365: Repeat the Year

365: Repeat the Year

8/10

365: Repeat the Year

Genre:                                     Episodes: 12                         Year: 2020

Mystery

Synopsis:

Ten people are called together by a mysterious woman and are given the chance to go back one year in time. After returning to the past the group realise that this may not have been the gift they first thought, as mysterious events start to put them in danger.

Cast:

Lee Joon Hyuk (Ji Hyung Joo)

Nam Ji Hyun (Shin Ga Hyun)

Kim Ji Soo (Lee Shin)

Yang Dong Geun (Bae Jung Tae)

Yoon Joo Sang (Hwang No Sub)

Lee Yoo Mi (Kim Se Rin)

Ahn Seung Kaun (Ko Jae Young)

Lee Sung Wook (Park Sun Ho)

General Thoughts:

Boy am I just loving these smaller episode count dramas! 12 episodes was exactly the right amount for this little show- any more and the plot would have been stretched too thin and we would have got a lag around the halfway point, any less and there would have been too much crammed in there.

Aw yeah, this show sure don't mess around

As it was the plot moved along at a consistent pace and each new episode revealed something further about the plot the characters or both. Mystery dramas have a lot of places where they can trip up- more so than other genres, as so much banks on the main mystery remaining unknown but not so completely random that it’s impossible to guess before the reveal. ‘365’ hit a nice balance of dropping enough clues that the final reveal was understandable, but not so many that the twists were easy to guess.

It would be a lot easier to solve this mystery if everyone didn't act so d*mn sus

I find that a lot of K-Drama mysteries tend to have maybe two or three solid twists up their sleeves and the rest of the show will play out in a rather straight forward manner. Not here. Almost every episode had some sort of twist in it. The scales of the twists were different, but each one unpacked a little bit more of the story and the characters and helped paint a more complete picture of the overall narrative. It really felt like we were learning along with Hyung Joo and Ga Hyun what was going on, which is a good place to be. This often meant that Hyung Joo and Ga Hyun were voicing our own speculations and were exploring ideas that we as the audience also thought might be possibilities. It very much felt like we were on the journey together with the two leads rather than just watching them solve a mystery on their own. The mystery at the heart of ‘365’ wasn’t perfect, but it was complete enough that we had a truly engaging and thrilling story to follow, and the conclusion felt well earned and satisfying. There were of course an abundance of red herrings, but as the writers left most things up to speculation, the red herrings felt more like a storytelling technique rather than a blatant attempt to mislead the audience so that they could pull out a ‘gotcha’ moment later (though there were still one or two of those moments also).

As if the main mystery lady is gonna tell you all her secrets

I also appreciated that the writers didn’t try to cast too much doubt over Hyun Joo and Ga Hyun. There was a short while there where Sun Ho was trying to frame Hyung Joo that cast a little suspicion over him, but apart from that we always had two characters that we could rely on and cheer for. Because the other resetters had so much doubt surrounding them, it could be hard at times to really like them, as we didn’t want to commit fully to liking a character only to find out that they are a murderer.

I'd trade a cheaty boyfriend for working legs any day of the week

Having our two leads remain outside the realm of suspicion let us simply enjoy their character moments, the relationship they were developing, and their small victories leading up to the final confrontation. For the acting I think everyone did a pretty great job. I’ve seen Lee Joon Hyuk in a few things, and despite him never really grabbing my attention, I don’t think I’ve ever been let down by his performance either. I think Hyung Joo is the most charismatic role I’ve seen him in (I think he was supposed to be super cool in ‘You Who Forgot Poetry’ but I was so-so on him in that), and he really made the character of Hyung Joo quite endearing. Moments where I think he really stood out were when he realised his mentor was a murderer, and when Ga Hyun died protecting him. Lee Joon Hyuk just burst through those scenes with an emotional intensity I just did not expect from him, and he really blew me away in those moments. His grief felt so raw and so real, and made your heart just ache for him. Lots of actors can look super cool running and catching criminals, so I was impressed to see Lee Joon Hyuk bring something else to his character as well. He also introduced a bit of a cheeky playfulness to his character that I’ve not seen him do before, and it was actually quite sweet- it made me curious to see how he’d go in a more rom-com role (again ignoring ‘You Who Forgot Poetry’ because while that counts it also sorta doesn’t).

