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Abyss korean drama review
Completed
Abyss
0 people found this review helpful
by Beatrice
Jul 18, 2024
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

Confounding double standard of beauty standards

Fantasy is all about immersion and it pretty much immediately took me out when the pretty Park Bo Young is the face of the supposedly downgrade version of the soul make over for the physical body where as for the male lead there is a clear difference between regular person and an archetypal idol looking guy. From the story standpoint there needed to be way more flashbacks of Se Yeon's point of view about Cha Min throughout their teen years and their adulthood before their transformations to back up her claims that she has always had a crush on him and not just after he got a new face and body. The measly few that they gave were too ambiguous. They also needed to show Cha Min being the fantastic business leader while in his original body, even if it's just a brief flashback to start off or bookend the current day scenes of his new face at the business meeting. It leaves a bad taste that they never show Cha Min being savvy and smart when it came to his work as his original self even though he clearly was, only ever showing his desperate for Se Yeon's attention side for comic relief. His fear as he was about to die was literally played for laughs.

Who gets what kind of soul transformation through Abyss is really arbitrary, like taking an existing ex-worker's visage. As is the usage of it in the finale to turn Cha Min into a ghost and to bring him back are all done at the convenience of the writers to move the plot along as needed. The real Lee Mi Do's random and conveniently drastic plastic surgery was really nonsensical and the show made no attempt to explain it. I enjoyed seeing Seo In Guk and Jung So Min's cameos as the aliens that accidentally knocked a already falling Cha Min off the building and bribed him to forgive them with the Abyss resurrection sphere. Seo In Guk was in the preceding drama of the same writer and next stars with Park Bo Young in Doom At Your Service. The threat of Ji Wook and the ticking clock of the leads trying to outsmart him was believable. It was truly horrendous when he pushed Hee Jin's mom's body that was in the suit case into the ocean, a woman that genuinely cared for him and tried to protect him. He's a way more effective villain than his cartoony step dad/fellow serial killer.
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