Ping Pong Ball

Ping Pong Ball

7/10

Ping Pong Ball

Genre:                                                      Episodes: 2                                     Year: 2018

Mystery

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Kim Young Joon is a university student who is having trouble with the girl he is interested in. Despite the heat of summer, Young Joon jogs to keep his mind off his issues. After fainting from heatstroke, Young Joon is rescued by Kim Deuk Hwan, a homeless man who lives under a bridge by Young Joon’s apartment complex.

Cast:

Ji Soo (Kim Young Joon)

Yoo Jae Myung (Kim Deuk Hwan)

Na Hae Ryung (In Ha)

Choi Klang Il (Pub Boss)

General Thoughts:

I’m just going to start this off by saying that this is definitely not going to be a drama for everyone. I wouldn’t describe a lot of Korean dramas as being ‘arthouse’ but I can’t really think of a better word for ‘Ping Pong Ball’.

Very pretty, and pretty moody

It’s 100% not a show that aims to please the vast majority of viewers, but that’s okay. As a small show with a short runtime, this is the perfect sort of drama for writers and actors to take part in a story with unique themes that they find personally interesting. Shows like this are always nice to have around, because it seems like everyone who participated in it really wanted to be here for the story it had to tell-

I feel like I missed a lot of what was going on in this drama

not for fame (because this drama was never going to be a smash hit), and not for money (because I doubt they got paid much for it). As a result, the drama itself felt very high in quality, as everyone who was involved was putting their whole into creating something that they enjoyed and could take pride in. My biggest issue with short K-Dramas is that they usually feel like they are low-budget due to the less than stellar quality of the shows, but that’s not something that can be said about ‘Ping Pong Ball’. A lot of effort went into making the atmosphere moody and mysterious, and into making the characters veiled and intriguing. PD Kim Sang Ho who was behind this drama is no rookie, having directed some big shows (such as ‘Arang and the Magistrate’), and you could really feel his experience come through. The atmosphere set up was one of the best parts about this show, drawing you in and piquing your interest about all the characters that inhabited this strange part of the city.

I want to know all the secrets (Spoiler Alert: you do not get to learn all the secrets)

The PD was great at giving you just enough information for viewers to start drawing their own conclusions and try and piece together what was going on, but never actually gave any concrete evidence- so there was never any clear right or wrong answers, it was pretty much all down to interpretation.

There was a lot going on even when there wasn't a lot going on

The acting was all phenomenal. I’ve been a huge fan of Ji Soo ever since seeing him in ‘Angry Mom’, and I have seen every single drama he’s been in since (exceeeeeept ‘Bad Guys 2’). And have not once been disappointed in his acting. Ji Soo has taken on a variety of roles, but his role here in ‘Ping Pong Ball’ fit him much more than any of his previous roles. He slipped right into the role of Young Joon, this awkward, isolated kid who was a bit lost in life. K-Dramas tend to have a lot of dialogue going on (both internal and external) to let us know what’s going on and how our characters are feeling, but ‘Ping Pong Ball’ was rather light on dialogue, leaving us to infer a lot of what was going on in our characters’ minds through expression alone. Both Ji Soo and Yoo Jae Myung did this very well, particularly Yoo Jae Myung, who was somehow able to express only tiny snippets of his character at a time, while still keeping his history in the dark. All the elements of this drama were of a very high quality and pulled together to form an interesting and professional little show.

What Was Great:

Intelligent:

This show never assumed its audience was dumb. It never went out of its way to explain its themes and ideas, and even when it did explain them it did so in a smooth an natural way- usually as a conversation between Deuk Hwan and Young Joon as the two men swapped and shared ideologies.

This show low-key made me want to read up on some philosophy 

Regardless of whether you agreed with the philosophies and ideas that were being discussed, it was still an enjoyable experience to partake in the intelligent conversation between these two characters. Not that there’s anything wrong with dramas that have a simple approach, or characters with simple goals and ideas, it’s just nice for a change to have some discussion on a deeper level.

What Wasn’t:

What Happened?:

While I understand that this drama is all introspective and its primary function is to comment of the ambiguity of life and relationships, I do maybe wish that the show had given us a few more solid answers (I'm usually not a fan of open endings, though it did make sense here).