There were lots of solid female roles in this show which is awesome

Nam Ji Hyun has been in lots of things and she’s a great actress. I think this role was stepping outside her comfort zone a bit as she usually plays typical rom-com style heroines. There were times I found her character a bit too blunt and brash, and I’m unsure if this was Nam Ji Hyun’s acting or just the way he character was written, but as the story progressed and Ga Hyun’s relationship developed with Hyung Joo, Nam Ji Hyun settled not the character more and Ga Hyun became a lot more likeable. 

It's almost like he wanted people to get the wrong idea...

While I feel like there were a lot of emotional scenes that Ga Hyun was a part of, I don’t super recall Nam Ji Hyun having any wow scenes the way that Lee Joon Hyuk did. The supporting cast were all great as well- Kim Ji Soo did a wonderful job at being mysterious but not completely inhuman and unrelatable, and I thought Lee Yoo Mi did such a fantastic job at making the switch when her character revealed her true, slightly crazy nature. She did both the sweet innocence and the obsessive manipulator roles so well, and did a great job at making these different faces of the same character, rather than having it seem as though Se Rin had just become a completely different person. Yes, Se Rin had changed dramatically, but Lee Yoo Mi kept certain expressions and actions that tied both of these personalities together into the one character, and I thought she handled it excellently. The editing I found could be a little heavy-handed. Most of the time it was perfectly fine, but there were a few moments where I thought it took away from the show rather than adding to it. In the first timeline we see play out where Sun Ho dies, I thought that the scene shifting to black and white with the blood remaining red just felt a bit…tacky? It felt like it was supposed to make it look cool and emotional, but I thought it came across a bit cheap.

Mmm no thanks

Perhaps if the entire show had these black a white moments for really intense scenes it would have worked better, but having it as a once off just seemed a bit odd, and I didn’t love it. There were a couple of other editing choices that I questioned at the time, but I can’t remember them now, so they can’t have been that bad.

What Was Great:

Character Layers: 

There were so many different aspects to all of the characters. Even though we were shown so many different parts of each characters’ life, there were still ways that the writers were able to turn something around and surprise us.

The room of doom

Except maybe for Hyung Joo and Ga Hyun, but I liked that they were safe and unsuspicious. Each of the other resetters had so much going on. Even just from our first character that got a bit of depth- Yeon Soo. At first I thought she was going back in time to avoid marrying her husband. Then I thought her husband maybe was violent to her. Then there was the question of whether it was Yeon Soo who was the hit-and-run driver or her husband. There was so much to unpack from just this one character alone, and we had so many!

I thought we were gonna run out of characters they were killing them off so quickly

 I liked how the impending sense of doom was a catalyst for the characters to reveal their true colours- when they thought their lives were in danger, suddenly everyone was a lot more willing to throw someone else under the bus. Jung Tae, who seemed the most suspicious and disloyal at the start actually ended up being one of the most caring characters- he was trying to make life better for his sister, and even ended up getting his protective nature taken advantage of by Se Rin. Se Rin who had seemed so sweet and innocent then ended up being a compulsive liar! I wondered early on if maybe Se Rin’s sister wasn’t actually dead, but to find out that she lied about everything in her life was a big surprise, especially when she became so emotionally manipulative by putting her physical safety at risk to get what she wanted. But I also appreciated that she wasn’t just a one-dimensional liar either. Her lies served a purpose- she wanted people to pity and care for her, and she wanted to get closer to Young Woong. Similar to Jung Tae, Se Rin also wasn’t just purely good or purely evil. While she was definitely off the rails, in the scene where she hurt Ga Hyun it was evident that she regretted harming her, and actually truly cared for Ga Hyun. While it may have seemed like Ga Hyun was wasting time and energy on a girl who was lying all the time, her efforts weren’t totally wasted, and Se Rin definitely knew that she could trust and rely on Ga Hyun.

