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Soul korean drama review
Completed
Soul
0 people found this review helpful
by Otiose
16 days ago
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 4.0

Really Good Story Buried Under Amateurish Execution

The basic story idea is excellent. I found it held my interest and was worth watching once but I doubt I'll come back. There are too many rough edges and I'll forget about it too soon.

The series blends vigilantism with a revenge theme plus the supernatural.

At times especially in the latter half I found myself thinking more about the odd twists and some stilted acting than about the story. That's bad.

The script was a draft that needed some drastic editing and smoothing. There are too many lapses in the plot, meaning events pop up and are left hanging, or the scene to scene logic was rough. The main characters' development felt off way too often. The main Yoon Ha Na character was a little too witless and helpless too often.

The writers had some interesting ideas exploring the grey between good vs evil. And I give them credit for following through on the implications of someone 'good' falling into that dark side. A main protagonist does some serious evil and the writers don't push a cliche redemption.

And while the main antagonist never finds redemption he takes directions I didn't expect towards the end.

The opening teaser scene in which Ha Na is chased onto a roof is extremely odd. As the story approaches the end I expected that opening scene to reappear and be explained. Nope. It never gets fitted into the story anywhere at anytime. It should have been cut.

The story takes some weird unexpected directions in the last third that are interesting but don't fit well. I got the feeling that the writers were directed to come up with enough material for 10 episodes when the story kinda wanted to end at about the 7th episode.

None of my negative comments are directed at the cast who did the best they could with the material and direction.

The first half or more of the episodes had some rough subtitling, but towards the last few episodes it really gets bad with consistent failures in basic grammar. The confusion as to when to use past tense vs past perfect is common here and also many TV series, but the most distracting was the frequent use of 'did went' when 'did go' was correct.

Despite the many flaws I found it entertaining if not always for the right reasons.
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