Black (2017)

How to review a show that was sheer, gripping genius for 17 episodes and then an infuriating train wreck for its final hour? Recommend that people take the twisty, turny, ride despite the destination? Or destroy my television, computer, modem and everything else that enabled me to watch it while burning effigies of everybody involved?

I don't know.

Overall Story - 9
Acting/Cast - 10
Music - 10
Ending - Minus 17,000
Rewatch Value - 0 to the power of 0, which is exactly the one time you should watch it. I may cancel my Netflix subscription just so I don't have to see its name mentioned again in passing as I'm scrolling through.

Puzzle that one out.

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I’ve avoided doing less than complimentary reviews until now. So watch Black for Song Seung Heon and enjoy, but if you want to watch it for any other reason, you will only be sadly disappointed (well except for the two other grim reapers).

STORY:
I’m avoiding spoilers (mainly because its just not that interesting) so here it is in a nutshell. An inept policeman gets killed in the line of duty and at the same time a grim reaper #444 has lost one of his charges who has taken over the dead body of a human. Needless to say the grim reaper takes over the body of the police officer and becomes Black (Song Seung Heon) looking for the missing charge and also solving the murder of the police officer with the help of Ha Ram and a strangely inept police force.

CHARACTERS:
Black is a very complicated character that encompasses about three or four characters with a back story. I’ll admit at one point, I got lost as to why and how, but it didn’t matter because Song Seung Heon dragged me right along with him and I’ll admit, he was riveting. I’ve watched two other shows with him in it just because it was Song Seung Heon. Both sucked and now Black…..this man has deplorable taste in shows which is too bad because he is a powerful screen presence.

My mother told me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So I will say this, if Go Ah Ra wanted Kang Ha Ram to be an irritating, ridiculous, sad character that I just couldn’t wait to die, then she did an extraordinary job. Sadly, her character did not die soon enough for my taste.

Lee El did alright as the second female lead but her character was another one, I was hoping a grim reaper came to take her away. Please note that I think this must have been the writing because she played one of my favorite characters in Goblin, so it wasn’t the acting.

The rest were so so but not really engaging. The best characters were Black’s grim reaper friends played by Jo Jae Yoon and Lee Gyu Bok. They were funny and interesting when everyone else was “meh.”

MUSIC:
I have absolutely no clue other than to say it wasn’t memorable enough to stick in my head but certainly not as entertaining as other soundtracks.

OVERALL:
Watch this for Song Seung Heon but don’t have high expectations. Also, see what awesome actors Lee El and Kim Won Hae are because you will see how well they did with such boring material (and you will appreciate Goblin and Strong Woman Do Bong Soon even more)

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I will say that when I first started this drama I was super excited for how it would turn out and end. I was like "holy shizzle, GRIM REAPERS, yes!" The plot was interesting and the conflicts that arose had you wondering and anxious for how they were going to be confronted or resolved in the future. But once I neared the conclusion, I was pretty miffed about the way they wrapped up the story. There were a lot of questions left unanswered and general plot choices that made no sense what-so-ever, so in the end I was left dissatisfied with the show and felt like it hadn't really 'ended' at all, or at least, that nothing had really resolved in a way that made sense. Good actors, and the story kicked off really well, it's just that they weren't able to maintain it and things started falling out and getting lost. It's still fun to watch though, but be warned, there is high potential that you'll sort of rage at the end of it.

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Firth I love watching fantasy dramas..
well I know from the trailer that this drama gonna be big hit man and Song Seung Heon/black acting was very great and he was funny and he have handsome face to and Go Ah Ra/ha.ram acting was also good and she's aslo very cute and I have read comments that she can't or she's annoying..I don't think so her acting was good in this drama and ever I m not Korean but I really support her and I will and u guys who says she can't acting or she's annoying as u..ur guys r korean and yet u say those things about her I mean she's ur own civilian and u say those words about her if she read those comments won't that hurt her fellings man and also u guys hate her but I don't hate her and don't be like that and if she wasn't good actress then why they pick her in this drama..there is a lot k-drama's actress who's very good at acting..so they could pick on of those but they didn't.. they pick Go Ah Ra cause she fits for this characters..so what I m trying to say is don't complaining about her acting and just enjoy the beautiful drama...

