The Silent Sea (2021)

Pretty solid but lacking in depth

It’s going to be a difficult one. We’ve been fed rumours, we’ve heard gossip, but the release date of The Silent Sea was postponed since the beginning of 2021 and made me question if we’ll really going to finally see it. Finally in December we’ve got what we’ve waited for. The big title featuring big names like Gong Yoo and Bae Do Na. And yet, there was barely any hype for this drama. Netflix showed maybe two promotional photos and trailer and that was it. It was all pretty much a mystery.
I was expecting a great show, really. With this cast, with an interesting idea, I thought that this will be drama to perfectly close 2021. Perfect Christmas gift. And I was waiting with this review for two months. Not because I’m lazy (ok, also that) but to be honest, I barely had anything much to say about it. But it must be done.

So, the story is pretty simple and a bit shallow maybe in how it’s not showed to the fullest. In the future humanity is faced with a big water crisis. Water is hard to come by and needs to be rationed. The amount of water that a person can get depends on the social status. The only hope lays in failed search mission on the moon. Rumour has it that in the closed off research station there’s a sample that can end the crisis. The problem is that station was closed due to radiation incident. A crew is assembled that will go to the moon and try to search for the lost sample. It will soon turn out that the information about the incident that they were given are not entirely true.

So, first of all, the background. Or lack of thereof. I know that it was probably done on purpose. Since we’ve closely followed only crew on the moon, we didn’t get much of the background. Just some slight retrospection of the characters. And I’ve wanted to know more so much. To know the characters more, to know their motivations and why are they there. How is humanity coping with the crisis? What happened that it’s so severe? We’ve got answer to none of those questions and it really irked me while watching it.

And everything is covered with thick veil of mystery. And not only to the viewer. Upon arriving in the station, our crew discovers that they don’t even have a map of the whole station. Some of it’s parts are unknown and the members cannot reach them. Which obviously, makes their search mission much more difficult. The lighting is very limited, frames very narrow which ads to the claustrophobic feeling of the series. The viewer feels locked out together with the characters on the station. Especially that there’s barely any soundtrack here and lighting is very natural so it’s easy to feel trapped.

Speaking about characters. We’ll wait a long time until we’ll get to know them better or actually at all. Since we don’t have a lot of retrospection all we can work with is what’s happening right now. We don’t get much exposition, so characters are mostly a mystery for us. We’re left with questions and speculation about what pushed those people to take part in this risky mission. But it all fits together perfectly. This drama just simply doesn’t give us simple answers.

I need to say a good word about scenography. It all looks very solid and very real, which in drama that takes place practically only indoors, is crucial and took great part in creating eerie feeling to the drama.

The action is pretty slow, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. The viewer is suspended in constant feeling of pressure. We don’t know what lures behind next door of the station, but from what we can see, it cannot be anything good.

It’s hard for me to somehow review this drama. It’s coldness and lack of emotional engagement made it difficult to perceive. Well written plot and overall amazingly created atmosphere of the drama were in plus but still left me wanting some more.

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Water Sample Ain't Good News

Future earth is running out of water. Water is rationed and distributed through a ' hierarchy' system. In order to save his daughter who needs this water desperately, Captain Han (Gong Yoo) agrees to lead a team to the moon to retrieve a mysterious 'sample' believed to multiply water generously, which is intended to save people on earth. Along in this team is Doctor Song (Bae Doo Na) an astrobiologist determined to uncover the truth behind an accident that killed her sister in this same station on the moon that they are now going to.

To be honest, I was waiting eagerly for this drama due to Gong Yoo and produced by Jung Woo Sung. Yes, I am big fan of them both. However, the drama did not turn out as the action packed space drama that I had expected. It had a slow start and the excitement started to kick in for me from Episode 5 and before I knew it, the ending arrived at Episode 8.

All in all, it was worth the time for me, as it will be a while before we get to watch another drama from Gong Yoo.

Oh, and that so called 'water sample' ain't good news ........

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"What you can't see."

The series is definitely not for everyone. If you are looking for a quiet series with no love plot, no need to strain your brain and with a great artistic lead then this is a good choice.

If you are still interested then read on.

The series shows poverty not in money but in water. It shows human desperation and the ability to do anything for access to the most important resource that allows us to live.

It also shows fatherly love, sisterly love, and simple needs.

A series that could be very timely if we don't take action on our planet.

A series very relevant to the situation that may occur here on Earth.

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Legendary

The Silent Sea is a legendary drama that hopefully will be watched throughout many generations. In my eyes, a faultless masterpiece that provides the best-of-the-best story, acting, cast, production value, special effects, OST, costume design, directing, editing, and more. There was only one tiny thing I wasn't a fan of, but even that didn't hinder my enjoyment too much at all (I felt the first episode was little too westernised for my liking). From the first episode it had perfect pace, and even until the end, perfect pacing was the norm. It had the perfect amount of action, tension and mystery, and nowhere did I feel confused or felt like the story was either too confusing or rushed.

