Well, well, well…

Make some tea, this will take a while…


!!!ALL the spoilers will be warned beforehand!!!

Hellbound is one of the examples where a story with an interesting concept was "bound", not to hell, but to not develop fully so that it could reach its true potential.

Hellbound is a supernatural horror drama not for the light-hearted. Even though Hellbound is not scary, it contains extreme violence and gore which makes it very dark, raw and twisted.

The story revolves around a mysterious phenomenon where some weird creatures burn humans and bind them to Hell. As fast these monsters burn humans, so slow burn the drama is. For a 6-episode length drama, it’s really slow paced. Personally, I like slow paced dramas when this factor helps in building the universe of the story, the atmosphere, the suspense or the characters’ depth. In Hellbound though, nothing of these happens. That’s why I found the whole set up (especially the first 3 episodes) a little boring and I don’t think that the drama can be binged-watched easily as its slowness makes it a very exhausting experience.



~~~What went wrong~~~


The real problem of the story though, it’s not the pace. I think that the story has 2 main problems



~ The Randomness~

DISCLAIMER: ~Randomness~ does not contain spoilers but it describes very generally how the storyline works.


The one problem is the randomness. Many random people were involved in many random situations that led to a random storyline.

Hellbound feels like watching a “collection of stories” which take place in the same universe. The storyline is showing some of the actions/situations of many different people during the crisis, but never you’ll never get to see in depth the character's way of thinking or get to fully know their personalities. Also, you won’t even get to know the whole story for some of them. As a result, you can’t get attached with any of the characters. There are only some cases where you can feel sorry for some of them and that’s it.

In addition, the relationships between the characters feel kind of superficial to me. The fact that you see many people with not a certain relationship between them, strengthened the randomness factor because basically, the drama was just throwing random characters and their stories to your face. The weird thing is that the drama isn’t that long and it didn’t even have these many characters to feel like it’s overdrawn with them and their stories, but it did.



And here is where the critical question arises: among all these characters, who is the protagonist?

I asked myself many times and to my surprise, I couldn’t come up with an answer. In Hellbound there isn’t anyone that you can call “the protagonist” of the story. Thus, as a watcher, you don’t have anyone to follow and process the story with. This is actually the reason that everyone seems irrelevant with each other, there isn’t a protagonist to bound all of them together.

Don’t get me wrong though. Good stories without a certain protagonist can exist but I believe that Hellbound isn't one of them.



~Netflix~

The second problem, that I believe is the most serious one, is Netflix.

Netflix has started to produce more and more Kdramas lately and some of the dramas it has made had huge and global success. Even though I really loved many of them, I have to say that there’s a different aura in these dramas, a more “Netflix” aura that slowly takes the K from Kdrama away.

The main problem I have with Netflix original dramas is the “see you in the second season that isn’t even confirmed that’s gonna happen” thing. As a regular asian-drama watcher, I have been used to watching a drama that has one season with a story that has a start-middle-closure which in the end I like or dislike and then, move on to the next watching adventure. I, and many others I have talked to, like asian-dramas because of this. I’d lie if I’d say that I haven’t liked dramas which have multiple seasons but Netflix has just overdone it lately.


Thus, I started to think if I dislike the fact that Hellbound is another Netflix drama which will have a second season, or if there was something wrong regardless of the fact that Hellbound has to have a second season. The answer here is both.


Hellbound is based on a webtoon by the same name. I haven’t read the webtoon. I don’t know the full story, so I don’t have an opinion about it. Maybe the webtoon is a hidden gem, when I read it, I will see for myself. For now, everything I based this review on is the 6 episodes that I have watched.

The webtoon’s original run was from August 25, 2019 to September 21, 2020. This means that the story was completed and Netflix could have released the whole story in one go, but it didn’t. This led to the creation of a drama which basically has no story progression. It’s remarkable, the first season ended and it answered literally nothing, on the other hand, it raised more questions than the already existing ones. The first season could have been described as the “backstory” of the Hellbound but it’s nearly the beginning of the story.

Maybe, if Netflix had released the whole story in one go, the progression and the escalation of the story and characters, that was needed, would be there. Unfortunately, Hellbound’s story was bound by Netflix to not develop as it should, and this is really sad. As the story hasn’t ended yet, to see the story’s full potential we have to wait until the second season is released (if it will be released) or read the webtoon instead. For me, Hellbound will be saved if the second season comes to set the record straight and puts everything in its proper place.



