Reviews

It starts with characters who are immediately endearing, situations with potential, beautiful pastel-toned photography, truly a sight to behold. Even though it's visually stunning, even though the two lead actresses are excellent, I have to say that a polite boredom crept over me with each passing episode. Kim Da-mi, always in gentle roles, and Shin Ye-eun, always with natural authority, explore their friendship. At first, I imagined it would be more, but our expectations are quickly dampened : they are good friends, period.

When you see all these subplots piling up without being developed, it's a very bad sign. Pure filler masquerading as a slice of life. From episode 3 onwards, I skipped scenes that seemed of dubious interest to me. We have two main female characters, and their friendship or relationship with each other should be at the heart of the story. Not some stupid love triangle with a guy who isn't interested.
The show takes the viewers' time for granted far too much. Between The Murky Stream and this, it's definitely not a great year for Shin Ye-eun.

Also, the pop version of Bach's music, played on the piano, may have its charm for some people, no doubt, and good for them, but not for me. I prefer to listen to Bach himself, if you don't mind, dear composer.

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2 AM Regrets and Social Media Scares......

As someone who loves horror, I feel terrified watching this series. Not because of the story, but I guess because I watched it around 2 a.m. every single night, which turned out to be a very bad time to enjoy this series...

The story was actually good; now I have to remove my birthdate from my social media to hide it. It's actually scary knowing the day you were born can become a black magic advantage for some rituals.

My problem with this series is Thup's character. I watched Pooh for the first time in Pit Babe, but for some reason, I still feel like he is acting as Charlie rather than being Thup for this series.

Another thing is the way they wrapped up the series, which made me fast-forward through as many scenes as possible. There are thousands of ways to wrap up this series, but they chose the same way over and over again.

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To tell the truth, I don't think I'm particularly fond of the police. This series reminds me of that with a certain acuity. Cops are detestable. We don't talk to them, we have nothing to say to them, we don't let them in, we haven't done anything wrong. They will always find something to make our lives miserable, so let's not make it easy for them. I was absolutely, totally, entirely on the side of this mother and her falsely mysterious sidekick. What poverty drives people to do, though... The theme is less about drugs than about the injustice of this world where being poor condemns you to death, where being honest makes you lose your job, where family only exists when everything is going well. The cycle of economic and social violence ensures that those at the bottom stay at the bottom.
The war on drugs is above all a war on the poor and minorities. And doctors who snitch to the police are no better. And come on, Eun-soo's boss goes in the bin with the rest. We give you a little power, you abuse it, you filthy bosses.

A solid series, albeit a little slow. Some scenes beat around the bush too much, and there's an overuse of the trick of cutting a scene dishonestly to make us believe something else. (I know what I mean)
The ending leaves a bitter taste. Punishing a character once was clearly not enough, they had to insist because, you see, drugs are bad, oh so bad, not good ! Bring on season 2, quickly. I'm in.

However, it's nice to see a male-female duo without any romantic tension. If you see one, you're part of the problem. (What nonsense I can spout)

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The song "danse avec moi, jusqu'à la fin du jour, dis-moi je t'aime" (in English : dance with me until the end of the day, tell me you love me) during the operation at the beginning, the discomfort !

The staging, the sterile atmosphere, the rain, it's beautiful. They're not messing with us. Shoulder-mounted cameras, wide shots, transitions from one character to another with a simple movement, they know what they're doing here.
But they need to stop slapping the main character around, it's not acceptable. At the beginning, she spends all her time screaming and exploding with rage, then gets slapped once or twice, we can't keep writing and filming that.
Getting fired because you're infamous is not very credible in this environment. There's no shortage of nasty, self-important doctors. Okay, she kills bad guys on the side, in her spare time... But who hasn't [deleted by moderator] ? Those two are a perfect match. Unfortunately for me, I don't really understand the nature of their relationship: mentor-protégée, enemies-allies. It's too implicit for my little autistic brain. (It wouldn't be the first time.) In the end, I really don't understand why they're doing all this ; the reasons given don't seem coherent.

