Solomon's Perjury

Solomon’s Perjury

6.5/10

Solomon's Perjury

Genre:                                Episodes: 12                           Year: 2017

School

Mystery

Synopsis:

The body of a boy is found at a high school, and the school is quick to rule the death as a suicide. When the students aren’t given enough information on why the boy died, they decide to discover the truth behind his death on their own.

Cast:

Kim Hyun Soo (Go Seo Yeon)

Jang Dong Yoon (Han Ji Hoon)

Seo Ji Hoon (Bae Joon Young)

Seo Young Joo (Lee So Woo)

Cho Jae Hyun (Han Kyung Moon)

Shin Se Hwi (Lee Joo Ri)

Baek Seol Min (Choi Woo Hyuk)

Ahn Seolbin (Lee Yoo Jin)

Kim So Hee (Kim So Hee)

Ahn Seung Kyun (Choi Seung Hyun)

Woo Ki Hoon (Kim Min Suk)

General Thoughts:

I didn’t quite love this drama as much as I wanted to. What got me really excited about this series was the bright young cast- and they don’t disappoint. The cast is filled with fresh young faces- some familiar (often as the child counterparts of leading characters) and some new.

I'm super excited to see all your careers develop

This is really the first thing Jang Dong Yoon has ever done- and he’s just brilliant. Honestly, I was expecting something a little more like ‘Angry Mom’ in the plot but it wasn’t quite there. The drama seemed to think it was holding back a whole heap of secrets and that it was divulging them one by one, but that wasn’t really the case.

GIVE ME SOME ANSWERS DAMMIT

The information that was getting presented to us each episode was either irrelevant or information that we (the audience, not the characters) already know. It was like the writers were trying to tempt me with a cookie, but they weren’t giving me any crumbs- they weren’t even letting me smell the cookie! And then when they give me the cookie 12 hours later, I’ve sort of lost interest. Sure, I’ll still eat it, but I’m not nearly as excited about it as I would have been if you’d given me a taste along the way. Metaphors aside, the sort of things we were discovering were all about Woo Hyuk for a good portion of the series there, and I just didn’t believe for a second that he was the one who killed So Woo- it’s a mystery drama and he’s the first (and most obvious) suspect. I’ve watched a lot of mysteries in my time (both Korean and otherwise), and I tend to see through storylines pretty easily- which I don’t mind if there’s a bunch of humour or heart or fantastic characters along the way. But ‘Solomon’s Perjury’ tended to forgo those things to focus heavily on the mystery of the story, and for me personally there were only two options- either Ji Hoon killed So Woo, or So Woo killed himself. So it was a little bland to have most of the show being about clearing Woo Hyuk’s name cuz the kid so obviously didn’t do it.

Baek Seol Min is like if Lee Min Ho and Rain had a baby

We’re clued in early that he’s got an alibi, but he’s just not telling anyone what it is. So while I did enjoy Woo Hyuk’s arc to an extent, and I did love the way his redemption slowly crept up on him (and adored the way that scene was acted), I couldn’t help but feel that it was all irrelevant. Because all along the answer is RIGHT THERE, and I know that it’s RIGHT THERE, but none of the characters ever figure it out.

Oh my Lord, he's so cute- can I keep him?

Which I guess isn’t all that surprising considering there are really only three main characters and one of them’s dead and another one has all the answers but just won’t tell anybody. But on the bright side, isn’t Joon Young a total cutie? As my interest in the mystery started to wane, I sort of started wishing that it would magically turn into a school romance and Joon Young would become our male lead and totally get the girl and just be adorable all over the place. I’m glad that at least we got to see the start of the romance at the end there. I do wish the writers had added more of Joon Young in the story, because while his crush is super cute and his family situation is highly interesting, he doesn’t actually do much. So now I’ll have to go watch whatever else Seo Ji Hoon has acted in because I love him now. He was brilliant and was very good at always maintaining a presence in the scene- which can be hard to do when your character does literally nothing. However, I always felt Joon Young in the background, watching everyone else and taking all the information in. When we weren’t in the school (or a student’s house), the cinematography was lovely- especially any scene with snow. Snow makes everything ten times more amazing.

80% of the drama took place in this room

It is a bit of a shame that so much time was spent inside and in the school court, as visually not a lot happened. Most of our characters just talked to each other, with only a few actually getting something else to do- like be hit by a truck, or fall off a roof, or beat someone else up. While the trials could at times be interesting, they did start to feel a bit the same after a while. The music was all pretty fabulous though, especially during the scene on the roof with So Woo and Ji Hoon- it was perfect.

What Was Great:

Young Cast:

I wasn’t expecting the actors to be as good as they were. While they were green actors, they didn’t give a feeling of being new to acting, and delivered strong and engaging performances.

They're sweet and charming and oh so likeable

At times I felt a bit distant from some of the characters due to the way the were written, but the performances from the kids always had a way of pulling me out of my thoughts on the series as a whole and into the moment- particularly Jang Dong Yoon and Seo Ji Hoon, who were both exceptional.