~~~What went well~~~


Despite the fact that the storyline is messy, there are some things that I quite liked about Hellbound.


~The concept~

!!WARNING ~The concept~ part contains SPOILERS!!





Hellbound has managed to build a dystopian world that's based on a very -as nonsense as it sounds- realistic depiction of human thought. Humans through the years tried to explain the world and the natural phenomena around them using logic. In the early years though, humans couldn’t understand all of the things around them. Thus, they attributed the nature of these phenomena to God and God’s Will and many times humans were scared by them. A perfect example is Greek mythology. One of the Greek mythology myths is saying that God Zeus was using lighting as a weapon and to punish but in many myths, he didn’t use lightning to punish but to seek solutions.

Likewise, in Hellbound we see people become witnesses to a supernatural phenomenon which they couldn’t explain. In their fear and lack of knowledge they attributed this supernatural phenomenon to God’s Will to punish sinners. At the end of episode 3, Jun Jin Soo explains exactly the feeling of human’s fear to the unknown perfectly.


“Do you honestly believe true justice can be served through man-made law?”. This is the moral question that Hellbound asks through Jun Jin Soo and answers through the 6 episodes of the fist season. Law was made by humans when society was created to ensure harmonious coexistence between people. Of course, nothing man-made is perfect and the same applies to the law. Through the years, humans fight for their rights and always try to improve the law as much as their human nature allows them.

In Hellbound, we see people turn a blind eye to the law and only believe in the God’s Punishment, which was actually the product of human fear. The deviation from legal life led to the creation of Hellbound’s dystopian world. Thus, through this world, Hellbound shows the value and the importance of human law and how humanity would end up without them.







~The production and Acting~

The production is not perfect, but it’s decent enough. It has some generally good cinematography and even though the music was average, it was on point and it fitted very well with the drama’s tone and atmosphere. As the drama has a very dark plot, the colors follow this darkness too so the color palette contains strictly cool colors. The visual FX are very satisfying in general but the VFX I think that lacked in some parts. The CGI of the monsters honestly wasn’t bad, the design of them was only somehow weird and not scary enough. Personally, I didn’t care about the monster’s appearance, I had other things that I didn’t like and found them more serious problems. Last, for the acting, Yoo Ah In was exceptional as always and the other actors acted good enough alongside him. Won Jin Ah's performance as mother and Park Jung Min as a father were really remarkable too and I enjoy watching them a lot.



Conclusion

Hellbound wasn’t good, but it wasn’t very bad either. Everything will depend on the second season. Until then, if you want to watch a horror-thriller series and you don’t care about how complex and well-written the story process is, you would definitely enjoy it.

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Dear time-travel lovers : this web drama is for you

Spoiler-free part

Time travel tropes are very interesting and by using them, unique storylines can be created. When they aren’t used carefully though, unexplained paradoxes and plot-holes appear and create a messy storyline which destroys the watching experience. Fortunately, ‘Blue Birthday’ manage to use the time travel trope the right way.

The story’s concept is pretty simple : a girl is going back to her school years to save her first love who died the day of her birthday. At the end of every episode, rules about time travel are mentioned so it’s easier for the viewers to keep up with the things that are happening. The concept isn’t something new nor very complicated. The story sounds cliché and reminds of many movies, anime or other time-travel series but for some reason, it manages to catch your attention and keep it till the very end. Sometimes, it’s even unpredictable and unique on its own way.

Even though the main genre of the drama is thriller, the atmosphere of the drama is not very dark and moody. Considering also that the plot isn’t that complicated, ‘Blue Birthday’ is a light drama which everyone can watch and enjoy. The romance is also one of the main genres but there aren’t many romantic moments in the drama. Rarely you’ll find a romance-thriller that with two genres are perfectly balanced and ‘Blue Birthday’ isn’t one of them for sure. Maybe that’s the reason why I personally didn’t feel so much chemistry between the 2 main leads but this didn’t make me enjoy the drama less.