All these mysteries we'll never solve

I was satisfied enough with the ending between Deuk Hwan and Young Joon, with the homeless man disappearing from Young Joon’s life as suddenly as he’s appeared in it. I even liked the way his wife missed that last chance to reconnect with Deuk Hwan after lying to Young Joon that she didn’t know him. I appreciated the nuanced moments and the subtleties in the story. But I still kinda want to know what the deal was with the dead guys. Perhaps I’m missing something, or perhaps this was further continuation on the drama’s commentary that we never have the full picture and can never answer all the questions in life. But I can’t deny that I kind of what to know why the seemingly quiet, calm barman (at least I assume it was the barman) was killing people.  

Recommend?

It’s only two episodes so it’s probably worth a go. You’ll either like it which is nice, or you won’t, in which case it was only two hours.

Ah, the meaning and meaninglessness of life

Sketch

Sketch

6/10

Sketch

Genre:                                                     Episodes: 16                                  Year: 2018

Mystery

Action

Synopsis:

Yoo Shi Hyun is a police officer who sketches future crime scenes. After a sketch depicting a murder scene comes true, Detective Kang Dong Soo joins Shi Hyun’s team in order to find the murderer.

Cast:

Rain (Kang Dong Soo)

Lee Sun Bin (Yoo Shi Hyun)

Lee Dong Gun (Kim Do Jin)

Jung Jin Young (Jang Tae Joon)

Lee Seung Joo (Yoo Shi Joon)

Lim Hwa Young (Oh Young Shim)

Kang Shin Il (Moon Jae Hyun)

Yoo Da In (Min Ji Soo)

General Thoughts:

When I first realised this drama had come out, I was a little confused as to why I had heard literally nothing about it. The premise sounded quite cool (even if we have had some similar ideas recently with ‘While You Were Sleeping’ and ‘Black’) and it had Korea’s Darling Rain returning since getting married and having a baby.

Guess who's back

So why was this drama so quietly received? Honestly speaking, probably due to the fact that it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t bad either, so there was nothing to loudly complain about. It was just very simply mediocre. Which is fine I guess- not all dramas can be great hits. I just kind of feel like 2018 was swimming in mediocre dramas. The plot is where I really felt this drama was letting itself down.

I thought this show would be more exciting than it was

While I didn’t necessarily think the writer was bad (there were some beautiful emotional beats sprinkled throughout the show) the plot just meandered along, and our characters didn’t actually end up doing all that much. It’s almost like the show couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a tense cat-and-mouse chase or a fast paced action-thriller, and in the end it didn’t end up being either. Instead we just had two groups of people fighting each other, even though they were actually trying to work towards the same goal. The acting held up pretty well all drama long, with Rain delivering a delightful, slightly rough detective for our hero. I enjoyed that Dong Soo wasn’t written the way most K-Drama detectives are. Usually our good detectives are rough around the edges but have a strong moral compass, and their belief in justice is that jail is the ultimate and most appropriate punishment for criminals. Dong Soo was set apart from those usual characters, as rather than aiming to catch Da In’s killer to bring him to lawful justice, Dong Soo wanted to catch him so that he could kill him. A different kind of justice. It was an interesting character quirk that Dong Soo was so honest and upfront about his goal, and not only set him apart from other characters, but also served to develop his relationship with Da In, as the two actually had very little time together on-screen.

Are there any detectives in K-Dramaland who haven't had a family member murdered?

Sure, Dong Soo eventually came around to the idea that murdering a murderer isn’t as great as he initially thought and settled for the legal system’s justice, but I appreciated that this was an aspect of his character that was explored. I tend to prefer Rain in comedic roles (who am I kidding, that’s all I’ve actually seen him in), but I thought he did an excellent job at handling the darker emotions that this drama called for.

Lee Dong Gun as a morally ambiguous killer? Yes, please, and thank you

Perhaps now that he has a family of his own, Rain was able to tap into something more raw and emotional when it came to acting out his fiancé’s murder- whatever it was, Dong Soo’s devastation and grief was expressed perfectly, and really drew you into Dong Soo as a character. On the other side of Rain we had Lee Dong Gun, playing the man who murdered Dong Soo’s fiancé. I absolutely adored Lee Dong Gun in ‘7 Day Queen’ where he made my heart bleed a thousand times over, so I was pretty excited when I saw he’d be playing another morally dubious, utterly broken character here. While his character, Do Jin, wasn’t written nearly as well as his character in ‘7 Day Queen’, Lee Dong Gun brought that same victim-turned-assailant vibe and really tugged at your heartstrings. While the mechanics of how Do Jin was wooed over onto Team Killer were a bit hazy (and honestly pretty weak), if you bypassed that and focused solely on Do Jin as a character and Lee Dong Gun’s strong portrayal, he was a villain you couldn’t help but love. The crux of Lee Dong Gun’s performance was definitely his death scene, and despite feeling a little detached from the story at that time, I can tell you that the moment in his dream when he was finally reunited with his wife was so bittersweet and really broke my heart.