His sad face is just so sad

I liked having Kim Hyun Soo as our heroine, and enjoyed the very teenagery vibe she brought to the set. She was sweet and studious, but Kim Hyun Soo was able to bring out her stubborn, competitive streak in a nice and natural way, so that Seo Yeon’s rebellion didn’t feel out of character. Despite my conflicted feelings about Ji Hoon as a character, Jang Dong Yoon acted him really well. While I didn’t trust him as far as I could kick him (probably even less), when the character was struggling on screen my heart did ache for him- and it was all in the performance as I wasn’t a huge fan of Ji Hoon character-wise. The supporting kids all did brilliant jobs as well. I can’t tell you how many school dramas I’ve watched where the acting from the students who aren’t main characters is just plain cringe-worthy. It’s usually insanely over-done, with the characters coming off flat and one-dimensional. I’m happy to say that all our side students, particularly the ones directly involved in the trial, felt very real and lived in, and not the least bit overacted. 

The Intention:

The idea behind the plot is brilliant (which I know is no real praise for the drama as it came from Japanese material, but still).

Who dunnit?

Having the kids take things into their own hands was not just exciting in the murder-mystery sense, but also because this is the first real time these kids have done anything on their own. It’s sad to see them lose their trust in the system, but it’s enjoying in an underdog way to see them try and find their footing in the real world- particularly when they have such a large enemy trying to crush them before they even take their first steps. Each of the kids gained something out of the trial, and it was interesting to see them progress emotionally and learn to depend on each other while they made their first moves out into the real world. 

Welcome to the real world- life's a b*tch

What Wasn’t:

Han Ji Hoon:

My biggest problem with this drama is that I didn’t like the main male lead, Han Ji Hoon. He just felt slimy to me. Right from the first time we saw him standing staring at where So Woo fell something about him just didn’t seem right.

What are you doing girl, he's like the King of dodginess

While I’m not against having an air of mystery around one of the leads, the problem with Ji Hoon is that he was nothing but mystery. Despite being our lead we knew virtually nothing about him, and that didn’t do a lot to endear him to me. We were told this was a murder mystery (is it though?), so I found it continually frustrating to be cut off from all of Ji Hoon’s thoughts when he was supposed to be one of our leading characters. I didn’t know who he was, so frankly I thought from Episode 1 that there was a 98% chance he killed So Woo. And because I could see how dodgy he was so early on, I started to get annoyed that none of the other kids found him suspicious at all. Like, there was an unknown kid from another school hanging around So Woo, and no one thinks it might be the random kid from another school who joined the trial out of nowhere? No? No. Even though Jang Dong Yoon acted the part very well, I just couldn’t connect to Ji Hoon as a character, as he was too closed off and it was quite possible that he killed his best mate. So the reveal that Ji Hoon was on the roof with So Woo wasn’t a surprise to me- I thought that would be the case from day one.

It's one or the other

You need more than a pretty face and sad tears to keep my suspicions at bay- just because you’re cute doesn’t mean I won’t think you’re a total psychopath. Probably the thing that annoyed me most is that as the drama went on it became more and more obvious that the whole thing was just Ji Hoon’s show.

Welcome to the School Trial- otherwise known as the Han Ji Hoon show

He had all the cards and was just manipulating everyone else so that he could expose the cards in the way he wanted. It saddened me that we had such a strong heroine only to have her basically being Ji Hoon’s puppet the entire time. I really wanted her to give him a good smackdown at some point, but that point never came because there were no surprises for Ji Hoon. He knew everything. One of my most hated things in K-Dramas is when information that a main character knows isn’t shared with the rest of us. It feels sneaky rather than clever. I thought that the plot for this drama would be much cleverer than it is- as it is, the whole mystery aspect just rides on Ji Hoon not saying anything, which is pretty lame. It took a lot of the excitement away by giving Ji Hoon all the answers and having him keep them until the end. Rather than being a drama about a murder mystery and finding the truth behind one boy’s death, it sort of just became Ji Hoon’s response to that death. Which I guess isn’t all that bad, but I was expecting something different. I just so desperately wish that there’d been something more to the mystery here. Though admittedly, I actually loved the end of this drama. The commentary on So Woo's suicide and the assigning of blame was truly fascinating and poignant.

I wish it had been a gradual build-up to the beautiful end- rather than just waiting for Ji Hoon to spill the beans

Turns out, I actually really like Ji Hoon's journey of guilt and self-reflection- I just wish he hadn't gone about it in such an overtly manipulative way. Despite how genuine his regret and sadness for So Woo were, the fact remains that Ji Hoon still acted like a full of himself, I-knowest-better-than-thou ass for 90% of the show.

Re-watch?

Hmmm, probably not. While I enjoyed the acting performances, I felt a tad let down by the plot.

I look forward to seeing these kiddies in new dramas