Starting without any expectations, this web-drama ended up a pleasant surprise and a very enjoyable ride. Don’t expect to see the masterpiece of time travel trope. Don’t expect to see Oscar-worthy interpretations either as all the actors have just entered as main leads into the dramaland with this drama. Let’s welcome them and hope to see them playing more roles in the future and to always improve their acting skills.

In conclusion, if you want to watch a sort, simple drama about time travel with a well-written plot, then watch and enjoy ‘Blue birthday’. You won’t be disappointed.


Now I have analyzed a theory about the time travel. It will be spoiler free but I’ve also referred the rules the drama has shown through the episodes so better read it after you’ve watched all the episodes.




Just in case WARNING SPOILERS




First these are the rules/facts we have learn through the episodes :

1) Burn the photo and the time travel starts.
2) When there’s tinnitus you go back to the present.
3) Burn a photo and time goes back. But no one can be brough back to life.
4) A changed past affects the present.
5) Time travel is only available on the day of the photo-taking before the midnight.
6) Photos of time travel can’t be copied.
7) Only photos taken with old films and cameras with young Seo Jun enabled time travel.
8) A damaged photo can’t active any time travel.
9) Anyone can have a time travel.
10) Misfortune comes with time travel.
11) Completely faded photos can’t be restored.
12) Changed memories come back when they are activated.
13) More than one person can time travel at the same time.
14) During the time travel, the real time is frozen.
15) According to how you roll it, you’ll get a different number of photos.
16) Someone also has the films and the camera that can enable time travel.

According to the rules and facts of the drama, the kind of time travel we might have here is a multiverse time travel in which there are: one main world, one timeline and many parallel worlds. I have to mention that parallel worlds are not referred in the drama, it’s just my theory.

A parallel world can be created by someone who changed the past. The new-created parallel world becomes the continuation of the main timeline and the present changes. When time travelers go to the present, they go to the new world and not to the present they were before. That explains why they don’t have new memories but they can slowly gain them as they become part of the new world.

The creation of the new parallel world doesn’t mean destruction of the main world, it only means continuation of timeline in the new world. Thus, the main world still exists, as also all the created ones. That’s why the time travelers have also their older memories and can spot the differences the parallel worlds have.

All the time travelers can acknowledge when the world changes, even if they weren’t the ones who change the past. That happens because they have experienced the creation of a parallel world before. They have broken the barrier of space-time, so now, they have different perception of the cosmic reality.

The more the timeline moves to different worlds, the more it diverges from the main world. This brings unbalance to the whole universe and that’s why misfortune comes with the time travel. The cause of misfortune can be also explained as a consequence of the butterfly effect: a small, seemingly insignificant change can cause huge deviations in the course of events, creating a completely different reality.

Last but not least, the photos are like tickets for time travel. No matter how many worlds are created, the numbers of the photos and the owner of them won’t change. All the rules about the photos have been explained clearly through the episodes.

As you see, according to that theory, the time travel trope doesn’t include any paradoxes. Also, there aren’t any plot holes in the sci-fi part of the drama, as everything that happens can be explained, which make the story well-written.

That’s all! I hope my theory makes sense somehow and help the watchers understand better the kind of time travel ‘Blue Birthday’ has. Thank you for reading!

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If “God’s gift: 14 days” and “Mouse” had a child, this child would have been “Black”

Note: This review feels more like a general observation of the drama than a review

Screenwriter Choi Ran, is an expert on writing unique and confusing stories and she never forgets to leave traces of her characteristics in them. “Black” is mystery supernatural thriller with many elements that reminded me “Gods Gift” and “Mouse”. Some of those elements were good and some were bad.

~The main mystery and the flow of the story reminds of GG14D.

In “Black”, we have a case that is getting bigger and bigger and more people are involved and affected by it. It generally feels like that cartoon scene where the characters unzip their costumes and all these plot-twists about their identities happen but at one point onwards it is getting out of hand and flirting with surrealism.

Having a structure in such a chaotic story is necessary. But the structure wasn’t really there and that’s why the flow of the story wasn’t really good. More specifically, I didn’t find a way to divine the story in parts nor did I find (clearly) the progression that led the story to climax.

