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AudienceofOne
I can't believe Lee Soo-yeon wrote this
I can't believe Lee Soo-yeon wrote this. It bears saying twice.
The first four episodes showed evidence of her deft procedural hand as BF CEO, Yoon Jayu (a flat and uninspiring Han Hyo-joo) finds her company beset by internal and external challenges just as it's overcome the challenge of cultivating seafood. She recruits one-dimensional sex bot Woo Chae-woon (a flat and uninspiring Ju Ji-hoon) to be her bodyguard. A job which seems to involve wearing turtlenecks and hair gel, driving her into ambushes and never wearing a bulletproof vest.
Chae-woon secretly has AN AGENDA, which in a better Soo-yeon show would mean something (everybody has AN AGENDA after all) but is rendered meaningless the minute it's revealed.
At episode 5, the show then quickly degenerates into a somewhat shallow (at times farcical) mess of cliches and tired conspiracies, combined with a dose of Alpha superhero nonsense that clashes wildly with the show's attempt to canvass Korean gender issues. Is it about political corruption? Corporatism? The impact of a disruptive technology? A study of humanity? A canvassing of corporate ethics? A warning against the widespread use of AI?
Who the hell knows. Not me and not the writer either.
For a writer famed for exploring Korean social issues from a place of nuance, perception and intelligence, her villains are suddenly crass and stupid while her protagonists' moral and ethical failings are swept under the rug or even portrayed as somehow acceptable. Character motivations are opaque and contradictory and if there was a theme(s) there I couldn't find it.
The acting, direction, lighting and cinematography do not help. All are approached with a lacklustre paint-by-numbers sensibility that suggests the whole thing is half baked. And while Lee Soo-yeon has long struggled with the strictures put on her by a Disney that has the money but a legendary lack of courage and imagination (just look at what they've done to Doctor Who), this is such a mediocre piece of work that I have to ask again.
Did Lee Soo-yeon really write this?
The first four episodes showed evidence of her deft procedural hand as BF CEO, Yoon Jayu (a flat and uninspiring Han Hyo-joo) finds her company beset by internal and external challenges just as it's overcome the challenge of cultivating seafood. She recruits one-dimensional sex bot Woo Chae-woon (a flat and uninspiring Ju Ji-hoon) to be her bodyguard. A job which seems to involve wearing turtlenecks and hair gel, driving her into ambushes and never wearing a bulletproof vest.
Chae-woon secretly has AN AGENDA, which in a better Soo-yeon show would mean something (everybody has AN AGENDA after all) but is rendered meaningless the minute it's revealed.
At episode 5, the show then quickly degenerates into a somewhat shallow (at times farcical) mess of cliches and tired conspiracies, combined with a dose of Alpha superhero nonsense that clashes wildly with the show's attempt to canvass Korean gender issues. Is it about political corruption? Corporatism? The impact of a disruptive technology? A study of humanity? A canvassing of corporate ethics? A warning against the widespread use of AI?
Who the hell knows. Not me and not the writer either.
For a writer famed for exploring Korean social issues from a place of nuance, perception and intelligence, her villains are suddenly crass and stupid while her protagonists' moral and ethical failings are swept under the rug or even portrayed as somehow acceptable. Character motivations are opaque and contradictory and if there was a theme(s) there I couldn't find it.
The acting, direction, lighting and cinematography do not help. All are approached with a lacklustre paint-by-numbers sensibility that suggests the whole thing is half baked. And while Lee Soo-yeon has long struggled with the strictures put on her by a Disney that has the money but a legendary lack of courage and imagination (just look at what they've done to Doctor Who), this is such a mediocre piece of work that I have to ask again.
Did Lee Soo-yeon really write this?
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