Cue the tears

Lee Sun Bin was our heroine, and while she didn’t have a whole lot to work with, she did a pretty good job at being the main driving force of the thinking side of the plot (the two boys had the emotional side pretty darn covered). It’s a shame that Shi Hyun wasn’t given a bit more development, as I really felt that Lee Sun Bin had a lot left in her tank that she could have shown us- the drama just wasn’t asking for it.

Quietly manipulative

Lee Seung Joo was a nice surprise- he’s got a teeny tiny list of credits (none of which I’ve seen), but was able to portray the double-crossing prosecutor well. Similar to Lee Dong Gun’s character, the reasoning behind Shi Joon’s willingness to kill innocent people to achieve his goal wasn't totally explained, nor was his connection with Tae Joon, but if you ignored that and focused only on the character and the actor, it was okay. Lee Seung Joo did a great job at showing us exactly what Shi Joon was thinking, and his gradual slip from kind, refined prosecutor to slightly crazy ‘world-changer’ was done well, with a gradual progression from his mask to his real face. While most of the supporting cast and extras did reasonably well, I will say that some of the extras early on (like the first man Shi Hyun saves from jumping off a boat) weren’t acted all that well, and crummy acting from an extra can snap you right out of a moment. Production-wise, this drama did pretty well. Despite the subject matter not actually being all that mysterious or dark (because everything was moving so slowly), the lighting, music and camerawork all worked really hard at bringing a tense, charged atmosphere to the screen. 

What Was Great:

Fights:

While I will say that the sheer amount of fights between Dong Soo and Do Jin were probably excessive (they met every two or three episodes and fought with each other), the fights themselves were pretty cool. The last few dramas I’ve watched that have incorporated an action element fell a bit flat, with fights feeling poorly choreographed, or poorly filmed. The fights in ‘Sketch’ were neither of those things. They were choreographed to look cool and dangerous, and the moves were of a level that you believed that Do Jin was a member of special forces, and not just a thug who threw a lot of punches.

It's been a while since I've seen such good action in a K-Drama

There were some really great moves that went beyond simple punches and kicks, and it was really exciting to watch. And the filming- bless whoever filmed those fight scenes. I could actually see what was gong on! Rather than having shaky, quick movements to enhance the ‘intensity’ of the moment, the camerawork was smooth and stable, opting for extended single shots rather than rapid-change shots. Sure, this makes it harder to choreograph and execute the fight (leaves much more room for error) but when done well, as it was here, the result is a really thrilling fight scene. 

Fun Premise:

I’m always into fantasy elements, and think that mystery-thrillers/police dramas are a great genre to incorporate a bit of fantasy.

Like, I love fantasy

Having the heroine sketching future crime scenes was an interesting premise and one I was keen to see play out. It added a lot of room for moral dilemmas (are you a criminal if you haven’t committed a crime yet?), and there was a lot that could be mined from this fantasy addition.  

What Wasn’t:

No Idea Exploration:

So while the premise was fun and set up a lot of room for interest, the show did not take advantage of this. The only thing the sketches were really used for was to get Do Jin and Dong Soo into contact with each other, and be a way for the police team to find Do Jin and The Elder. Which is pretty disappointing.

Kinda wish you guys were better at your jobs

To start with, in all 16 episodes I think the group was only able to change Shi Hyun’s sketches once? Twice, maybe? Which kind of renders them useless, at least in a crime-prevention sense, which is what the team was trying to use them for. The sketches more or less ended up being self-fulfilling prophecy, with the team going out of their way to try and prevent them from happening, only to have their attempts at prevention actually trigger events that lead to the sketch coming true. Which was a little frustrating to watch as a viewer. Then there was the fact that Shi Hyun and Chief Moon kept saying that the sketches were never wrong- so why are you trying so hard to change them if they’re never wrong?There was a bit of confusion around how and why this group had been formed to save people/prevent crimes, if Shi Hyun’s sketches were always correct. Then there was the introduction of Shi Joon as another person who could see the future- only his power came in actual visions rather than abstract sketches- much more useful in my opinion. The idea was brought up that Shi Hyun and Shi Joon’s powers were somehow related, and Shi Joon was the only one who had the power to change Shi Hyun’s sketches.