I was most suspicious of No Sub just because he seemed the least suspicious

Because the mystery was so interwoven with the characters, there was a lot of thought and depth put into the resetters backstories so that they could further enhance the drama’s puzzles. It gave us a very rich selection of characters that were so vastly different from each other and very engaging to watch on screen- especially as they were forced to start to interact with each other and delve into each others’ secrets. 

Partners:

Hyung Joo and Ga Hyun just made a delightful little pair! It was really sweet to see how they came to trust and depend on one another as their futures became so entangled. I liked that the writer didn’t really tie them together romantically, but there were enough hints there that laid the groundwork for a possible future romance. While I love a good loveline as much as the next person, sometimes it's a nice little change to have our leads not be romantically involved.

The power of friendship

While not all platonic relationships feel deeper than romantic ones, I thought that in this case, it made sense for Ga Hyun and Hyung Joo to be a bit too preoccupied with everything going on around them to be distracted by romance- it just wasn’t a good time! The chemistry was definitely there, and Lee Joon Hyuk and Nam Ji Hyun had a comfortable and relaxed rapport that was such fun to watch. Even in their dire circumstances they were still able to care for one another, and their desire to protect the other really showed how solid their friendship had become over the course of the year that they had repeated together.

Detective Duo (plus Pup) are on the case

 They were a great detective duo, and they worked really well together. Rarely did they go off and do their own things without informing the other, and they always had an underlying respect for each other in everything they did. When Ga Hyun went out herself to try and catch the apparent bad guy (which at that point they thought was Jung Tae), Hyung Joo was concerned for her safety, but he also never babied her or treated her as if she were the most fragile flower in need of constant supervision. When Hyung Joo realised his work partner who he had gone back in time to save had been the one who was the murderer, Ga Hyun never blamed him or criticised his decision to save his friend- she simply comforted him and worked with him toward a solution. It was a lovely partnership, and they were an easy pair to cheer for. I really loved that the drama went out of its way a bit to show that they always formed this sort of bond. In the original-original timeline (where they all die) Hyung Joo becomes a consultant on Ga Hyun’s comic and they become good friends that way. In the year they are repeating, they are obviously connected and become close through the reset. And in the final timeline where Hyung Joo goes back to save Ga Hyun, she recognises him for being the one to catch Sun Ho and once again invites him to be a consultant on her comic.

This scene was pretty sad...

We aren’t given much more on how the current timeline goes, but we are given big hints that the two once again strike up their friendship- and by having Sun Ho previously explain their deaths (and thus reveal how close they were in another timeline) it gave a sense of security that they could still be the wonderful team they were together even if Ga Hyun didn’t remember their big adventure. 

What Wasn’t:

Just For the Lols:

Unlike how layered the rest of the characters were, our two main villains, No Sub and Sun Ho were a bit one-dimensional. So much build up was going on in the show as to who was behind the deaths of the resetters and why they were dying that it was a bit disappointing when the two people behind the whole thing said that they did it ‘just because’.

Why is he evil? Because being evil is fun. Duh

What a let down. It wasn’t enough to ruin the whole mystery of the show- it just would have been nice if maybe these two characters had more reasoning behind destroying so many peoples’ lives. And yes, yes, I know that a lot of actual criminals do commit crimes ‘just because’ or ‘for fun’, but as characters in a drama telling a story, I just expect there to be a little more story behind their motives! No Sub was at least a little believable, because I honestly wouldn’t put it past a rich old man who discovered he could go back in time to just mess around with people as a way to whittle away the time, but I did expect something a little more from our murderer. No Sub was the mastermind behind the whole ‘game’ so it kinda made a little bit of sense that he was only doing it for fun, but as Sun Ho was a police officer, and a detective no less, I was kind of expecting him to have a pretty darn good reason for going around killing people. Accidentally hitting someone with a car and then discovering he had a taste and a talent for killing people and framing them as accidents seemed a bit random for a guy who had otherwise lead an upright and honest life. 