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first time to watch SONG SEUNG ?
i really fall for him deeply

about the drama
not first time to me to watch a suspense one
but this was Definitely a brilliant choice
i loved every min. in it it was also funny in many scenes
although i am fond of romantic stories and the romance in it was in the back seats
but it was cute & fluffy one i liked it so much although sometimes it was lukewarm
but still loving that romantic part much enough to keep me going on to know how it is going to be end
all the characters were well connected to each other
the events was soooo fast so u won't even feel that the drama was too long for 18 ep.
the drama full of surprises & u can't even guess how it'll go
it's a real roller coaster
i also love the character of 444 i saw it impolite in a funny way LOL
....

my thoughts :

i wish the end was different to be more cute & have more romance
& also the end has many flaws that's y i rated it 9
but i guess as usual the weakest part at most KD was the end
just very few dramas that satisfied me with it's end

inspite of that still amazing drama highly recommended

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Started well, but ended as a trainwreck

I started watching this series because I found the plot interesting and the reviews were also recommending it. I found the first few episodes a bit slow, and leaving the inconsistencies aside, I think the story developed pretty well up until episode 12, but from there things started to go downhill. Everything seemed to be on fast forward post episode 12, the scenes had no flow in between, the story started to make no sense, things weren't explained anymore, they just happened, the cringe started to kick in and ended up with a last episode that was supposed to patch things up somehow, but personally it was like watching a bad comedy. There were also inconsistencies in the last 10 minutes of the last episode - his sentence versus the last scene doesn't make sense. And the last scene - I understood you wanted to show it's winter time, but in what normal house it's so cold that condensed air comes through your mouth when you speak?
My second problem with this series was the main female lead. I don't know how she played in other dramas, but here she was grasping for air at least once per minute when she was on the screen. The constant panic and hyperventilation she showed throughout the series were very annoying. Plus, her character was one of the dumbest female leads I've seen in kdramas. It seemed like a little kid who saw a candy and would pursue it no matter what, without looking right or left, just to have it. She never learned from mistakes, always had to be saved and managed to say so many "Oppa"s per minute/phrase, that I have seriously considered muting the sound each time she and male lead were interacting. And *spoiler alert* there was a scene where the roof fell on her boss, he jumped to save her, got injured and she walked by to check if a total stranger is alive or not, without any "thanks" or "are you alright/injured?". That left me speechless - what kind of human being does that? You want to save others so much that you discard everyone else who's close to you? Makes no sense to me.
Leaving aside the many things that didn't make sense and we never got a valid story for, the male lead, 2nd male and 2nd female characters were ok and did the job as best as they could. The additional 2 grim reapers had their funny moments too and at least made the show bearable after episode 12.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone, unless you have time to spare.

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Sigh

Ok, so here's the thing... when I first started this I wasn't too sure how I was gonna feel about it, though I will admit as it went on, towards the middle, I became fairly invested in it trying to figure out who actually killed who and whatnot. Now a few takeaways from this...

-Idk if it was the character or the actress but I really didn't vibe with this FL. She was just straight up getting on my nerves at some point and even her face would annoy me. I haven't seen any other work of hers though, so I can't say for sure what's the cause of it.

-Second female character also annoyed me A LOT. The fact that Joon even liked her blows my mind... I wish she had disappeared from the show right at the beginning, tbh.

-This was my first time suffering from second male lead syndrome. It's not that he was the best character or anything, but compared to everyone else he was by far the most likeable (and good looking). Having Ha Ram reject him was I guess understandable but disappointing.

-My biggest issue with this story.... THE ENDING. Honestly they could have wrapped it all up by the time they figured out the reporter guy was the killer. Why make it so he can't stay in prison? Why have the whole thing surrounding Joon's death and whatnot? They could have wrapped it up much more neatly with less twists and less episodes. And don't even get me started on the final episode with her forgetting about Joon, her life restarting, and the scenes of her being old... The ending was honestly the worst out of all options they had. If she had died it would have been better, if Black had stayed as human it would have been better, if she had chosen SML it would have been better.... ANYTHING would have been better than the actual ending they chose. Overall, it turned out to be quite the disappointment, though thanks to the middle bit I can still say this is definitely not the worst drama I have seen so far....

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This drama has EVERYTHING that a K-drama needs: romance, fantasy, supernatural, life and death and also, the point of everything , the crime and thriller storyline.
Rarely I put a drama into my top favorites, but this one needs to climb till the first place!
I loved the story, which is pretty different from the classics crime drama where all the questions go into a court.
This one has the end at the very start, so the first 20 seconds of this series is crucial to understand the end, there is a lot of plot twist and they didn't let me take my eyes off the screen till the end.
I loved the intro music also, but probably the end needed a better explanation, because yes is made a few years later after everything comes to an end, but it was very rushed like they needed to close the season and nothing more.
This drama, which is also underrated needs to bet rewatched a ton of times, totally worth every second of vision!!

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