Why can Shi Joon change the sketches but Shi Hyun can't? We'll never know...

But then out of nowhere Shi Hyun’s power was growing (the how and why of this are never explained) and then suddenly Shi Hyun is ‘stronger’ than Shi Joon. Yeah, I dunno what that was about either. It also kind of annoyed me that as soon as the possibility of another person with similar powers was brought up, no one even considered Shi Joon.

Shi Joon has been playing these police like a fiddle

Like, yes, I understand that it’s because he’s Shi Hyun’s brother and they would all assume they would know if he could see the future, but as Shi Hyun is the only other person with this sort of ability, I thought they would at least entertain the idea that it was a genetic thing. But no. The police group as a whole were kind of stupid, if I’m being brutally honest (which I always am). The show worked to keep the viewers in the loop of what was going on with Shi Hyun and Shi Joon’s teams, but the problem with having the audience in the know is that it makes the good guys look like morons when it takes them so long to figure things out- because the audience already has the answer it’s easy to see what all the little clues are adding up to. Yet it ends up taking a whole episode or more for the police to get there. I wish that Shi Hyun’s sketches were used more as an actual element and topic of discussion for the moral issues they presented, or simply that they were actually more useful, rather than only having them as a plot device that did nothing more than slowly try and push the plot along.

Recommend?

No, despite the fantasy element, there are better mystery police dramas out there.

Not terrible, not great

Hundred Million Stars From the Sky

Hundred Million Stars From the Sky

6/10

Hundred Million Stars From the Sky

Genre:                                                 Episodes: 16                                         Year: 2018

Romance

Mystery

Synopsis:

Detective Yoo Jin Kook is working on a murder case that has been disguised as a suicide. His sister, Yoo Jin Kang, has been growing closer to an enigmatic man, Kim Moo Young, who Jin Kook suspects is the murderer.

Cast:

Seo In Guk (Kim Moo Young)

Jung So Min (Yoo Jin Kang)

Park Sung Woong (Yoo Jin Kook)

Go Min Shi (Im Yoo Ri)

Jang Young Nam (Tak So Jung)

Do Sang Woo (Jang Woo Sang)

Kwon Soo Hyun (Eom Cho Rong)

Seo Eun Soo (Baek Seung Ah)

General Thoughts:

This show really annoyed me. Because it was kinda good and did have a lot of really interesting, fresh concepts, but I just didn’t like the characters enough to actually care what happened to them.

I actually didn't want the main couple to work out

The one thing that makes me lose interest in a drama really quickly is not having any emotional investment in the characters. Because all three of our leads were stubborn and kinda selfish, I ended up not caring about what hardships they went through. I was more on Jin Kook’s team that the main couple, which I’m not sure is what the show was aiming for. While I haven’t seen the original Japanese drama, I did take a bit of a look at how it differed from this remake.

Felt like a cop-out when they didn't end up being related though

Essentially it seems like the plots are pretty much the same with just a few differences sprinkled throughout- some differences bigger than others. The biggest differences seem to be that in the original Japanese version, Moo Young and Jin Kang (Ryo and Yoko) are actually brother and sister. The K-drama version shied away from this incestual twist and made the brother-sider relationship between the leads a lie created by rich girl Se Ran. The other big difference is that originally Yuko kills Ryo (not sure on the reasoning- after a misunderstanding?) and then in horror/regret (because she still loves him) she kills herself. I can see why the Korean version shied away from those twists, as they are fairly dark, and I’m not sure a Korean audience would be as accepting of those turns of events as a Japanese audience may. A smaller difference between the shows is that Ryo just seemed much darker than his Korean counterpart, Moo Young. Originally Moo Young was painted with a rather tainted brush, and he definitely gave off a bad-guy vibe. I still stand by that he’s a massive *sshole.

He wasn't mysterious. He was manipulative and emotionally abusive.

He abetted a young, troubled girl into unknowingly murdering another girl, and then later set up a situation that resulted in the death of another dude, and an innocent girl that he was using for fun. But as the show progressed on, and Jin Kang started falling for Moo Young, these past deeds were just swept under the rug.

