This review may contain spoilers
lots of potential leading to disappointment
Honestly when I heard of this role for JoongDunk after watching Heart Killers I was super excited. It looked to be the complete opposite dynamics of Fadel and Style and I believed this would continue on their high from school and college projects to explore more mature concepts and stories. The original trailer excited me as leaned towards a more mysterious and crime focused vibe. When the official trailer dropped, most of the more serious scenes of the trailer were replaced with more cutesy scenes regarding their relationship as the case evolved, which slightly diminished my spirits but made sense with how JoongDunk's chemistry works. Plus the fact that this was even resembling such an action-esque genre made me so happy for their acting progression. The cast was finalized to be with Ohm, June, Marc, Sing, Chimon, and Earn along with the main pair, which intrigued me as I had enjoyed their individual projects before and knew they would do justice to the story.
The first few episodes did live up to the hype by managing the thrilling murder case while slowly building up Kamin and Jade's tension in their partnership; however here is where the show stopped its rise. At one point it felt as if there were two conflicting plots fighting to be portrayed in the series: the crime case and the love story. I started getting whiplash from how the show would go from a character's death to Jade flirting with Kamin and being all lovey dovey. Additionally both plots also started advancing more quickly without proper buildup, thus feeling weak and rushed at the end of the series. I haven't read the novel so I'm not sure of the speed in which the story is supposed to progress in, but it all felt very insincere and and many times in which you can't at all understand why characters are acting a certain way. At the climax battle, the killer and the twist was interesting, but again felt too short as there wasn't much buildup before their quick demise. The fight and its motivations seemed very shortlived compared to all the buildup to the moment and some decisions felt surprisingly illogical especially given how intricate the killers plan was up to that stage.
Overall the acting and cast were incredible and I do believe everyone did their part phenomenally. I really enjoyed Dunk's new side of intensity in this role and he pulled it off very well. I also loved how Chimon portrayed Champ's smart but spoiled attitude. The music was great as always with Joong's amazing vocals and I also liked Dunk 's Wordless. The only problem I had was with the interwovenness of the love and crime plots and also the poor development of them both. I understand that with 10 episodes there is only so much time to develop the story. (If I remember correctly I think Joong mentioned something like that in one of the reaction videos of the episodes), but I wish there were atleast a bit more episodes to properly setup both plots. When I was watching while the episodes were airing, only the fact that I wanted to confirm who I had suspected to be the killer kept me going near the end. After that aspect is now gone, I fear that the rewatch value has diminished as really just JoongDunk's chemistry is running the show. Thoigh they do have amazing chemistry, it just disappointed me that this trailer and story held so much potential with the crime story and possible slowburn tension built with the crime tension but fell short severely with everything just touching the surface. Thus the show earned such a low rating in my books due to its loss of potential.
The first few episodes did live up to the hype by managing the thrilling murder case while slowly building up Kamin and Jade's tension in their partnership; however here is where the show stopped its rise. At one point it felt as if there were two conflicting plots fighting to be portrayed in the series: the crime case and the love story. I started getting whiplash from how the show would go from a character's death to Jade flirting with Kamin and being all lovey dovey. Additionally both plots also started advancing more quickly without proper buildup, thus feeling weak and rushed at the end of the series. I haven't read the novel so I'm not sure of the speed in which the story is supposed to progress in, but it all felt very insincere and and many times in which you can't at all understand why characters are acting a certain way. At the climax battle, the killer and the twist was interesting, but again felt too short as there wasn't much buildup before their quick demise. The fight and its motivations seemed very shortlived compared to all the buildup to the moment and some decisions felt surprisingly illogical especially given how intricate the killers plan was up to that stage.
Overall the acting and cast were incredible and I do believe everyone did their part phenomenally. I really enjoyed Dunk's new side of intensity in this role and he pulled it off very well. I also loved how Chimon portrayed Champ's smart but spoiled attitude. The music was great as always with Joong's amazing vocals and I also liked Dunk 's Wordless. The only problem I had was with the interwovenness of the love and crime plots and also the poor development of them both. I understand that with 10 episodes there is only so much time to develop the story. (If I remember correctly I think Joong mentioned something like that in one of the reaction videos of the episodes), but I wish there were atleast a bit more episodes to properly setup both plots. When I was watching while the episodes were airing, only the fact that I wanted to confirm who I had suspected to be the killer kept me going near the end. After that aspect is now gone, I fear that the rewatch value has diminished as really just JoongDunk's chemistry is running the show. Thoigh they do have amazing chemistry, it just disappointed me that this trailer and story held so much potential with the crime story and possible slowburn tension built with the crime tension but fell short severely with everything just touching the surface. Thus the show earned such a low rating in my books due to its loss of potential.
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