The Silent Sea is a must watch drama, the eight episodes went by so quickly, it's binge-factor is definitely present. Eight of the 'roughly 45 minutes' long episodes felt less than half of that amount, and since there were times where dialogue was scarce in order to world build, I have given such a strong rating in regards to "Rewatch Value".

All in all, I believe everyone must try this. The Silent Sea. Legendary drama.

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Skip It

Listen, some of my favorite actors are in the show and not even they can save terrible, terrible, terrible writing. They're doing the best they can, but my big takeaway from this debacle is that Korea doesn't understand Science Fiction and should under no circumstances attempt it again until someone who does get it, can actually write it.

I have so many (spoiler free) questions:

Why let people just walk around a space station by themselves when they have made A Discovery in the first two episodes?
Why doesn't anyone seem to care about the crew?
Are they there to figure things out or just mope?
Maybe wear protective gear when doing XXXXXX???
Maybe wear protective gear after XXXXX happens???
Do any of you have an ounce of common sense?!

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Gripping

Very apt, relevant and thought provoking.
The mysteries surrounding what happened in the research station on the moon, who was responsible and more, are shockingly brought to light.
It really is gripping stuff and in the slightly claustrophobic, creepy environment, everyone is on edge. The different personalities of the crew and their strengths/weaknesses become apparent.
It is very rarely light hearted, can be shocking and gory, and the ending might disappoint some, but I thought it was fitting and so good.
I felt it was as much about portraying a warning of sorts, as telling a neatly packaged story.
Great cast; I loved Gong Yoo's cool, level-headed and accomplished Capitan figure. Typical military achiever who unquestioningly follows orders. Events see his character grow, however, and his view of Bae Doona's Scientist, changes too.
She is great ~ as always, and created a believable, detached (but for a reason), yet compassionate, strong and stubborn personality, who is brave and not afraid to ask questions.
I was so happy to see Lee Joon back in drama. He can play a range of characters and I feel is a little underrated. Very much enjoyed his acting and character in this. He had me!
The mission was riddled with problems from the start and I could not help but make guesses about characters, almost from the beginning.
It was a solid story, but some aspects raised questions about 'how'.
Also, if there was an abandoned research station on another planet, that might carry the answer to saving our earth, one would think it would be guarded by those that set it up. Satellites would surely pick up any other space craft heading its way.
If an operation were so hush-hush, crew would surely be searched (regardless of reputation etc) before setting off.
Strangely, I can't really place the music now. Maybe that is a good thing, as it means it never 'got in the way' or spoiled my viewing.
Sci-Fi aside, the catastrophe of earth drying up could one day be a reality. I'm relieved I won't see it.

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Worth a watch

I went into this series with little to no expectations - i hadn't seen any reviews, trailers or descriptions, all I knew was that Gong Yoo and Bae Doona were in it so i gave it a shot.
I was quite confused after finishing the series why some were saying it was awful, granted it was not the best series of the year but it wasn't bad.
I'm going to start with the positives - the cinematography and soundtrack were astounding, it is worth to watch the show just for that. The cast and characters were overall very good.
Most negative reviews said the characters in the show made irrational decisions, which i can agree with - there were moments where i was screaming at the screen. One of them was when Dr.Song didn't answer her sisters phone call and the other one was when they were trying to escape the station and they stopped all the time to have these conversations with Ryu.
I was also left with a lot of questions but not a lot of answers - how did luna survive all this time, did the captain really die at the end, what really happened at the space station all those years ago.
Overall, this series is worth a watch if you like sci-fi and horror.

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Muito Bom

Na terra a população está sofrendo com a falta de água e também com a forma como o que resta dela está sendo distribuída. Ao mesmo tempo uma equipe com os melhores cientistas são mandados em uma missão até a lua para recuperarem umas amostras (que eles não sabem o que são) em uma estação que está abandonada já a 5 anos após todos tripulantes morrerem por um possível vazamento de radiação.

The Silent Sea é muito BOM, a cada episódio eu ficava querendo mais, não consegui largar enquanto não terminei tudo.

A cada hora que passava eu me surpreendia com algo e ficava com o questionamento de onde tudo ia dar.
E sim, tiveram dois momentos que chorei.

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The Silent Sea is Binge worthy

Lee Joon is phenomenal in this drama. Also the storyline is probable and interesting, although the end is predictable to some extent. Great production. Believable story, with lots of suspense and guessing of who on the crew is a bad person. Visuals are really well done too; the moon scape. In some spots there was too much time spent on characters roaming around. It was done to create suspense, but felt more like a time filler. There was good character development for some of them and backstory was just enough without getting annoying. It's not a 10/10 for me, because there were some VERY cheesy gore/thriller moments that could've been done better. Also I wish we knew a little more about some of the characters, like the one played by Lee Joon. However it's a great watch and I binged it!

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Science and Astronauts will be crying.

