HanCinema's Korean Blog - Korea's Diary, Pictures, Reviews

It's back to goofiness here, as Byeong-Hoon soon finds himself embroiled in a new love manipulation that seems beneath his dignity. Personally, I'm inclined to agree. The new client is a pretty big dork. I know love can pop up in the strangest places, but this woman's only apparent reaction to him is "thinly veiled hostility". And here we have him lighting up like a puppy dog when she so much as responds to his weak attempts at conversation.

Still, a job's a job, and for a love target this cranky, a very direct contact is going to be necessary...More

The episode starts out fairly strong as get another glimpse of the relationship dynamic between I-Soo and Hae-Woo. The camerawork and music combine to create an atmosphere that's both melodious and creepy. I actually felt a little bewildered, trying to figure out the meaning of the scenes in the woods. But I think this was probably the point. Their relationship is, at this point, still difficult to define.

There's another great treat when I-Soo unexpectedly joins Hae-Woo's family for a very upper crust outdoor lunch...More

If the fourth episode was about the way first love entangles people, this episode is about recovery. I'm honestly impressed at how quickly Byeong-Hoon is able to pull himself together and salvage a plan that had just about been completely shot. The appearance of his first love Yoon I-Seol last episode seemed to spell out a possible crisis situation- but surprisingly, it actually improves his reasoning by helping him figure out exactly what first love means to an adult, and how it needs to be sculpted appropriately for a teen...More

Ryoo-Hwan (played by Kim Soo-hyeon-I) is the ultimate result of intensive North Korean military training. He has near super-human reflexes, incredible combat ability, rock-hard abs, and sweeping deductive combat abilities. For this mighty warrior, the North Korean government has an essential mission. Go to South Korea and pretend to be mentally retarded indefinitely until given further instructions.

There's only really one joke- contrasting the super-cool Ryoo-Hwan with his retarded alter ego. This actually works a lot better than it should...More

"Shark" has fallen into the trap of retreading its own territory. Given that it's only the fourth episode, one would think there's not that much territory to retread. And yet, repeatedly, this episode goes out of its way to remind the viewer of facts that we had already been shown, could reasonably have guessed, or could have been better left to our imagination. Instead, a lot of facts are explicitly laid out in a fairly dull manner.

This wasn't what I was expecting after the rather shocking conclusion to the last episode, but we open up fairly quickly with an explicit surveilling of the crime scene...More

The episode starts out with some clever grounding- funny how, with just the slightest emphasis of focus, character actions that seemed to indicate one emotion were actually about something else. The high school arc continues to surprise me with just how on-point it is. For all the zany antics of school uniforms, idols, and too-smart kids, it's painfully obvious that none of the teenagers have any idea what any of the rest of them are thinking. The main "attractive" element of each individual member of the love triangle is an aura of mystery which doesn't actually exist.

The Cyrano Agency members also get some interesting grounding...More

Han I-Soo quickly proves that he's every bit the threatening predator we've seen in the subtler parts of his personality. There are two major thematic elements of the episode. First, I-Soo wastes no time in figuring out exactly what happened to his father, though both he (and the audience) still aren't fully clear on why, exactly, this happened. The how is still all too clear.

The second major point are the implicit threats. Really, nearly everyone in this drama is pretty good about showing hostile body language while still being respectful speech-wise...More