This review may contain spoilers
Should have been a movie
The premise of a group of super powered immortal beings living through the ages amongst human beings inevitably brings to mind Ma Dong Seok's much underrated film The Eternals, which was an ambitious story that would have been better served as a series to delve deeper into the characters, whereas Twelve's plot and characterizations is so paper thin even amongst the 49 minute run time which is much shorter than the usual 70 minute or more episodes of Korea dramas and 8 episodes which is shorter than the usual 12 or 15 episodes, that it should have just been a movie.
The angel family doesn't get to do much bonding or fleshing out of who they are to each other or to endear them to the audience. They don't even all assemble into until the third episode. The show instead only has Tae San spend much of his time with Geumsoon. I don't mind that storyline, but it needed to be in conjunction with the family. They instead just feel like the comic relief lackies the entire time. The casting of the angels is also an issue along with the writing for them, there is no feeling from them as a group developed to endear them to the audience whatsoever.
Seo In Guk is criminally underused. He's usually the lead in acting projects and his acting is proven, so it's really weird to see him in a secondary support role that's usually reserved for newer up and comers to get experience. I keep waiting to see there be a reason to cast someone of his caliber, but it never comes. I wonder if this role is a favor for someone or something. There is a mute character and it feels weird that they just cast a Taiwanese actor who may not speak Korean instead of maybe an Korean actor who has mutism. There is a lot of fight scenes, but they lack any tension since there is no connection to the characters and it just drags the story along which is already slow.
The core storyline doesn't get going until the very end of episode 5 where it's revealed that Ogwi and Mir forcefully separated lovers and a fight scene that looked cool and actually had stakes and consequences for Marok and the whole crew. This should have been the first or at least second episode. When it's finally revealed, there is only as much shown of the romance than the random club owner guy and his girlfriend who at least have a funny exchange where he's saying he went to school for 15 years and she asks if that means he was studying for a phd.
The special effects are hit or miss throughout. I do like how the wings are done. The last episode is shamelessly all product placement while adding even more characters while we never really got to know the ones we started with. The number one weakness of this show is it doesn't care to let the audience know the characters nor their interpersonal relations to each other, resulting in zero feeling for anything going on in the story. There is no reason for this to be an 8 episode story. If they do a season 2, there needs to be some major overhauling in the writing quality.
The angel family doesn't get to do much bonding or fleshing out of who they are to each other or to endear them to the audience. They don't even all assemble into until the third episode. The show instead only has Tae San spend much of his time with Geumsoon. I don't mind that storyline, but it needed to be in conjunction with the family. They instead just feel like the comic relief lackies the entire time. The casting of the angels is also an issue along with the writing for them, there is no feeling from them as a group developed to endear them to the audience whatsoever.
Seo In Guk is criminally underused. He's usually the lead in acting projects and his acting is proven, so it's really weird to see him in a secondary support role that's usually reserved for newer up and comers to get experience. I keep waiting to see there be a reason to cast someone of his caliber, but it never comes. I wonder if this role is a favor for someone or something. There is a mute character and it feels weird that they just cast a Taiwanese actor who may not speak Korean instead of maybe an Korean actor who has mutism. There is a lot of fight scenes, but they lack any tension since there is no connection to the characters and it just drags the story along which is already slow.
The core storyline doesn't get going until the very end of episode 5 where it's revealed that Ogwi and Mir forcefully separated lovers and a fight scene that looked cool and actually had stakes and consequences for Marok and the whole crew. This should have been the first or at least second episode. When it's finally revealed, there is only as much shown of the romance than the random club owner guy and his girlfriend who at least have a funny exchange where he's saying he went to school for 15 years and she asks if that means he was studying for a phd.
The special effects are hit or miss throughout. I do like how the wings are done. The last episode is shamelessly all product placement while adding even more characters while we never really got to know the ones we started with. The number one weakness of this show is it doesn't care to let the audience know the characters nor their interpersonal relations to each other, resulting in zero feeling for anything going on in the story. There is no reason for this to be an 8 episode story. If they do a season 2, there needs to be some major overhauling in the writing quality.
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