I was eagerly waiting for this series and it disappointed me so much.
This series had a lot of budget that went into making it, yet the script writer, nor the director didn't even think of consulting some professional who can help them in aspect of spacecraft and moon since this is a sci-fi genre, but I guess the writer and the director decided to trust their own brains that doesn't have a clue about it. Not just science sucked at every episodes, the camera work, the dialogues also brilliantly sucked.

SPOILERS AHEAD...BE WARNED.

The series starts with FL and our ML along with other crew members set out to voyage to the abandoned Balhae moon station, where 117 researchers died five years earlier. Their goal is to retrieve some mysterious sample from that moon station and return back. At this point I was ok, but then the tragedy of this series began.

The FL, ML and their crew are ready to go to the moon without even having at least a few weeks of simulation training. It is so ridiculous that our FL is shown struggling to put on her seat belt because she doesn't know while she is about to go into the space in next few seconds. I mean what the hell is that. Just when you get over this absurdity another one immediately gets thrown into your face.

Just few minutes before launching off the earth, all of a sudden one of the pilot of the spacecraft gets changed. Going to moon itself is a complex mission, yet last minute they change the pilot as if it is as easy as changing driver for your car.

I kept my patience and positivity even after this. Then comes another blow, where apparently now our team took off the earth by blasting 1, 2,3 and is going on their way to moon. And apparently their spacecraft is loosely bolted to the docking machine. I cannot believe this is the reason they come up with, you can go with many internal problems to show why you should take emergency landing but they took the impossible never happening loose bolt as a reason. And the worst thing is, because of loose bolt they can't communicate to the space center crew on the earth. How does loose bolt will lead to communication system damage???

And mind these mistakes are only half of the mistakes from first episode, I could fill pages with just first episode itself. I could have let the science mistakes slide if this drama didn't have budget, but it had. It had everything to make this show proper, but they didn't. The laziness and haughtiness could be seen in the direction. The camera work is done so worst that expect for FL, ML, you cannot properly have other characters fit into the frame with clarity.

And dialogues, omg, they talk like some kind of street business men. I don't expect astronauts to never talk slang or use profanity or talk normally, they do but still you get a sense of knowledge and professional aura even when they speak in a informal way. But this one has dialogues that seem so bland, over the top, like a frosting served without a cake.
At one point, one of the side character astronaut literally says "can I remove my space helmet, is it safe" when literally in front of him two people opened their helmets seemingly fine and what kind of writing that makes astronaut so stupid that he doesn't even know if it is safe to remove his helmet or not.

I cannot watch a show that makes blunders after blunders, and think everyone will be ok with it because the characters belong to A list actors.

Anyone in replies will try to oppose me or criticize me go ahead. I cannot stop you, but I stand true to my review.

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Remake do filme coreano homônimo de 2014, The Silent Sea, ou O Mar da Tranquilidade, o nome que ganhou pela Netflix tem a direção do Choi Hang Yong e roteiro da Park Eun Kyo.

Ambientado num futuro onde o planeta sofre com a falta de água, Yoon Jae é um soldado da agência espacial selecionado para uma operação especial à Lua. Ji An é uma cientista que se junta à missão, mas com o intuito de saber porque sua irmã que morreu, pois nada se fala sobre o assunto.

Mistério, distopia e ficção científica é o que aguarda quem for conferir esse k-drama de apenas 8 episódios com menos de uma hora de duração.

Nada se sabe sobre a estação abandonada Balhae e o que aconteceu lá há cinco anos, mas Ji An nunca desistiu de saber o que aconteceu com a sua irmã mais velha quando foi para a Lua. E ao se juntar como cientista à equipe tem esse objetivo. No entanto, Yoon Jae não deixará fácil, visto que não quer que seu objetivo de salvar a filha seja um fiasco.

Mas quando algumas coisas começam a sair errado e um dos tripulantes apresenta sintomas estranhos de uma doença, todos começam a levar em conta as suspeitas da Dra Ji An.

A missão é trazer amostras misteriosas para a Terra, no entanto, tais amostras mostram-se mais letais e um risco para a humanidade. Isso torna a trama ainda mais genial, foi o clique que fez de The Silent Sea um sabor à parte, ainda mais a conexão com o título. Tudo fez sentido!

O enredo foi muito bem pensado e os desejos dos personagens muito motivadores. Ficou apenas devendo um plano de fundo melhor para os outros personagens, era como se estivessem ali apenas para alívio cômico, ser motivo de desconfiança ou lealdade em algumas partes.

As cenas de ação são de tirar o fôlego e os efeitos especiais muito realísticos. Toda a trama deixa o telespectador preso do começo ao final com os flashes do passado para uma melhor compreensão, em nenhum momento quis parar. Foi eletrizante!

Gong Yoo e Doo Na estão impecáveis. Merecem destaque também Kim Sun Young e a atriz mirim Kim Shi Ah que foram maravilhosas.

Estava apreensiva que o final fosse ser ruim, mas adorei o final bem redondinho. Fica a dica para os apaixonados por ficção científica e uma dose de mistério.

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