In terms of storytelling, this series could have been a film. It's obvious. There's too much repetition when everything is already well established in the first episode. It only lasts eight episodes, yet it feels too long. We're stuck at the same stage instead of bringing in new elements or developing the characters.

There's far too much shouting in this series. And I also hate it when we're shown a scene and then the next second it's all cancelled out because it was just a character's imagination. Stop doing that.

Ps : The policeman bears a resemblance to gérald darmanin (writing his name disgusts me), the French Minister of Justice, who admitted in an interview that he exchanged sex with poor women for social housing, using his position as an elected official. We call him "il ne faut pas dire: le sale vi*leur" (in english : don't say: the dirty r*pist). Never bothered by the law, of course, that's France for you, a country where the parties that lose elections stay in power and criminals become ministers. He also makes disgusting mouth noises in interviews, by the way ! like the policeman. This man quotes fascists in his speeches and admires Napoleon's anti-Semitic laws, but strangely enough, no journalist ever asks him about it.
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. I hate him. A small brain tumour wouldn't hurt him, with all due respect.

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The old CEO has a magnificent Mondrian above his bed, one of his trees, grey, blue and black. Sublime. And a very, very beautiful Soulages in the living room, one of his lithographs, I believe.

Eat the Rich, the series. And on the side of the poor, unlike unbearable series like Succession. Here, it's enjoyable. Often funny. (Except for the strawberry guy's friend, he was never funny. I don't know if it's the actor, but you need to stop that right now, sir, there's only one Johnny Lever.) We love it when a poor girl that no one respects or notices finds herself at the centre of everything and shows all those jerks what she's capable of.

An excellent comedy thriller series, sometimes pushing the boundaries of what is morally acceptable (in episode 4, the heroine goes too far), but Baek Hye-ji is irresistible, like a cat playing with its prey.
When you're going through a rough patch, this kind of short series does you a world of good.

Nevertheless, we are once again faced with the trope of the only rich person in the world who does good around them. If these people really did that, they would make sure they no longer existed.
The police spend all their time following the news and coming to the homes of the rich to arrest them.
Psychiatry is shown for what it is : a tool at the service of the powerful. The slightest problem and quickly : it's my mental health, I'm not responsible. The poor don't get this preferential treatment. On the contrary, we are locked up with this same scam. (As a disabled person, I maybe have a little history with psychiatry)

The series surprised me with some beautiful framing at crucial moments ; the director knows what they're doing. In terms of plot twists, it was always entertaining and surprising. A fine piece of work. Well done, Korean craftsmanship ! Finally, the music wasn't bad at all, composed entirely using Spitfire Audio VSTi, I recognised it, nothing escapes me.
The editorial team (me) solemnly approves a potential season 2.

PS: As for the grandpa, I understood right away, thanks to my cosmic brain : the clues were so subtle that there was no doubt even without paying close attention.

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I wanted to see this series for Lee Ho-Jung because the two times I've come across her this year, she's played roles that were sacrificed or rather sabotaged by the plot. And here I am again with the same cast as the very (very) good ‘As You Stood by’ (2025), incredible. That Kim Nam-gil, what a man.

Here is a western set against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Gando/Jiandao, a historically significant place. Joseon and China were fighting over the region when Korea was annexed by Japan, which encouraged many Korean migrants to settle there. The Chinese saw them as cheap labour, while the Japanese wanted to take control of the region and then Manchuria. In defiance of their own treaty imposed on China, they decreed that the Koreans were under their ‘protection’ and logically sent in their police and then their army to ‘protect’ them. Fascists always lie. The Japanese claimed to be victims, notably of an attack (in Hunchun), and ordered their soldiers to destroy the Korean independence army (led by the anarchist Jwa-jin Kim and the communists of the future DPRK led by Hong Beom-do). And so came the Gando massacre. Twenty-seven days.
Twenty-seven days of killing civilians only, at least 5,000, certainly more, and every horror imaginable. A crime against humanity. In fact, revenge against the armed resistance fighters who had won the battle of Qingshanli a few days earlier. (October 1920, 1500 japanese soldiers defeated)
This is the context chosen by this K-drama.