The above made the drama quite draggy and difficult to keep up with, even if the directing was good and simple enough. Despite that though, Black’s mystery is quite unique and, let aside the confusion, clever so it is entertaining and it can be likable. There were some moments in which I really appreciated the plot.

~The character development of the protagonist in “Black” reminds of “Mouse”

Both stories of “Black” and “Mouse” are a journey of self-awareness and self reflection of the protagonist. The character we met in the first episode is not the one we end up with in the last.

This way of writing is called “The Hero’s Journey” and I find it really fascinating and not so common in kdramas. Thus, I think the protagonist’s way of writing is Black’s biggest advantage.

Beside the protagonist though, the other characters didn’t have depth. In a plot-centered story like this, this is more likely, but it would have been great if the universe was moving forward like the protagonist did.

That said, the female lead, Kang Ha Ram, was a very promising character whose potential was never unlocked, fully-used and involved within the story. Unlike the male lead, Kang Ha Ram stayed in the dark till the very end, which was really sad.

~The ending reminds of GG14D

I have seen many conflicted opinions about the ending. But whatever your thoughts about it are, it is certainly rushed and somehow incomprehensible.

I’ve read in an interview (link in the comments) that there was a miscommunication between the writer and the director of the drama. The episodes were supposed to be 20, the tone of the drama more melodramatic and the ending slightly different. Maybe this is the reason why Black ended the way it is and I’m really curious to see how the actual ending would have been.

But since #ReleaseTheSynderCut movement didn’t affect Black too, we only have one ending and this is the only one I commented on.

So in my mind, I can see and understand why Black ended the way it did, but it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I felt something was missing and wasn’t explained as much as it should have.

In the end, I thought and made my own theory about it based on other theories I read. The final outcome made me satisfied enough. But the thing is, not every viewer is in the mood of theorizing and overthinking about an ending, especially if they don’t not have enough clues to assure them.

In conclusion, the problem with the ending is that even though it has a closure, it’s unfinished because it wasn’t well explained and executed and the final idea of it never reached the audience as it was supposed to. The production team should have paid more attention to it.


~Final thoughts~

From what I wrote, it may seem that I didn’t like Black, but I actually enjoyed watching it. There were moments I laughed, moments I was shocked and moments I was touched. It has many imperfections but its uniqueness offered me a different, from other dramas, experience so overall it was worth it.

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And I’m feeling… Blue

Taking some real-life problems and highlighting them through the screen, “Our Blues” (or literally “Our Depression”) tells the story of the everyday life and struggles of a bunch of people that have one thing in common: the island of Jeju.

“Our Blues” is a drama everyone can watch, because of its slice of life theme, but at the same time, is not for everyone. It contains a huge amount of depression thus, it’s not a drama someone can watch simply for fun or enjoyment. Also, its episodic structure is not everyone's cup of tea.

Production wise, “Our Blues” is another technically even drama. It has brilliant directing and its cinematography is beautiful, but not so artistic. In combination with the mainly chilling music, the drama has a melancholic tone which fits perfectly with its theme. Last by not least, the cherry on top of the production which gives the drama a high quality, is its stellar cast.

The story

“Our Blues” is a slice of life anthology consisting of 20 episodes and each story has a duration of 2-3 episodes. By using many different stories, “Our Blues” shows various real-life situations of people in various ages, social statuses. As the stories have small duration, we can say that it is fast paced drama but the overall pace is not synchronized with the fast pace of everyday life. On the other hand, I’d say that it is a slow paced and chill drama.

The coherence of the drama is almost excellent as the center-story of the drama changes very naturally and even though a story ends or hasn’t been told yet, is still developing through the drama. It has to be mentioned though, that I didn’t like all the stories the same, some felt weaker than others. The weakest story in my opinion was the first one and it was the biggest disadvantage of the drama, because it gave the drama a weak start. But as the episodes passed, I felt the drama only was getting better and better and without realizing it, I fell in love with it.

As far as the characters are concerned, they are all well written. They are multidimensional, imperfect and, as a result, “real”. Almost none of them is likable and they all have their scars, traumas and daily struggles which in the end, make them who they are.

