house. She's on the ground with all her worldly belongings scattered around her.
Everything that happened from the death of her grandmother until she arrived at her uncle's house was too much for a little girl. She develops aphasia (a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate. It can impact speaking, understanding, reading, and writing). Jian stops talking. This leads to bullying at school. There's an amusing sequence where they are cutting between a parent-teacher conference and their home life. The teacher asks uncle if he's helping her with her aphasia? We then watch them live out their lives without speaking a word. When she needed money she put a note on the fridge. Later, money appeared under the magnet. What hurts, though, is that kids are not kind to someone who's different. She's bullied cruelly at school. When the teacher brings that up at the conference, Uncle says he believes she needs to work it out on her own. It isn't long before Jian and her uncle are conversing.
They don't neglect the plot, dialogue, or character development, but primarily, ASFK is an action-packed ride with many thrilling elements. There's intense action in every episode. The dog robot is baaaad and scary! Supersonic sound weapons! Booyah! There's cool action before ep5, but towards the end of the episode it's leveled up even more. Totally super-charged. Ep6 continues ratcheting up the adrenaline. It's extra caffeinated.
The story is told cyclically. It starts in the current day, goes to the past, back to the current day, and then it goes further back in the past. The day of Grandma's funeral bookends episodes 1 & 7. Ep8 is not the end; it begins a new day. Jian's small band of allies is pretty beat up, but unlike most of the assailants, they are alive. Bael's alive, too. He really shouldn't be. It looks like S2 will continue his story and hopefully it will conclude it.
QUOTES🗣
There are always blind spots.
Only the weak bark.
We must take responsibility for everything we do.
IMHO〰🖍
📣8.7 📝8.5 🎭8.7 🎨8.5 🎵/🔊7 🔚? 🤗7 ▪ 🌞4⚡8.5 😅2 😭6 😱5 😯5 🤢6 🤔5 💤0
Age18 + violence. Dismemberment. Scary elements. Violence against women and children
Language: R-rated w/ F💣💣, b!+ch, $h!+. Rated: 18+ Restricted (violence & profanity)
Re-📺? booyah!
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
⚡/🚀 -
Flex X Cop-8.5, Love to Hate You-8.9,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8, It's Okay Not To Be Okay-9,
Moving-8.5,
Why Her?-8, The First Responders-7.8,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
Tunnel 8.5, Itaewon Class-8.7,
Train to Busan-7.8,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Beyond Evil-7.4,
Blood Free-8.5, D.P.-8.4,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
Oldboy-9,
〰 Hulu Catalog 〰
Big Mouth-7.4,
Blood Free-8.5,
Call It Love-8.4,
Crazy Love-7.8,
The First 1st Responders-7.8,
Flex X Cop-8.5,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Han River Police-7.1,
High School Return of a Gangster-7,
The Judge from Hell-4.5
The Legend of the Blue Sea-7.2 (this show is marvelous except for taking a quality dip in eps 20-22)
Light Shop-8.6,
Link: Eat, Love, Kill-6.7,
Maestra: Strings of Truth-6.8,
Moving-8.5
Pandora: Beneath the Paradise-3.9,
Parasite-9,
Revenant-7.4,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
So I Married the Anti Fan-6.8,
Uncle Samsik-8.4,
What's Wrong With Secretary Kim-6.8,
Why Her?-8,
Wonderful World-7.8,
The Worst of Evil-7.7
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