In the interests of continuing the love-line, we're just gonna bypass his craziness

It felt kind of like the show had pushed itself into a corner by making its hero into someone dark and fairly unlikable, and then had to somehow convince its audience that it was totally normal and not at all creepy for this girl to fall for him. I mean, I guess they succeeded with a lot of viewers as I’ve mostly heard positive things about the show, but it just didn’t work for me. Moo Young was so dark and then suddenly he was just a normal guy who was misunderstood. I would have loved the show to go deeper into Moo Young’s struggle with his nature- it would have been so interesting to watch him try and figure out how to be a ‘good’ person while constantly battling with the fact that at this point he just wasn’t. Frankly speaking, after Moo Young asked Jin Kang to teach him how to be a good person (which was a great scene I might add), he was suddenly just there without much struggle. All his desire to manipulate and play games with people just seemed to vanish. Which I found super unbelievable. In fact, I found it super unbelievable as a whole that he would try and turn himself around for Jin Kang at all. To me it felt much more like Moo Young was trying to get Jin Kang’s attention and affection purely because she wasn’t giving them to him.

He just isn't used to not being fawned over by females

As someone who was a smooth talker and was so charming, it felt like he’d never really been in the position where a girl just hadn’t been interested in him before. His desire to get close to Jin Kang felt (to me at least) much more like he viewed her as a difficult conquest, and that he wanted to ‘win’ her rather than any actual real affection. And of course the usual trajectory for these kinds of relationships, is that once the person has been ‘won’ the ‘winner’ then pretty much loses interest.

Boy, did I worry about that cat's longevity

While at the end I did buy that Moo Young had genuine and sincere feelings for Jin Kang, I never truly believed his transition. For someone who had never once in his life really cared about anyone else, he sure fell for Jin Kang pretty darn quickly. I also wished that Jin Kook had a better reason for hating Moo Young so much. I mean, yes he was a dark and dangerous dude and I sure as hell wouldn’t want any sister of mine anywhere near him, but Jin Kook seemed to have a deeper hatred against Moo Young that went beyond what we were seeing of him. But then it turned out he didn’t. At the start of the show when Jin Kook was so adamantly against Moo Young, it turns out he didn’t know any more about him than we did. He just hated him way, way, way more. It also bugged me how Jin Kook seemed completely unable to have a rational, reasonable discussion with Jin Kang about why Moo Young wasn’t a great guy to hang around. I’m sure sitting down with her and explaining that he is either a murderer, or someone who orchestrated and cleaned up a murder would probably crush Jin Kang’s enthusiasm for Moo Young far quicker than any nonsensical screaming match ever could. The plot as a whole was just excruciatingly slow, with hardly anything actually happening.

Literally nothing was going on besides Jin Kang deciding whether to date Moo Young or not

There were a lot of mysteries being built and a whole lot of atmosphere being developed, but when it comes down to it, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. Others seemed to get their enjoyment from the building tension and all the character interactions as they slowly circled each other and came closer to the truth, but as I personally didn’t care all that much about any of the lead characters, I kinda didn’t care about the slow circling and atmosphere building- I just wanted the story to hurry up and do something. Despite my lack of interest in the show overall, I did find that the production value of this drama was really good.

Such moody cinematography  

The scenes were all beautiful, and visually very appealing. The angles and lighting in play during this drama really helped to emphasise the dark, mysterious vibe the show was going for, and actually contributed a great deal to making the characters seem creepier than they otherwise would have been. 

What Was Great:

Acting:

Pretty much everyone who acted in this drama was brilliant. Seo In Guk was an obvious standout (when is he not), and it was so brilliant to see him trying out a new type of character. He’s mostly stuck with nice, warm roles in the past, and while he’s definitely had his go at heavy emotional scenes, I think this is his first time playing a villain role (despite being the actual hero of this drama, you can’t deny that Moo Young is still a total villain).

The way he could deaden his eyes was amazing (and slightly unsettling)

He brought a moodiness to Moo Young that really made your hair stand on end, but paired with his trademark cute-guy smile it made it really hard to tell if you wanted to love him or run away from him in terror. Which I believe is the exact effect this character is supposed to have on you- we know he’s bad, but he just seems so good. Seo In Guk was so good at toeing the line of right and wrong, and completely made you question whether his character was actually a bad guy, or just a misunderstood guy that didn’t bother to correct others’ wrong judgement of him. On the other side, we had Seo In Guk/Moo Young’s rival, played by Park Sung Woong. I kind of can’t believe that I hadn’t heard of him until last year, as I feel like I’m seeing him in everything now. Which I do not have a problem with at all. Park Sung Woong delivered another fabulous performance here, and I adored him as the protective, slightly goofy older brother. He was excellent at expressing both Jin Kook’s dorky love for his sister and his aggressive suspicion of Moo Young without ever feeling out of character. Similarly to Seo In Guk, Park Sung Woong could pull out different aspects of his character that made us feel as though we were discovering deeper traits and emotions rather than feeling like we were having random new information thrown at us, which can sometimes be the case.