WHAT’S IN THE BOX:

While I found most of the mystery elements in this drama above average, one thing I could not stand (and cannot stand in any drama ever) is withholding information from the audience even though the characters know. In this case, the characters were our leads, Hyung Joo and Ga Hyun.

Or in this case- WHAT'S IN THE BOOK

Because these two were our eyes and ears into this world and we were getting everything from their experiences and perspective, I felt kind of cheated whenever the show revealed a piece of information to either of them without showing it to the audience also. This mainly came in the form of one of them opening an envelop or a box, or receiving a phone call after which their eyes would widen in shock and the audience were left wondering what had been revealed. Because of course WE wouldn’t be shown what was on the card or in the box, and we certainly couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the phone. Sigh. Unlike the rest of the show’s methods of building mystery, this tactic just felt cheap, and ended up starting to get a bit annoying.

None of the characters are particularly good communicators either

Thankfully it didn’t detract too much from the show as it usually only occurred as a cliffhanger in the middle of the episode and was thus resolved fairly quickly, or occasionally it was done at the end of an episode so we just had to start the next one to find out what had occurred (and as I am a K-Drama binger, the wait between episodes was very short). But honestly, this style of withholding information for a quick suspense moment usually earns more annoyance than intrigue, and I much prefer when shows don’t do this.

Recommend?

Yes- this is a fun little mystery that never gets drawn out. While it isn’t perfect, there are so many twists and turns and it’s a fun adventure.

A twist at every turn

The School Nurse Files

 The School Nurse Files

4/10

The School Nurse Files

Genre:                                     Episodes: 6                  Year: 2020

Mystery

Comedy

Synopsis:

Ahn Eun Young is a nurse at a high school that has the ability to see jelly like monsters that are formed from the residue of human desires. She uses her special weapons and skills to eradicate these monsters from the school, with the help of the Chinese language teacher, Hong In Pyo, who has a resistance to the effects of the jellies.

Cast:

Jung Yoo Mi (Ahn Eun Young)

Nam Joo Hyuk (Hong In Pyo)

Moon So Ri (Hwa Soo)

Yoo Teo (Teacher Mackenzie)

Song Hee Joon (Baek Hye Min)

Park Hye Eun (Sung Ah Ra)

Hyun Woo Seok (Oh Sung Kwon)

Park Se Jin (Jang Radi)

General Thoughts:

This drama was whacky. And not exactly in a good way. I’m sure there were people that absolutely loved this show (and to be honest, I wanted to be one of them), but I just had absolutely no f*cking idea what was going on.

Just...baffled...

I know I say in a lot of reviews that I don’t know what is going on in a drama, but that’s usually because the plot is ignoring logical solutions or the characters are acting like idiots. In this case, I just literally did not understand what was happening. It’s such an interesting premise, and I loved that the tone was more colourful and off-kilter as opposed to dark and scary (which most supernatural shows are), and there were times when I kind of had a handle on what was happening and was quite enjoying the story.

I am all for Netflix airing odd little K-Drama shows

But then something would crop up and confuse the sh*t out of me again. I would be curious to see how fans of the webtoon found this drama, and whether having the knowledge of the story that the webtoon provides just really allows for the drama version to suck you in and get straight into the meat of the story. Alas, I shall not know, for I hath not partaken in the reading of said webtoon. It’s interesting to see Netflix getting in on the K-Drama game, as the K-Dramas I’ve seen/heard about (Kingdom, Extracurricular) that are Netflix originals have been vastly different in tone to K-Dramas aired on usual networks (SBS, TVN etc.), and tend to have a lower episode count. And you know I just love low episode K-Dramas- so snappy, so easy to get through! I love the experimental nature of these Netflix originals, and while ‘School Nurse Files’ wasn’t a hit for me personally, it was a great break in pace to the usual sort of K-Drama, and hopefully opens the way for more experimental and unique stories. As well as the quirky tone and the 6 episode count, another thing that intrigued me about this show was the casting. Jung Yoo Mi and Nam Joo Hyuk just seemed like such a spectacularly random pair that I was happy to give this little show a shot. Jung Yoo Mi is obviously a very experienced actress, and I don’t think I’ve seen her underperform in anything.

