Brief Story Line
Story was set in the spring of 1945 when Gyeongseong was still occupied by the Japanese army. Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon - The Marvels, The Divine Fury etc), who owned the largest pawnshop never wanted to be involved in politics and focused on his business. This survivalist approach was always challenged by his best friend Jun-taek (Wi Ha-joon - Squid Game TV series, Midnight etc) who was part of rebel group. In his day to day matter, Tae-sang was assisted by the deacon Mrs. Nawol (Kim Hae-sook - Her Story, My Demon TV series etc) and butler Mr. Gu (Park Ji-hwan - The Roundup movies, Our Blues TV series etc).
When he was forced by Police Commissioner Ishikawa (Kim Do-hyun - The Plan Man, Reborn Rich TV series etc) to find someone, Tae-sang had no choice but to employ a couple of sleuths Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee - My Name, Nevertheless TV series etc) and her father Yoon Jung-won (Jo Han-chul - The Moon, Hometown Cha Cha Cha TV series etc). While looking into the missing person, they found out dangerous stuff being done secretly by the Japanese army led by Lt. Kato (Choi Young-joon - Bloodhounds TV series etc). Things got further complicated with the involvement of Ishikawa's wife, the very powerful Lady Maeda (Claudia Kim - Marco Polo TV series, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald etc).
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in the first season of this series.
End of Brief Story Line
If you have read my previous posts, you would know that I like watching series/movies that involved creatures or monsters. And this time it absolutely did not disappoint as the creature got a large portion of the story aside from the action and the drama. My biggest satisfaction was seeing the creature greatly created by the special effects team as to me it looked realistic. Added with some awesome sound effect especially when it gave the roaring monstrous sound, just enhanced my appreciation of the series.
In term of action, this one was entertaining too with some well crafted fight scenes. The opening fight between the main cast that was a bit like dancing was pretty nice to watch. I like the action sequence here whether it involved the creature or not. And it's apparent the series has high production value with the wonderfully done settings and costumes that looked convincing from that period. And amazingly with many scenes set at night, I could still see everything clearly and not too dark that would make us having difficulty to know what was happening.
Even though the premise might be a bit familiar, but combining the monster with some fight for independence during the period and some love story made it more exciting. There were some lighter moment usually involving the interaction between Tae-sang and Chae-ok. However, in general the series actually felt a bit dark and serious which probably would make it too heavy for casual audience. I read that some considered it a bit boring, although to me it was still fun. Of all the 10 episodes of this first season, my favorites were the 6th and 7th that were intense, suspenseful and full of dramatic scenes. Coincidentally 7th episode was the ending of part 1 that was released last month. I also like the 10th episode, but I did not really like the ending. Btw, there was a mid post end credit scene in that final episode which seemed to set up for the 2nd season scheduled to be released this year.
The series had a large ensemble of cast who were quite well known. I am sure that my wife who is major fan of South Korean series would be familiar with most of them, while I only knew some of them. Aside from those names I mentioned above, there were also support cast like Ok Ja-yeon (Ashfall, Queenmaker TV series etc) as bar owner, Hyun Bong-sik (Emergency Declaration, Narco Saints TV series etc) as director of Onseong hospital Ichiro, Ji Woo (The First Responders TV series, Intimate Strangers etc) as Myeong-ja and several others. The one thing that was a bit weird for me was no Japanese actors/actresses at all and the characters were all portrayed by South Koreans who would sometime converse in the language. During the opening and closing credit of the series, I did not see anything it was based on which was kind of surprising as I thought it would have been based on webtoon. So credit has to be given to the writer Kang Eun-kyung who had prior experience in creating successful series such as The World of the Married, Forecasting Love and Weather & writer of Bread, Love and Dreams and others.
Overall to me this first season was a largely entertaining series. It had many attributes that I like from the suspense, the action, the creature, the story and even the drama. Although it might not be the series with the most original plot, but it was still enjoyable. I also like the lead characters and some of the support cast. The ending was a bit tough to sell for me as I would have preferred it to end differently. However, seeing there would be a second season, I guess it was justified. Audience did seem to like it as it became top 10 in many countries, but there seemed to be a bit of criticism on the part relating to rebel group & chemistry of the stars. So if you like the attributes I mentioned above, I am sure you would love this series. As long as you are ready for some violence and a bit of horrifying images of the creature, then you should be able to enjoy it as well.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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