K-Drama 
5
1
This review may contain spoilers
Wrong Question!
Seven people are kidnapped in seven different cities across Asia. Their families receive a message: they have ten days to complete a series of missions if they ever want to see their loved ones alive again.
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's something of a cross between Saw, The Booth at the End, and Phone Booth, only with considerably less imagination.
The first episode feels like an international tourism presentation. We jump from city to city, meeting the participants, their families, and their personal circumstances. Nearly an hour of introductions that manages to accomplish something extraordinary: not a single character turns out to be particularly interesting.
In the second episode, the game finally begins. There are missions, threats, a countdown, and even the first death. But not even that manages to breathe any life into the story.
A grandfather who works as a taxi driver is ordered to come up with ten million to save his granddaughter. His attempts to raise the money are so rushed and unimaginative that when the kidnappers finally murder the girl, the tragedy comes and goes without leaving much of an impression.
And then we have a supposedly sophisticated criminal organization capable of coordinating kidnappings across several countries, yet its members operate with their faces uncovered, in the middle of crowded streets, surrounded by witnesses, driving vans proudly displaying a flower shop's logo.
Then they call the families and warn them not to contact the police.
For fuck's sake! The only thing missing was for the kidnappers to hand out their business cards!
But the worst part is how painfully familiar the entire mechanism already feels. We know there will be tests, morally questionable decisions, threats, and sacrifices. What this series desperately needs is either characters worth caring about or genuinely inventive situations. So far, it has delivered neither.
And so we reach the end of the second episode, when one of the protagonists, a police inspector, asks:
"Why are they doing this to us?"
Wrong question!
The real question is:
"Why should the audience give a damn?"
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's something of a cross between Saw, The Booth at the End, and Phone Booth, only with considerably less imagination.
The first episode feels like an international tourism presentation. We jump from city to city, meeting the participants, their families, and their personal circumstances. Nearly an hour of introductions that manages to accomplish something extraordinary: not a single character turns out to be particularly interesting.
In the second episode, the game finally begins. There are missions, threats, a countdown, and even the first death. But not even that manages to breathe any life into the story.
A grandfather who works as a taxi driver is ordered to come up with ten million to save his granddaughter. His attempts to raise the money are so rushed and unimaginative that when the kidnappers finally murder the girl, the tragedy comes and goes without leaving much of an impression.
And then we have a supposedly sophisticated criminal organization capable of coordinating kidnappings across several countries, yet its members operate with their faces uncovered, in the middle of crowded streets, surrounded by witnesses, driving vans proudly displaying a flower shop's logo.
Then they call the families and warn them not to contact the police.
For fuck's sake! The only thing missing was for the kidnappers to hand out their business cards!
But the worst part is how painfully familiar the entire mechanism already feels. We know there will be tests, morally questionable decisions, threats, and sacrifices. What this series desperately needs is either characters worth caring about or genuinely inventive situations. So far, it has delivered neither.
And so we reach the end of the second episode, when one of the protagonists, a police inspector, asks:
"Why are they doing this to us?"
Wrong question!
The real question is:
"Why should the audience give a damn?"
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