Epilogue

Blue is the coolest color, it’s the color of depression. But blue also brings to mind feelings of calmness and serenity. In “Our Blues” this conflicted meaning of blue is used a lot. There were many depressing scenes accompanied with calm and chilling music or beautiful sceneries. And in the end, all these combined overwhelm you with a feeling of comfort, relief and rejoicing. They give you a strange feeling of purification. “Our Blues” manages to perfectly show that through sharing Our Blues with people we love, we can find a little spark of happiness and continue to live. This beautiful message is the reason “Our Blues” is a very unique and special slice of life drama.

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Working Women

When I read the description (the Netflix’s one), I thought this would be another drama about relationships and cheating. In the end, I was wrong and I’m glad about it.

“VIP” is a drama that revolves around the life of the people that are working as members of the VIP Management and especially, it focuses on the working women. The drama manages to show through its women characters the different kinds of difficulties that women face in their working life. Even though the drama is very woman-centered, the whole concept is handled very meticulously, with respect and it doesn’t give the feeling that is all over the place and that is the drama’s charm.

The drama is a mix of romance with some mystery elements but generally, I would categorize it more as a business and slice of life drama. It can be also considered as a light drama because it doesn’t contain extreme violence, gore or other scenes of this kind. As far as the pace is concerned, the drama is slow so there is a high possibility for someone to lose their interest. Fortunately, I didn’t lose mine (as I’m a slow-burn lover) but I have to say that the drama was tedious for me at times.



About the characters of the drama, the females seem more well written and complicated than the male ones. I consider it as a disadvantage because this was one of the reasons the female actors shine bright in the drama while the most male actors sank.The strongest example of this is the male character, Park Sung Joon. This character didn’t have enough scripted words to say. Every time he was talking with a female character, he wasn’t talking, only looking. In some way, that was his personality but it seemed as personality-lacking to me.

Anyway, I have to say, this drama made me adore all the female characters, even the women who had more controversial motives because they had Personality and I was really impressed by them. I especially liked Lee Hyun Ah because she seemed the most logical of all the characters. She always fought back, never gave up and she didn’t care about her pride. She was an amazing person.



The drama’s production isn’t top notch but it can’t be considered as bad. In fact, it is as it should be, so that the drama ends up being beautiful and eye-catching but nothing else except this. In other words, it isn’t so “artistic”. The music consists of some very interesting and wonderful BGM music that is likable, but unfortunately it is a little repetitive.



To sum up, VIP is a drama that I partly enjoyed because it has some really good scenes and it gets some very important messages crossed. I have to say though that I didn’t care about the general plot at all. There were times that I thought of dropping this drama. In the end, I completed it but I have very mixed feelings about it. I don’t know if I would recommend it, but I believe it deserves a try because of its beautiful (and rare) subject matter.

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Let me give you a taste of your own medicine

Or better, let me give you a taste of mine.

Flirting with revenge and lust, ‘Eve’ tried very hard to escape from norms and bring a groundbreaking revenge story on the scheme, but in the end, the drama wasn’t as great a seducer as its protagonist.

That being said, ‘Eve’ is a revenge-focused drama with many dark elements which contains both physical and psychological traumas. Considering also its sexual context, Eve is a drama I wouldn’t easily recommend to someone. But even if someone can deal with brutality, would I recommend Eve to them? Well…

I highly doubt it because, even though ‘Eve’ wasn’t that bad, it has several problems in almost all the aspects. I will try to identify these problems one by one as I analyze some factors. So, let’s begin with the most important one:

The Story

The main theme of the story is the revenge of a girl whose normal and peaceful life was rodded by the evil rich guys. What is special about this story, is how character-driven the plotting and the execution of the revenge is, since everything was defined by how this girl would react in a specific situation like it’s a butterfly effect.

Considering the story’s character-driven plot, the protagonist’s character plays a very important role. The protagonist, Ra El, is blessed with the charisma to seduce and manipulate everyone around her. Despite being The Great Seducer, she is very smart but at the same time vulnerable due to her haunted past. Determined by all these factors, her character is multi-dimensional and at the same time very dynamic and interesting, yet, something feels wrong.

