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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Days" Episode 5

Most of this episode is dedicated to flashback, and to fairly good effect. We find out pretty clearly and unambiguously what the conspiracy is and why they're trying to kill the president. The revelations are fairly disappointing ones actually, but it fits well with the overall tone of the episode. Tae-kyeong is horribly disillusioned by the discoveries, yet he insists on sticking close to the action anyway because he's a secret service agent and darn it he's gotta protect the president.

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The sense of urgency feels awfully out of place for the fifth episode. The plot is more of a climax and resolution than it is the opening part of a bigger story. I have no idea where "Three Days" is going to go from here. To that extent, the drama is definitely accomplishing its goals in terms of building up an interesting unpredictable narrative. I mean, yeah, people are obviously going to keep trying to kill Tae-kyoung but the rationilization is going to be a lot sketchier after the conclusion of the big setpiece here.

And what a setpiece it is! We've got classic hospital kidnappings, carjacks, people shooting off their guns in horribly inappropriate places, and a brutal fistfight set in a location that appears to have been scouted at random. It's pretty fun times really. The action is hitting all the right noes in terms of mindless special effects. They're not the greatest most creatively scripted sequences I've ever seen but so yet. Every so often you just need a quality car chase, never mind the internal logic or artistry.

The new mysteries set up are also interesting. For example, up until now I'd been interpeting the circumstances of the original assassination attempt as being an error in the scripting. But the denoument here gives the clear sense that the bad guys actually expected Bong-soo was going to get caught at some point. The man's dramatic hesitation at a critical moment begs lots of questions. At the very least Bong-soo appears to have been misinformed.

In any event none of that really matters. The conspiracy is forced to take a completely different direction now, and as to where that will lead, who knows. The preview gives plenty of points for optimism though- so there's going to be lots of people getting violent thrown through upper story windows? Works for me. After the secret service did such a lackluster job apprehending Tae-kyoung I can believe that they won't do much better in protecting the poor fella either.

Review by William Schwartz

"Three Days" is directed by Sin Kyeong-soo, written by Kim Eun-hee-I and features Park Yoo-chun, Son Hyun-joo, Park Ha-sun, So Yi-hyun, Yoon Je-moon, Choi Won-young and Jang Hyun-sung.

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