1
SKITC
Probably within reach of a coffee
Toxic masculinity and accountability
D.P. mixes a cocktail of abuse, desperation and isolation. It's an extremely heavy subject and the production spares nothing to lighten the impact.
It's dark. Not just a portrayal of a dark side of human nature, but almost every scene is shot in some degree of darkness.
There's an extreme amount of violence, blood, blunt objects, knives and guns.
Jung Hae In is a private from a dysfunctional family that finds kindred souls in the deserters that he's been charged with bringing back to the military. Koo Kyo Hwan plays the reluctant but clever senior soldier that provides the little bit of warmth and lightness to the show. Both play their roles very well. Jung Hae In, despite his youthful appearance, is far more natural as an actor in this role than his filmography would suggest. There isn't a weak performance in the show although when a lot of the dialogue is reciting a soldier's rank and name over and over again, maybe it's not the most challenging material. One performance, albeit brief, however that is scintillating is Go Pyung Po in a guest role in the first episode.
The storyline is somewhat disconnected as each of the first few episodes are self-contained around the pursuit of a particular deserter. Each deserter is a victim. The soldiers of their units are the villains. The D.P. are out to bring back the deserter to help that soldier before he irreparably harms himself. Each story has its own twist but the fact that all fit the same profile does lessen the impact as the series wears on.
Rather than generate a novel backstory for a deserter, the storyline coalesces around a single soldier over the final two episodes that builds to a climactic showdown. The downside to the buildup is that it adds this element of action to what had, up to that point, been a raw and fairly powerful view of emotional scarring. It's a context that begs for less moving parts and more quiet. Instead, it's a series of unreasonably unlikely events (cops that inconceivably don't call for backup, characters surprised that their cell phones don't work when they're deep in a cave, three characters in a car accident and it's the one without a seatbelt that walks away unscathed, etc.) that lead to the final confrontation which ends in a manner that is entirely unsurprising. The quality of the dialogue and the acting dip here too as the characters become more cliche. It absolutely dampens the impact that the show had been building. Instead of humanity, we get spectacle.
Certainly it's an ambitious concept and points should be awarded for making a show that won't make friends with anyone that looks unkindly at any criticism of the military. It gets a recommendation but D.P. should have been better.
It's dark. Not just a portrayal of a dark side of human nature, but almost every scene is shot in some degree of darkness.
There's an extreme amount of violence, blood, blunt objects, knives and guns.
Jung Hae In is a private from a dysfunctional family that finds kindred souls in the deserters that he's been charged with bringing back to the military. Koo Kyo Hwan plays the reluctant but clever senior soldier that provides the little bit of warmth and lightness to the show. Both play their roles very well. Jung Hae In, despite his youthful appearance, is far more natural as an actor in this role than his filmography would suggest. There isn't a weak performance in the show although when a lot of the dialogue is reciting a soldier's rank and name over and over again, maybe it's not the most challenging material. One performance, albeit brief, however that is scintillating is Go Pyung Po in a guest role in the first episode.
The storyline is somewhat disconnected as each of the first few episodes are self-contained around the pursuit of a particular deserter. Each deserter is a victim. The soldiers of their units are the villains. The D.P. are out to bring back the deserter to help that soldier before he irreparably harms himself. Each story has its own twist but the fact that all fit the same profile does lessen the impact as the series wears on.
Rather than generate a novel backstory for a deserter, the storyline coalesces around a single soldier over the final two episodes that builds to a climactic showdown. The downside to the buildup is that it adds this element of action to what had, up to that point, been a raw and fairly powerful view of emotional scarring. It's a context that begs for less moving parts and more quiet. Instead, it's a series of unreasonably unlikely events (cops that inconceivably don't call for backup, characters surprised that their cell phones don't work when they're deep in a cave, three characters in a car accident and it's the one without a seatbelt that walks away unscathed, etc.) that lead to the final confrontation which ends in a manner that is entirely unsurprising. The quality of the dialogue and the acting dip here too as the characters become more cliche. It absolutely dampens the impact that the show had been building. Instead of humanity, we get spectacle.
Certainly it's an ambitious concept and points should be awarded for making a show that won't make friends with anyone that looks unkindly at any criticism of the military. It gets a recommendation but D.P. should have been better.
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