March 2024. Watched Parts 1 & 2 together on Prime

I thought the casting for this was incredible. So many actors I love, in one drama, was frankly too good to be true and the acting was, predictably, great.

I really enjoyed the ways in which events began to expose a troubling connection. It wasn't obvious what that was to be, however, and even when revealed, was still far from final.

There are shocks, tragedies, grief, unfairness, manipulation and the old favourite, money and power.

The struggles are real and I don't think anyone could blame Choi Yi-jae. Having said that, there were numerous times his character didn't speak up, or did some truly stupid things; where his mother was concerned, especially. It numbed my mind.

There were also moments of brilliance in the plot though, but it did vere sharply between that and "What?!", at times.

Apart from Seo In-guk, I absolutely loved Kim Jae-wook, Lee Jae-wook, Lee Do-hyun and Kim Mi-kyung in this. None of them overacted and given LJW's part, he could have. His scenes were the most visceral for me.
Nice seeing LJW and Yoo In-soo acting together again, although in vastly different roles to Alchemy of Souls.

I do wish the story had focussed less on Yi-jae as being cruelly punished and more on his realisations, growing determination and self-worth, through the trials, as being healing. Those are positive lessons to drive home.

However, I found myself getting incredibly angry at times, because instead, to me, it really felt like they were saying suicide is a selfish choice, made with no regard for those left behind and should be a punishable act.

Selfish? Perhaps that is true, but only to a point. The reason being, it is a decision very, very rarely made by someone in a normal state of mind. Suicide isn't something a happy, mentally stable, rational person, would commit.
If life has become painful, terrifying, utterly hopeless, everything else becomes irrelevant in that person's mind. Death is, indeed, no longer frightening, but an escape.
So why portray it as though it was (is) done as a normal, conscious decision, with no care for loved ones? In that frame of mind, rationality has long departed, together with being concerned about the impact on others.
Were they trying to send a message, due to the frighteningly high number of suicide cases in S.Korea? I sincerely hope not, because it's cruel (especially to those left behind) and it's wrong.

The ending was totally perplexing, to me, for one huge reason, which I can't actually say, because it would be a spoiler... unless all the things he went through were indeed part of an elaborate game and not 'real'... but then, he wouldn't have been standing on the ledge.

Whilst I enjoyed the many actors, characters and their stories, the plot fell a little short and I wasn't happy, at all, with the unkind assumptions made around suicide.
I haven't seen the webtoon of the same name that this is based on and, therefore, don't know how close to it this drama is.