What is wrong is the character’s presentation through the story. The writers, along with the direction, presented the protagonist as a queen (see drama’s poster), a goddess, like she is something beyond the humans of this world, when she wasn’t. The deification of Ra El and the beautification of her actions are so forced that there isn’t any space for the audience to make its own opinion about this matter.

In other words, the drama was yelling “Look Ra El IS a top-notch seducer. She is also this and that” and I just have to accept it. The fact that Ra El is charming was not my own conclusion based on several scenes I’ve seen, it was something I was forced to believe from the very beginning. It really felt like I was watching a long-running advertisement. Sorry, but even if there were actually some awesome and badass scenes of Ra El, I won’t buy it thank you.

Moving on to the story's structure, the story is clearly divided into parts (which I won’t analyze ‘cause spoilers) and also, there is a flow and escalation of events which lead to the closure. Although the story has good coherence, there is a fact that can’t be ignored, the fact the story is chaotic and illogical. This leads to a question:

Is ‘Eve’ a Makjang drama?

Yes, but actually YES

This question is controversial among the watchers, but for me ‘Eve’ is clearly another makjang drama for various reasons. For those who don’t know what a makjang drama is, let me use a defection of an article (source on comments): a drama is a makjang “when plot devices involving extreme, or outrageous instances of life are dealt with in an illogical or twisted manner to assure or hook the viewers”.

Likewise, ‘Eve’ consists of a decent amount of nonsense, alongside with craziness, all over the top behaviors and exaggeration of events. More specifically, like other makjang dramas I’ve watched, ‘Eve’ has the all-time classic affair-thing in which revenge is based on, the unfortunate little kids and my “favorite”, slaps.

Thus, as I said before, ‘Eve’ tried to be a revenge drama which would be different from others, but it ended up as a combination of makjang dramas like ‘Penthouse’, ‘High Class’ and ‘Golden Mask’ for me. I can’t consider ‘Eve’ as a bad makjang drama, but it wasn’t the best of its genre either.

The last thing I want to say about the story is the center of the plot. I believe that even though the main theme is revenge, the romance (which is the tool for the revenge) is highlighted more, making the revenge losing its importance.

The acting

The main lead is portrayed by Seo Yea Ji. SYJ’s acting was what made me start this drama and also finish it. The direction took advantage of her skills and by using them wisely they created many amazing scenes. The second female lead who is portrayed by Yoo Sun, was the most entertaining character and also YS had great chemistry with SYJ. These two give the drama a sparkle of vividness and enjoinment.

On the other hand, the acting of the male lead, who is portrayed by Park Byung Eun… wasn’t so good. The male lead was supposed to be cold, distant and emotionless, so was the actor directed to play the character this flat? Maybe, but personally I believe that both the actor and directing are at fault. PBU pairing with SYG didn’t feel so awkward because of SYJ's good acting.

Lee Sang Yeob as the second male lead, in this drama was rodded. He did a pretty good job and his character had potential to do many interesting things but he didn’t have much screen time. Also, his chemistry with SYJ was certainly better than PBU with SYJ.

The production

Nothing about the production amazed me enough to say that it is great. Of course, it isn’t bad but, I have seen better. I mention some of the directing problems I had in the story and acting section of my review. What remains in the music consists of some pieces I really liked but in general, the soundtrack didn’t impress me as much as it should. The pieces also weren’t a lot and some of them are covers of the OST ‘Hold me tight’ or very close to its ‘theme’. Thus, there isn't much variety in the drama’s music. Lastly, the styling of the drama felt, meh. Seo Yea Ji’s eyebrows will haunt me in my dreams.

Conclusion

‘Eve’ is an average makjang drama. I was quite hooked at first and there were many scenes I enjoyed, especially some dance scenes but after the excitement of “new drama with Seo Yea Ji'" faded away, I wasn’t so interested anymore. Though I personally wouldn’t recommend this drama to someone, I believe that there are some people who would enjoy it, because of some events of the story or/and Seo Yea Ji’s and Yoo Sun’s acting. Whatever you’ll do, I hope you’ll make the right, for you, choice.

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