They worked weirdly well together

She tends pick more unique characters, and usually has a pretty good eye for interesting projects. She was a great fit for the role of Eun Young, as she really her threw herself into character and embodied Eun Young’s craziness. There were times when Eun Young would just awkwardly smile because she didn’t know how else to respond, and Jung Yoo Mi just had the perfect expression that showed Eon Young’s hesitation and discomfort, and she just seemed like the perfect embodiment of this strange, jelly-seeing woman.

She can be all kinds of quirky

Jung Yoo Mi brought an excellent balance of unsettling, humorous, and harmless to what I’m sure must have been a difficult character to portray. There was a lot going on with the character of Eun Young, and while I won’t pretend to understand half of it, Jung Yoo Mi did a great job at selling Eun Young’s emotions- I may not be sure what was going on in a scene, but I could be d*mn sure I knew how Eun Young felt about it. In Pyo was a less quirky character than Eun Young, and Nam Joo Hyuk is a less experienced actor. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t like him, but I tend to find him quite endearing and not a bad actor at all (except for ‘School 2015’ which we can all just pretend never happened). I really, really, really liked Nam Joo Hyuk in this role. I don’t know what it is about him as Teacher Hong- maybe it’s the limp, maybe it’s the quiet sadness and loneliness, maybe it’s the faint whisper at an attempt at a moustache, but it all just pulls together to form a really interesting character. Nam Joo Hyuk has a kind of unassumingness to him that perfectly fit in with the vibe of Teacher Hong. In Pyo was overlooked by his colleagues, students, and people in general, and there was something about the way Nam Joo Hyuk played this character that just oozed that sort of non-charisma (which is not a stab at Nam Joo Hyuk, because he can be very charismatic). The only person to really pay him much attention is the school nurse, Eun Young, and that’s because he has a jelly-forcefield that no one else can see.

Even though his forcefield did virtually nothing the entire time

There was one scene towards the end of the drama where In Pyo was struggling up the stairs thinking Eun Young had abandoned him and just broke down crying, and boy did that just pull at the heartstrings. There was a cute if slightly weird chemistry between the two leads, and I was never quite sure if it was a friendship type thing or a romance type thing. Just like the drama, the relationship between Eun Young and In Pyo was unique and a little bit weird- what can I say though, I kinda liked them together. There weren’t really a whole lot of other characters that we saw on a regular basis- Eun Young and In Pyo took up a whole lot of the screen time, which is fine, but leaves me little to talk about when it comes to the other characters and actors. The student characters were all a bit weird, and are one of the things I had trouble wrapping my head around.

Every student at this school was a weirdo

However, I thought Song Hee Joon did a pretty bang up job of being the mite-eater turned human, and she was quite fun (and convincing) to watch. I kind of wish the other students had been a bit more involved as it would have been nice to flesh out their characters a bit more, but as we only had 6 episodes, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I would trade the time we had with Eun Young and In Pyo for time with the kids. I sometimes maybe kinda knew what was happening with Eun Young and In Pyo. That was almost never the case when the story was focused on the students. 

