The Art of Negotiation
The story picks up right after Season 1 ends, when Jeong Jinman returned to the destroyed home. They later showed a flashback of what happened in Jeong Jinman’s side during the siege of the shopping mall in season 1, and then some. Jeong Jian decides that she is not going to lead the same life as her uncle, and goes off seeking to live a normal life in some remote island under the new fake identity her uncle prepares for her. Although the ceasefire seems to have been achieved between murthehelp and Babylon, it is not long before Babylon cannot stand for their server being held hostage by murthehelp, hence started their move to retrieve it again, violating the ceasefire and hunting down Jeong Jian to get to Jeong Jinman. The wreckage Babylon inflicts on the island Jian was living in made her realize that there no running away anymore, and returns to her uncle’s side to deal with Babylon.
While Season 1 focused entirely on Jian’s survival during the mall siege, Season 2 sheds the spotlight on her character growth post aftermath, of how she made peace with the kind of life she had to lead, how she develops relationships with people around her and how she matures with every decision she made for murthehelp. The earlier episode of her life on the island was rather slow-paced, but it picks up when she returned to Jinman. The actress did a great job here, displaying quite a wide range of intense emotions with each episode. Her character is not the perfect antihero. She experienced panic, frustration, disappointment, indecisiveness, and I feel irritated when she goes through those episodes, but I also know it is important to show her vulnerabilities to enhance her growth.
I totally love murtahelp’s archenemy of season 2, Kusanagi Jin. Previously an executive of Babylon’s Japanese branch, she is tasked to help with the server retrieval in Korea. A Korean born Japanese wanabe, she is obsessed with control and she takes ultimate pride of her leadership ability. Kusanagi secretly went rouge as she takes the helm of the Korean branch by shady means, relying heavily on the team she brought in from Japan led by Q. Although Bale and Lee Seongjo had been ruthless and unhinged in Season 1, they actually pale in comparison to Kusanagi, whom proves to be even more diabolical than the previous main villains in Season 1. While the two guys rely heavily on their physical abilities, Kusanagi nails her enemies using tactical and strategical means even if it means manipulating her team or her own sexual partner. Utterly unhinged and unreliable as a boss or a friend.
There are so many flashbacks in the drama, which usually take place at the beginning of each episode to explain what really had happened on the other party of what is shown in the previous episode. I can’t say I am fond of this storytelling technique, cuz it always feel like a failed suspense-buildup for me. I get that they were trying to manifest different situations within the same timeframe, but somehow it’s just not working for me. It kind of becomes my petpeeve. I really hate productions that rely on flashbacks to tell their story.
I am also quite disappointed that most of the villain characters that I root for die early. I am glad Marco the trilingual translator of Q’s team survived though. This guy is very entertaining, the clown kind of character. The fact that they decide to put multilingual characters here without a hiccup in its execution is admirable, when other kdramas struggle with only English as the other language written in its dialogue. Here we get to see characters speaking Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English very smoothly. The actors definitely put serious effort in delivering their lines, well done!
SPOILER BEYOND THIS LINE……..
I am so mad that they decided to kill off Pasin Kradek character. He had been my all time favourite of the show. Really love his smooth fighting skills, and to know that the actor is an actual competetive martial artist is mindblowing. No wonder his moves had been so fluid and didnt look like he learnt it just for the series. Though what’s even more mindblowing is to realize that the actor is Korean all along. He acted as a Thai character very convincingly, i am suspecting one of his parents must have been a Thai cuz his features looks very Thai to me. Just why can’t this character be preserved just like Minhye? 😫 I really wanted to see more of him in S3
While Season 1 focused entirely on Jian’s survival during the mall siege, Season 2 sheds the spotlight on her character growth post aftermath, of how she made peace with the kind of life she had to lead, how she develops relationships with people around her and how she matures with every decision she made for murthehelp. The earlier episode of her life on the island was rather slow-paced, but it picks up when she returned to Jinman. The actress did a great job here, displaying quite a wide range of intense emotions with each episode. Her character is not the perfect antihero. She experienced panic, frustration, disappointment, indecisiveness, and I feel irritated when she goes through those episodes, but I also know it is important to show her vulnerabilities to enhance her growth.
I totally love murtahelp’s archenemy of season 2, Kusanagi Jin. Previously an executive of Babylon’s Japanese branch, she is tasked to help with the server retrieval in Korea. A Korean born Japanese wanabe, she is obsessed with control and she takes ultimate pride of her leadership ability. Kusanagi secretly went rouge as she takes the helm of the Korean branch by shady means, relying heavily on the team she brought in from Japan led by Q. Although Bale and Lee Seongjo had been ruthless and unhinged in Season 1, they actually pale in comparison to Kusanagi, whom proves to be even more diabolical than the previous main villains in Season 1. While the two guys rely heavily on their physical abilities, Kusanagi nails her enemies using tactical and strategical means even if it means manipulating her team or her own sexual partner. Utterly unhinged and unreliable as a boss or a friend.
There are so many flashbacks in the drama, which usually take place at the beginning of each episode to explain what really had happened on the other party of what is shown in the previous episode. I can’t say I am fond of this storytelling technique, cuz it always feel like a failed suspense-buildup for me. I get that they were trying to manifest different situations within the same timeframe, but somehow it’s just not working for me. It kind of becomes my petpeeve. I really hate productions that rely on flashbacks to tell their story.
I am also quite disappointed that most of the villain characters that I root for die early. I am glad Marco the trilingual translator of Q’s team survived though. This guy is very entertaining, the clown kind of character. The fact that they decide to put multilingual characters here without a hiccup in its execution is admirable, when other kdramas struggle with only English as the other language written in its dialogue. Here we get to see characters speaking Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English very smoothly. The actors definitely put serious effort in delivering their lines, well done!
SPOILER BEYOND THIS LINE……..
I am so mad that they decided to kill off Pasin Kradek character. He had been my all time favourite of the show. Really love his smooth fighting skills, and to know that the actor is an actual competetive martial artist is mindblowing. No wonder his moves had been so fluid and didnt look like he learnt it just for the series. Though what’s even more mindblowing is to realize that the actor is Korean all along. He acted as a Thai character very convincingly, i am suspecting one of his parents must have been a Thai cuz his features looks very Thai to me. Just why can’t this character be preserved just like Minhye? 😫 I really wanted to see more of him in S3
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