So... The tone of the series, half comedy, half action, disarms me. I don't understand. All the reviews talk about the chemistry between Seohyun and Hojung. Such a heavy and serious subject, and that's all there is to say about it ? We're missing something somewhere. The context is virtually non-existent, just a backdrop. We're treating the premices of a war crime like this as a playground ? Playing cowboys ? With his guitar and whistling ? Robbing stagecoaches ? Excuse me ? Is that the story they want to tell us ?
In fact, the plot is very basic and unsurprising. The first episode (boring as hell but taking malicious pleasure in showing shocking scenes) gives everything away, we know everything. And the action scenes spice up this utterly uninteresting storyline.

In reality, we should see poor people working themselves to death, resistance movements organising themselves, but here we don't see anyone lacking food or even just working... it's almost like a holiday ! We are shown, of course, a few farmers in their small fields, with their children playing happily. Gando is still a bit like Korea surviving despite everything, isn't it ? But, excuse me, it was a region in the midst of industrialisation. They choose to show us the love of the land, the work of the land. It's not innocent. The Koreans who were sent there, they worked in factories and lived in Japanese colonies.

The series say that what precipitates the events leading to the massacres is the personal vendetta of a Korean enlisted in the Japanese army against his former slave, who has become a bandit. He led the Japanese to the scene to take revenge on one man. It was almost against his will that he provoked the deadly escalation. He just loves law and order. At one time he rebelled because the Japanese did not consider him their equal in the army... That was his problem in life. (episode 7)
This rewriting of history, which relegates the fake Hunchun attack to the background (mentioned in passing in the middle of the last episode) and completely erases the left-wing (anarchist and communist) and Protestant (Shinminhoe) guerrilla movements, as well as the Chinese presence, leaves me speechless.

I know why one made that choice, that rewrite. Out of nationalism, we prefer to see a band of merry bandits who love their country and kill Japanese people, rather than the reality : the Korean resistance on the ground was not led by nationalists, and that will never be said or shown ; we talk about "seditious Joseon". True apoliticals. An apolitical revolution, but still quite far to the right of the spectrum...
The nationalist government, that of the Korean elites, the one that would effortlessly take power in 1945 and imprison some resistance fighters, was in Washington, not in Gando. They were rich people organised around the future dictator of Korea, Syngman Rhee. (A quick look at his Wikipedia page is enough to see what kind of nasty piece of work he was).

This is a tale where those who head to Gando, a land of lawlessness, unite as one to protect the homeland of the Koreans. The story is a prelude to the Gando massacre.
We can try to protect ourselves from criticism by saying that it's a fairy tale, but it bears all the ideological hallmarks of nationalist propaganda and has a name : revisionism.

Ps : I'm not just giving my opinion, I'm adding verified historical facts.
And as a pre-emptive response : no, I am not a fan of North Korea. It is an authoritarian and dangerous regime where people literally disappear. I am simply recalling proven and verifiable events relating to the struggles for independence.

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Should be a psychological thriller

It’s a fun series, the actors have excellent chemistry, and the story flows well enough, despite the first few episodes being a bit stiff.

The problem is that the narrative becomes somewhat repetitive and even forgettable, which is a shame because episode 7 is incredible.

And this shows that the series would be amazing if it were a suspense BL. The entire plotline of the obsessed fan who wants to destroy their relationship at all costs is simply perfect.

It would be a much more interesting and unique story within the BL universe. The series desperately needed a more original plot that actually explored these points better.

Because unfortunately, Gi Haneul's amnesia isn't strong enough to drive the narrative, and the series tries to fill that gap with excellent kiss scenes and a Yeo Sae Byeok desperate to win him back.

But something is missing, and that something is the madness, the mystery, and the flavor of a psychological thriller.

It's a good series to pass the time, but the script is shaky, the characters are a bit shallow, the motivations are poorly presented, and the technical aspects—direction, cinematography, and acting—though decent, aren't surprising.

A little more courage would have made this series catch fire.

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Power corrupts : an illustration. If there was any doubt, the very ending confirms it.

