5
8
1
1
1
2
1
Consistent (lack of) quality
I forced myself to watch the entirety of 20 episodes and want to advise you this: If there's something positive to say about this drama, it's that its overall quality stays very consistent throughout. Hence, if you like the first episodes, you also will like the rest, but if you don't - drop it and don't look back.
I can see the high production value that went into this. Visuals, music and acting were stellar. Additionally, even knowing not much about South Korean society, the social commentary got across. The main plot was brutal, but thrilling, the antagonist's moves making you wonder what means they would use next to counter their opponent.
This drama tried to have it all - exhilarating action, grippingly brutal violence, comedy to lighten the mood and romance as well as emotional backstories to engage the heart. However, I found the tonal shifts to be too harsh to allow for setting a general atmosphere, the mixture a stack of blocks rather than a neatly fitted puzzle piece.
Characterisations didn't go beyond the cardboard cutouts needed for the plot, which made it almost impossible for me to care about any of them. Character development can't be found except for one side character. Even with Vincenzo staying the morally grey antagonist who doesn't waver in his principles, we should have seen him further grow into these. Characters were too consistent, proof that the plot's events didn't have the impact they should have had.
Here, the violence's brutality meant to shock viewers did not match the lack of f*s the characters gave about what happened to them.
Where the initial setting could have offered a lot of tacit, well-orchestrated moves of two antagonists outsmarting each other on their way towards a bigger goal, the plot ended up being entirely repetitive and only secondarily caters to the main purpose. If I had to summarise what happened in the course of 20 episodes, it could easily fit onto one page.
I won't even elaborate on the ton of convenient coincidences and the characters' almost superpowers that, again, weren't learned but already installed in them from the beginning. Nobody in this series improved their skills or mindset, they all magically had them, because they were needed by the plot.
All the Geumga Plaza fillers annoyed me. Their characters felt like caricatures of the archetype they were meant to represent.
Almost everything had some sort of overexaggeration to it. The comedy and characters as well as the overall plotline.
Together with the hidden side quest plot stretching it out for 20 episodes, watching felt like a huge waste of my time, the enjoyment of seeing each party counteract each other's moves a weak payoff for the time invested.
I've been told various times now that the whole drama is a metaphor, mocking classical Hollywood and K-drama tropes. But with that goal, you either make it hilarious and over the top entirely as an open parody, or draw in the viewers to only at the end confront them with their own gullibility. The mixture of both really threw off my brain every time I wanted to begin getting into it.
If you watch for entertainment purposes only and like the dynamics of the first episodes, absolutely start watching. I certainly couldn't stop overlooking this drama's flaws enough to see them as anything but faulty production choices.
I can see the high production value that went into this. Visuals, music and acting were stellar. Additionally, even knowing not much about South Korean society, the social commentary got across. The main plot was brutal, but thrilling, the antagonist's moves making you wonder what means they would use next to counter their opponent.
This drama tried to have it all - exhilarating action, grippingly brutal violence, comedy to lighten the mood and romance as well as emotional backstories to engage the heart. However, I found the tonal shifts to be too harsh to allow for setting a general atmosphere, the mixture a stack of blocks rather than a neatly fitted puzzle piece.
Characterisations didn't go beyond the cardboard cutouts needed for the plot, which made it almost impossible for me to care about any of them. Character development can't be found except for one side character. Even with Vincenzo staying the morally grey antagonist who doesn't waver in his principles, we should have seen him further grow into these. Characters were too consistent, proof that the plot's events didn't have the impact they should have had.
Here, the violence's brutality meant to shock viewers did not match the lack of f*s the characters gave about what happened to them.
Where the initial setting could have offered a lot of tacit, well-orchestrated moves of two antagonists outsmarting each other on their way towards a bigger goal, the plot ended up being entirely repetitive and only secondarily caters to the main purpose. If I had to summarise what happened in the course of 20 episodes, it could easily fit onto one page.
I won't even elaborate on the ton of convenient coincidences and the characters' almost superpowers that, again, weren't learned but already installed in them from the beginning. Nobody in this series improved their skills or mindset, they all magically had them, because they were needed by the plot.
All the Geumga Plaza fillers annoyed me. Their characters felt like caricatures of the archetype they were meant to represent.
Almost everything had some sort of overexaggeration to it. The comedy and characters as well as the overall plotline.
Together with the hidden side quest plot stretching it out for 20 episodes, watching felt like a huge waste of my time, the enjoyment of seeing each party counteract each other's moves a weak payoff for the time invested.
I've been told various times now that the whole drama is a metaphor, mocking classical Hollywood and K-drama tropes. But with that goal, you either make it hilarious and over the top entirely as an open parody, or draw in the viewers to only at the end confront them with their own gullibility. The mixture of both really threw off my brain every time I wanted to begin getting into it.
If you watch for entertainment purposes only and like the dynamics of the first episodes, absolutely start watching. I certainly couldn't stop overlooking this drama's flaws enough to see them as anything but faulty production choices.
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