I must say, I'm glad we phased out the red hairdo

Even the supporting actors such as Go Min Shi, Jang Young Nam, and Kwon Soo Hyun delivered great performances that added to the overall sleek and professional feeling of the show. The one performance I didn’t totally buy was Jung So Min as our leading lady. While she wasn’t bad, I didn’t think she was on the same level as her male costars. Though, this could also be because her character was just lame. 

What Wasn’t:

I Don’t Care About You:

The biggest issue I had with this drama is that I did not give a flying f*ck about any of the characters involved in the story. The problem with not caring about the characters is that this dramatically lowers the stakes and the tension of a show.

Jump, live, be a murderer- at this point I don't really mind ether way

So all this atmosphere that the drama had done such a good job of building was pretty much cancelled out by the fact that it didn’t necessarily matter to me what happened, because I wasn’t emotionally invested in the characters I was seeing on my screen. Would I care if Moo Young and Jin Kang couldn’t be together? Nope. Would I be sad if Jin Kang turned her back on Oppa so she could date Moo Young? Not at all.

I didn't want a happy ending and I didn't get one, so...yay?

Would it bother me if the three main characters all took each other out at the end? No, no, and no. Perhaps this says more about me as a person than this drama as a show, but all the problems that came up for these characters just felt like karma. It was hard for me to feel sympathy for these characters, because every bad thing that happened felt like it was nothing more than the consequences of their own actions. It’s not like they were great people facing life’s unfairness- they did sh*t things and then those sh*t things came back to bite them. I couldn’t feel torn up about Moo Young being thought of as a murderer and a bad guy because he kinda was. If he hadn’t played games with Yoo Ri and her bully friend, Yoo Ri wouldn’t have been able to kill her. If he hadn’t used Seung Ah as a way to antagonise Woo Sang, both Seung Ah and Woo Sang would have lived. So excuse me for not feeling pity for him when his girlfriend’s detective brother wanted her to have nothing to do with him. Cuz you know what- fair call. I couldn’t feel for Jin Kang’s situation of being torn between her brother and her boyfriend because it was her own darn fault.

'I'm gonna ditch my lifelong bestie and the brother who raised me for a dude I've known for 5 minutes' 

For starters, I never like characters that make eyes at their friends lovers, and Jin Kang went out and made eyes right from the start (even if she was pretending she wasn’t). And then after her friend was in a life threatening accident that lead to her being in a comatose state that was so obviously caused by Moo Young, Jin Kang was STILL making eyes. While his girlfriend was dying. Like, it’s just a dog move and there was no way to recover her character in my eyes after that. If she was someone I knew in real life I wouldn’t want to be involved with her, and as a character I just didn’t care what happened to her.

They're all as crazy as each other

When it was revealed that she and Moo Young might be siblings, rather than feeling aggrieved at the bitter twist fate had given them, I almost felt a savage jolt of pleasure- maybe if you’d both been more decent human beings you wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.

In what way did you think this would end well for you?

I was on board with Jin Kook for most of the drama, but he lost me a bit when he stabbed Moo Young. At that point I still believed that he knew some deep dark secret of Moo Young’s (that went beyond that he was a child victim whose parents had been killed). Once it was revealed that Jin Kook didn’t actually have any reasoning behind his intense hatred, it was hard for me to sympathise with him. It just felt like the drama was trying way too hard to make me cry for these characters, when in actuality I didn’t care about them at all. Even having Moo Young and Jin Kang shot and killed at the end didn’t get much of an emotional response from me. While it was an extreme reaction, Moo Young did kill that Chaebol’s two kids- Woo Sang indirectly when he encouraged him into a drunk car chase, and Se Ran very directly when he, ya know, shot her (again, I felt no pity when Moo Young got played by Se Ran because it was exactly what he’d been doing to other people. Karma.). Like, you can’t just kill off all these rich people with all these connections and not expect some retaliation. 

Recommend?

Personally I wouldn’t but I seem to be on the minority for this one.

I feel like I should be sadder that both the leads died...but I'm just not