What Was Great:

Hong Teacher:

I talked about this a bit in the above section, but Teacher Hong and his portrayal by Nam Joo Hyuk is what kept a lot of my interest in this show. While Eun Young was the titular character, I felt like we didn’t get a lot of development from her. There was the moment there at the end where she lost her ability to see jellies and her breakdown when it returned and she knew what sort of normal life she was missing out on,

Something about that almost moustache just works for him

but I still felt like a lot of the development and emotion came from In Pyo. Unlike Eun Young, In Pyo has only ever been completely ordinary, maybe even less so due to his leg injury. His small wish for something exciting to happen in his life is a relatable grievance- a lot of adult life feels like getting up and doing the same thing every day regardless of what happens or who notices you doing the same mundane tasks. In Pyo’s affection towards Eun Young and her welcome dose of weirdness was quite sweet, and you could feel his character just yearning to have a friend or just someone to spend time with him. The scenes where he is happily chatting away to Eun Young, oblivious to her completely not paying attention where a little sad, but also a little endearing. In Pyo was an easy character to like, and I felt more connected to his struggles than to Eun Young’s. Even the final act of destroying the school resonated more as In Pyo breaking free from whatever madness his grandfather had set up than Eun Young’s…whatever it was she was doing with the Basement Sanitation guys and Safe Happiness.

Soundtrack:

This drama is super high quality. Like not necessarily the plot and characters and whatnot, but the directing, filming, production- it’s all top notch. Usually these sorts of things fall by the wayside of my attention, but they were so good in ‘School Nurse Files’ that I was actively impressed by it. One of the best aspects of this was definitely the soundtrack. It was the score that could shift a scene from feeling creepy to more lighthearted, or as more often the case, making a regular and mundane shot (of someone standing near a door or in a hallway or something of the like) feel much more sinister and unsettling.

The CGI for the jellies was top notch too

The soundtrack really helped the drama balance nicely between creepy and fun, and the music was just as unique as the show. When you think creepy music you think something slow with bass and maybe strings- in this drama it was more like hearing the theme song clued you in that there was something sinister going on. It was slightly more upbeat than your usual spooky music, but felt a little too odd and strange to be classed as ‘happy’ or ‘comforting’ music. The tunes were often stuck in my head after I finished an episode, and I just adored how unique the soundtrack was to this show- you will not hear a soundtrack like this on many other, if any, K-Dramas out there. 

What Wasn’t:

In The Deep End:

Yeah so the big stumbling block of this drama is that it really gives you nothing solid to go on. Eun Young briefly mentions that the jellies are the remains of human desire and she can get rid of them using her light-up sword and toy gun.

And the gun ends up being less important than you think...

The show does not delve into why the jellies are harmful or why Eun Young needs to get rid of them. They are broadly labelled as ‘dangerous’ and seem to make the characters act in weird ways, but apart from the first giant jelly that made the kids try and throw themselves off the roof, the others didn’t seem that bad. They just made people get all sweaty? The show also glossed over a lot of the character and relationship development which was a bit of a bummer. I know there were only 6 episodes and they were rushing to get to the point of the school being fought over by two factions and Eun Young and In Pyo being caught in the middle,

Sorry but...why are the cleaner people bad again?

but it honestly sometimes felt like I had missed episodes because characters were just suddenly close or clued in on a situation. At the end of episode 1 In Pyo is wanting Eun Young to stay away and is telling her she’s creepy when she smiles (and she hasn’t even told him about her powers and the jellies), and in episode 2 he’s accompanying her to shrines and holding her hand so she can recharge her energy. Like, that’s a pretty big change and we saw none of that. It was a similar thing with the mite-eater girl. All the other students seemed clued in to who/what she was and really easily accepted it. But we never saw anyone tell them or try to convince them of the truth? They were all just suddenly up to speed on what was going on? It felt like a lot of important moments and conversations happened off screen, and I spent a lot of the show scrambling trying to figure out what was going on. Not very much is explained and a lot is left up to the audience to figure it out on their own. It’s not like I want or need dramas to spell out every single detail, but a little guidance on the main relationships and plot points would be nice. I mean, this drama only had 6 episodes and I only kinda started grasping at plot points and what was happening in episode 5- that’s over half the drama where I was just watching things unfold while having absolutely zero idea what relevance it had to anything.

Recommend?

No, I don’t think I would. Like, there is so much that sets it apart from other K-Dramas, but I’m not quite sure that’s a good thing. It’s kinda hard to follow…

But it's also only 6 episodes so if you're tempted, why not?