A masterfully crafted political and spy thriller. And above all, a work of great literary quality : the author, Chung Seo-kyung, has written the screenplays for five films by Park Chan-wook. All the elements come together beautifully, keeping us hooked from start to finish. And we navigate grey areas, the ideal decision for these themes. Several times, our protagonists are faced with choices where only the lesser evil seems to be the solution, and all the suspense lies in how they find another way.

The two main characters already have a whole life behind them and strong personalities. It's nice to see people who are solid and know how to set their boundaries. Whether you agree with their decisions or not, you want to see what happens next, to see how they evolve. Some reversals border on grandiloquence, but we accept that. There's constant talk of reunification, given the number of spies in your country, it looks like it's already happened, guys.

"Do you like Proust, madam ?" The most beautiful question in the world. "Ah yes, the madeleine." The worst answer in the world.

Damn the chaebols.

Ps : Episode 3 shows an attack in Paris in 2008, which is pure fiction. Two attacks took place that year, but not here. (the work of pathetic fascists, by the way)
Ps2 : For those with a phobia of telephones, this series is a nightmare, as the phones never stop ringing and vibrating. It stressed me out.
Ps3 : In the last episode, at 41 minutes 29 seconds, the music is a quote from ‘Camille’, Georges Delerue's score for Godard's Contempt. My question is : why ?

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Clawing your way out of hell is something only a woman can do: dpmtfo

A cautionary tale that most women in this current generation, of those that live in the west and aren't under the constraints of poverty, don't have to learn the hard way.

Women, anyone really, who have come to age in post war arenas have a grit that is admirable and something you don't often see unless you go to the outskirts of society or in rare cases where every circumstance has aligned to create a living hell. I see myself sitting here in my room, because I can't bring myself out to connect with the world, and am reminded of how lucky I am. But sometimes I find myself wishing for that struggle, would that make me stronger like her? Do you get the greater vivid 'human experience' if you go through such trials? If I grew up under such circumstances how would I have ended up? Like her i'm hungry to live, both in different meanings of the word.
In her is a desperateness and hunger that is insatiable and always will be. You will always be that child like she is always a hungry little girl. In the end that shadow follows you wherever you go. It doesn't have to trail behind you or outpace you ,like her's does, but maybe you can walk with it hand in hand.
I wanted to write about those that grew up in post war Europe and e&se Asia but I don't have the right knowledge for the topic. All I know is that this show depicts the desperateness, grit, and emotional trauma that a child of war experiences pretty well.

I must say that I got so pissed off about her husband cheating that I felt it for hours physically and had to write this in order to calm down... I'm not gonna go into that here because it's gonna make me so mad and I don't even know how I would dispel that anger. It felt like a orange giving off slight pressure inside my ribcage, it doesn't help that I found the actor handsome...lol.
While watching I steeled myself over thinking that her one true love would probably die tragically but instead their love suffered a worse fate I didn't foresee. Their relationship and how it ended? Did he die repenting? After seeing her strong everywhere else is she still a fool in love? (yes) Some questions don't need answers because the lack of makes it.
An acquaintance of my grandmother's did the same thing, she took her husband back to nurse him on his deathbed a decade or so after he cheated on her and left with his mistress. This is something women before us had to do similar things to in order to survive, keep a man in your life because you had no agency, but she did it out of 'love'. Now you don't need to stay with a man who disregards all of your experiences and efforts together, dump him... please.. Although it might not be a handsome yakuza who paid off your debts and swindled the man that abused you & it's probably some boy slouching in his gamer chair texting other women, if you need the push you should dump him... Your being, dignity, and agency matters more than that of a man...
To live as a woman is to suffer for no reason in order for men to live... Is that the case? Are you insatiable and hungry if you desire more?

I wanted to watch it again fully instead of skimming somewhat (i'm a massive 10x sec and then rewinder) and write something less surface level and deeper on feminism, the messages you get from the show, & clawing yourself out of hell but i'm still genuinely so pissed off that I can't bring myself to go through it completely. Maybe i'll comment..... I will...

