Violent and Intense, but Very Well Done
Viewer be advised this one's not for the faint of heart, but it's an excellent, minimalist little psychological drama.Tae Su (Lee Soo Hyuk) and Hae Ran (Jung Ji So) kidnap So Jin (Cha Joo Young), the daughter of a wealthy businessman, in an effort to get ransom money. They meticulously convert an abandoned building into a secure holding cell/hideout and cover their tracks to hide their identities. But getting the ransom turns out to be a challenge, and So Jin is not the only one being held hostage in this situation. Hae Ran has a secret, and so does Tae Su. The story becomes a tale of shifting loyalties, in which those who began as allies become enemies and a strong bond forms - a Sisterhood.
Despite the secrets and later revelations, the plot is very simple and the movie progresses nicely with a straightforward escalation. The pacing is tight and masterfully keeps things intense despite a tiny, three-person cast. We don't get flashbacks or any other immersion-breaking narrative devices; the story lives entirely in the moment.
Lee Soo Hyuk is utterly brilliant and terrifying as the cruel, abusive villain. His brutality, his body language, his intensity, and the fire in his eyes all deliver a breathtaking performance. He is genuinely terrifying and it's incredible to watch him.
Cha Joo Young and Jung Ji So are powerful in their chemistry. Their early interactions of fear and distrust slip uneasily into a forced alliance, then a genuine one. By the end, you can feel their Sisterhood.
The cinematography is nicely done, and the music is well-utilized, though nothing mind-blowing. The production is overall high quality and effective. It doesn't stand out on its own, but it doesn't need to. The performances steal the show.
Overall, absolutely worth your time, though the violence is brutal and not for the faint of heart.
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Two Shows for the Price of One
This is a very interesting little show that's hard to talk about or recommend. The main issue is that the first five episodes are one type of show, and then the sixth and final episode takes a turn and does a completely different type of story. In a way, it does conclude the plot elements that have been introduced, but by going off in such a weird direction, it doesn't feel like a real conclusion. It ends up like some kind of fever dream that is unsatisfying as an end to the story, but the story up to that point was really interesting. And the show is well made overall. So it's tough.The first five episodes are a cop drama with a supernatural element - the main character's ability to see the line connecting people who have had sex. There are also glasses that give this ability to anyone, and Somebody is secretly giving those glasses to various people. The glasses also seem to have an addictive and corrupting influence on the person wearing them. Ultimately, people knowing these details about others leads to a lot of murder and death, one way or another.
The really fun part is when the detective finally gets the glasses and starts using the information they provide to solve a crime. It's neat because the red line in an inarguable fact, but the facts can be misleading, and he still has to dig further to find the truth. The cases that come up are all generally interesting and engaging. I also want to give huge props for story structure here, because the main girl's plot integrates nicely with these anthology cases. It's very well done for the first five episodes.
The sixth episode is completely different. It takes a full-on supernatural turn. We've had the supernatural involved from the beginning with the power to see the red lines, but usually in a real-world setting with a fantasy element, you would introduce all your magic in the beginning and then that's where it stops. The rest should function like the real world does. The sixth episode apparently breaks that rule, although it's hard to be sure because it just gets very trippy and surreal and I'm not 100% sure how I was supposed to interpret all that. We seem to have an afterlife/parallel dimension, a demon (?), and ghosts or something, maybe? It's all very different.
The sixth episode also seems to introduce a new supernatural rule that it doesn't then follow through with, which I can't go into detail on without spoilers. And the whole thing tries to leave an open ending, but it's a pointless addition as far as I can tell.
It's conceivable that the sixth episode could have gone off in a very magical direction and yet done it successfully in a way that made the ending satisfying - I'm not sure how, but I'm willing to admit that it might have been possible to do that. I do not think the sixth episode actually did succeed, though. I would have preferred an ending that stayed grounded in the real world like the previous five episode did. Our nemesis could have just been a murderer, not a demon (or whatever she is).
So it's hard to recommend. I can't even say, "Just watch the first five episodes and skip the sixth" because then there just isn't any ending at all if you do that. I guess all I can say is that it's only six episodes, it's well made, the first five are very interesting, but just be prepared for an LSD nightmare of an ending.
Honestly, I watched it for Lee Soo Hyuk, so I got what I came here for.
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Not Your Typical Kdrama
Kdramas have made a name for themselves by using tried and true tropes and cliches to do an amazing job telling fairly formulaic stories. And they're fun, and I like a lot of them. But this is not that kind of show.I would come close to putting this show into the same category as the film Parasite - not quite on that level of pure art in filmmaking, but carrying similar complexity in the writing and in taking a deep dive into human psychology. Though I would asterisk this by saying that most of the characters in Parasite are actually not as mentally damaged as the characters in Dear X. (Parasite zooms out a bit and looks at damage on a social level, whereas Dear X, though it touches on that, is more deeply focused on the characters' mental and emotional interior lives.)
I'm also not interested in talking about whether or not the female lead is being correctly identified by the term "sociopath" or ASPD (though I don't think she is) - the important thing is she's utterly damaged, selfish, brilliant - a real villain protagonist.
Mainly, I want to say, as a 20-year professional in the writing and publishing industry - the writing in this show is fantastic. The characters are deeply thought-out and realized, and the actors, of course, do a brilliant job portraying them. (I hope they win awards, seriously. They deserve them.)
I was particularly impressed by the overall story structure. The show breaks the story into 3 mini-arcs, neatly divided up into 4 episodes each: high school (and right after graduation), early acting career, and full stardom. The supporting cast shifts each time, and the immediate problem facing Baek Ah Jin (Kim You Jung) also shifts, keeping things fresh rather than lingering too long in one stage of her life.
For my personal take, the final arc was slightly weaker, just because my favorite parts of the show were when Baek Ah Jin was displaying her brilliance and taking action against her current "X" - I have a competency kink, I think. I love watching characters be awesome at what they are doing, and I loved watching this mentally damaged female lead take agency and make things happen the way she wanted. That gets a little lost in the last 4 episodes, and she feels like she has much less agency, which was a bit disappointing to me. Without spoiling, I would have liked Ah Jin's ending to go a little differently.
By contrast, Jun Seo (Kim Young Dae) and Jae O (Kim Do Hoon) both come to the point where their characters are fully realized, expressing what has been building inside them over the years. For them, their endings are exactly right - sad, but true to who they are.
If you don't like watching shows in which you can't approve of or relate to the characters, this show will probably not be for you. If you, like me, just want a solid story regardless of subject matter, give it a shot. For me, this is going straight into my "best of Kdrama" collection - and that's a short list.
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