Iv'e heard that to love your appearance as a woman you should think of it as the amalgamation of features that came from those in love before you, but sometimes 'love' is forced. I choose to instead believe that they come from the women that crawled out of hell to survive, like her, and those that never could...

extra:
-Really loved the detail of the shrine and it's state as she and her greediness grew and the reflection it shows to us. Is the deity hungry too? Does it desire more?
-'When one desire disappears it will be replaced with another, that's human nature' (or was the word greed?)
-Got curious and upset over the possible inaccuracies in dresses. Some looked a little too modern, 70s in the 50s etc. ,in certain parts.

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It plunges us into the action and then drags on with very little success. The show summed up in one sentence.
The first three episodes could easily have been condensed into one. In fact, they treat us a little too much like idiots with this third episode, which shows us the same scenes again without adding anything new. And they do it again later, several times! What a strange, poorly executed narrative. We don't see things from a different angle, it's literally pointless. It ruins the series, frankly. If it's to tell so little, they might as well adopt a linear narrative, which would avoid these repetitions.
They confuse suspense with frustration.

No one wakes up in the morning wanting flashbacks. You can understand a story without knowing the characters' background spanning ten generations. You can establish their temperament or motivations more simply. In this sense, episode 6 becomes a completely useless hour. (Not to mention the murder of sex slaves... did we really need that ? The people who write this kind of stuff : poor sods, go away) Then episode 7 spends an hour showing us what we already know. Why not throw in a voiceover too, while we're at it ? Or even an interminable scene that turns out to be just a nightmare ? Oh yes, you dared... I don't congratulate you. No, none of that was good. I was seized by panic at the thought of suddenly hearing an audio commentary by Baz Luhrmann over-explaining everything. (He doesn't exist, he can't hurt me)

A series that promises a lot and delivers little. A few cool action scenes, sure. Kim Hye-jun and Geum Hannah outshine the rest of the cast by a long shot ! And leaving them out so much (at least half the time, if not more) really annoys me. When the men show up, we forget about the women. And their characters only exist in relation to this missing uncle... Yeah, right. Let's not dwell on it.
And the ending ? The most predictable thing in the world. Will season 2, if it ever happens, show us flashbacks from season 1 ? I challenge the writers to do that.

_Can we go back to this business about the camera in the bathroom ? Sorry ?!
_The Park Ji-bin working in a shop linked to a murderer universe is expanding.

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TW : domestic violence. Physical and psychological. And animal cruelty.
The first episode is already tough going. The second episode brings tears of anger and despair. We unravel the mechanisms of control and silencing, particularly by the police and their invaluable assistance, or by those around us who prefer not to upset the status quo. Resisting makes things worse, enduring leads to the worst too, and fleeing is not an option for everyone, nor is it the ultimate solution. The perpetrators will never be satisfied, even if they kill their victims. The victims are not apathetic ; they simply have no solution. The series shows this without voyeurism or sensationalism. We cannot expect a victim to solve a structural problem on her own. That is the whole point of this series.

Nevertheless, I find the sudden change in personality of a key character a little unfortunate. His temperament could have been toned down a little. Apart from that, the script deals well with the venomous participation of certain women in patriarchal violence when it suits their interests. This is also one of the reasons for the maintenance of this system, even a necessity.

The only solution is collective action, without expecting anything from institutions, by making the perpetrators pay the social price, and abolishing all relationships of domination, such as marriage, family, exploitation (broadly speaking), etc. This is just my opinion ; the series does not provide an answer.

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"Does cinema imitate life ? Or does life imitate cinema ?" (episode 6)
As a good Proustian, I would say that we waste our life by imagining that we can understand it, by imagining that we can attain a non-existent truth, and that art allows us to grasp perhaps a part of it, but it is already too late. And it won't change anything. We cling on anyway, wanting to find some meaning in this life. What's more, the series is about love, loss and grief, which is perfect for illustrating this, this time wasted searching for it, in vain.

In any case, I wasn't expecting such a sad story ! The older brother, Jun, poor guy, he does his best, but there comes a point when something breaks and can't be fixed. The sacrificial brother, alone even when surrounded by others, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, drifting through life like a breeze, acting as if he were about to die. "I knew nothing about my brother. He was never surprised by anything. He was never really happy. It was as if he had never had the will to live." It was this little brother who gave meaning to the futility of his existence, just as Proust's brother cared for him, just as Van Gogh's brother supported him. And one day, there is nothing left. He can no longer even live for others. When Moo-bi tells Ko Gyeom that this brother is not like the one he had described to her with such admiration, that's Proustian too. Robert de Saint Loup is a totally different person depending on who is talking about him or with him, the narrator's best friend, and yet he knew him so little. "I knew nothing about my brother", indeed.

Strangely enough, this series about the film industry says little about cinema, films or the industry itself. Well, actually, it does mention two deaths at work due to overwork, but then it moves on to other things. These things happen, after all... Still, it's frustrating to see this topic given so little attention in a series about a female director. Let's just say that's not really the subject of this K-drama ; it's more about the impact of grief on people's lives, those of Kim Moo-bi and Ko Gyeom.

Park Bo-Young, this actress, after seeing “Our Unwritten Seoul”, her voice alone is enough to bring me to tears. Terrible. What's more, her character still has to go through a rough patch. Poor thing. In the first episode, Choi Woo-sik/Ko Gyeom insists excessively, even though Park Bo-young/Moo-bi tells him several times to leave her alone. That's always annoying. But we appreciate that in the end, she's the one who initiates the first kiss, and the absence of music before, during and after, just the moment and the breathing.
In the same vein, it's nice to see the two brothers talking together about their feelings, how they feel. Let's normalise seeing men confide in each other about their emotions. Let's normalise seeing characters communicate in K-dramas, for real. In that sense, the confession scene in the car in the last episode is good to see, a truly sincere and attentive exchange.

Despite all this sadness, there are some cute and funny moments in store for us. The old, crafty director with his awful shoes is great, kind and inspiring. The little game played by the neighbours, who avoid each other but spy on each other at the same time, is just too adorable. And not creepy.

On the other hand, the other couple is exhausting to watch. He doesn't listen to his partner when she says she has a dream ; in fact, nobody cares ! They don't even ask her what it is. When she realises it, we understand that it was to become a screenwriter. And he, an unsuccessful composer, resents her, full of bitterness. Run away, madam ! You can't afford the luxury of 'fixing' him. Let it go ! His rich parents support him and he finds a way to wallow in his misery, to see himself as a victim, abandoned for no reason. Don't let yourself be dragged into the abyss by this kind of privileged person. He wears a jumper with “this is over” written on it : a sign.
He never put much effort into their relationship ; she did everything, she chose him, she supported him, and he just let her do it. But he never forgot to demand that she support him morally in his choices, even if it meant jeopardising her career. A mediocre bloke.
And yet, we discover that he is caring when his friend is in dire straits. The series may tell us more about him, as if something were going to redeem him... but no, stop that right now. It costs Son Ju-a much more to leave him, and we don't even hear about her ? Her point of view is to talk about him, never about her. She wanted the best for him and he felt suffocated, the selfish man. She finds him a job for his film, years after they broke up, she even comments on his songs on SoundCloud, she supports him all the time. A one-sided investment. He wants to get back together with her, but he remains the same, no change. Oh, that annoyed me. "We were a great couple" not really, no. Thank God they don't end up together. The threat hung over us the whole time.

Ultimately, both couples illustrate the idea presented at the very beginning : having a soft spot for small, defenceless things and the fear of being abandoned. And be abandoned.

"Aren't you tired of watching films all day ?" (episode 1)
"He says that from now on, the only film in his life is me." (final episode)

Ps : Park Bo-Young wears a sweatshirt with the French words "contre les coutumes, mais romantique et sensible. Nouvelle Vague" (against customs, but romantic and sensitive. French New Wave) written on it. And Choi Woo-sik wears one with the French word "ami" (friend) written on it. Quite a programme.
Ps 2 :Muvee's friend is a Gundam fan, a man of taste.
Ps 3 : Ko Gyeom, I'm warning you, if your four favourite films on Letterboxd are Kill Bill, Inception, Fight Club and Taxi Driver, things are going to go badly.

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