The four horsemen of the borepocalypse
It’s not that “Peng” is short in how many episodes it has or that each of the episodes is short in duration, it’s that “Peng” is short on content of any kind.
Yoon So Hee plays the main character, Go Sa Ri, a divorced thirty year old woman. That she is divorced is her most defining element of her character. Otherwise, Sa Ri could float in or out or around in almost any drama as “Pretty young woman who is otherwise nondescript”. That she has apparently no social life one day and becomes the object of desire for four men the next day is supposed to be credible. It’s not but in the big picture of “Peng”, Yoon So Hee as an actress and Go Sa Ri as a character are not especially troubling. Sure, Yoon So Hee struggles with the occasional emotion-laden scene. And Go Sa Ri as a character engages in self-pity a bit too much. She's young and attractive and and smart and lives in an apartment and there's just not much more to her. But the actor and character are not wholly unpalatable and, if she were in the context of a more engaging ensemble, she would be a pleasant part of it.
What is so unpleasant about “Peng” is that the four male pursuers, played by Choi Won Myung, Joo Woo Jae, Lee Seung Il and Kim Hyun Jin, are all endlessly uninteresting and bland and interchangeably uninteresting and bland. The four actors have separate characters in theory but it would require detailed note taking to keep track of which one is on screen and how he is distinguishable from the other three. One of them is a not believable young, reclusive CEO. One is an only slightly more believable rich brat. One is a student or at least appears to be the age of a student and goes to clubs. If it were possible to not be believable in such a role, the actor playing this character would manage it. Which actor? Sorry, they all appear to be the same height and build and dress alike and have similar hair except for the one that mercifully has glasses. He’s the super not unique character of a cafe owner who moonlights as an artist. Watching these four all act together is like having only a salad for lunch. A salad that is entirely made of iceberg lettuce. Scratch that. Make it iceberg lettuce that has been left sitting out for a day so it’s not even crisp anymore. It’s just sad, wilted, soggy, room temperature leaves. A salad that is without any dressing. A sad, wilted iceberg lettuce dressing-less salad that has a bowl of plain, cold oatmeal as a side. And then eating that same meal again for dinner. That’s the level of blandness that these four bring. If it weren’t so tedious, it would be somehow backhandedly exotic for how far they have far that this quartet of dullness have collectively pushed the nothingness envelope.
It’s not that Go Sa Ri should have the dilemma of which of these four varieties of generic vanilla ice cream she should pull from the case or indeed even whether she should move on to anyone, literally anyone, else (side note: clearly she should run and run as fast as she possibly can), it’s whether she should be concerned that she is the subject of an experiment in some sort of unnaturally dull Matrix.
Also, the plot is basically Sa Ri bumps into the four flesh-colored statues. Sometimes separately. Sometimes together. Nothing much happens when she does. There’s some background work activities or drinking or some such, but this is the barest pretext necessary to excuse Sa Ri being somewhere where an ambulatory piece of cardboard will hover nearby and mumble at her. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
The two best friends to Go Sa Ri, played by Bang Eun Jung and Baek Soo Hee, fortunately seem fun and a show that would be more about them and not four semi-corpselike male mannequins would be somewhat quality entertainment. Hopefully, these two actors find a vehicle where they have more than a few seconds on screen per episode and more than a handful of lines of dialogue. But “Peng” is not that show.
Other positives? It’s short. And…
[crickets]
Not recommended except for those viewers that really like plain salads for every meal all the time.
Yoon So Hee plays the main character, Go Sa Ri, a divorced thirty year old woman. That she is divorced is her most defining element of her character. Otherwise, Sa Ri could float in or out or around in almost any drama as “Pretty young woman who is otherwise nondescript”. That she has apparently no social life one day and becomes the object of desire for four men the next day is supposed to be credible. It’s not but in the big picture of “Peng”, Yoon So Hee as an actress and Go Sa Ri as a character are not especially troubling. Sure, Yoon So Hee struggles with the occasional emotion-laden scene. And Go Sa Ri as a character engages in self-pity a bit too much. She's young and attractive and and smart and lives in an apartment and there's just not much more to her. But the actor and character are not wholly unpalatable and, if she were in the context of a more engaging ensemble, she would be a pleasant part of it.
What is so unpleasant about “Peng” is that the four male pursuers, played by Choi Won Myung, Joo Woo Jae, Lee Seung Il and Kim Hyun Jin, are all endlessly uninteresting and bland and interchangeably uninteresting and bland. The four actors have separate characters in theory but it would require detailed note taking to keep track of which one is on screen and how he is distinguishable from the other three. One of them is a not believable young, reclusive CEO. One is an only slightly more believable rich brat. One is a student or at least appears to be the age of a student and goes to clubs. If it were possible to not be believable in such a role, the actor playing this character would manage it. Which actor? Sorry, they all appear to be the same height and build and dress alike and have similar hair except for the one that mercifully has glasses. He’s the super not unique character of a cafe owner who moonlights as an artist. Watching these four all act together is like having only a salad for lunch. A salad that is entirely made of iceberg lettuce. Scratch that. Make it iceberg lettuce that has been left sitting out for a day so it’s not even crisp anymore. It’s just sad, wilted, soggy, room temperature leaves. A salad that is without any dressing. A sad, wilted iceberg lettuce dressing-less salad that has a bowl of plain, cold oatmeal as a side. And then eating that same meal again for dinner. That’s the level of blandness that these four bring. If it weren’t so tedious, it would be somehow backhandedly exotic for how far they have far that this quartet of dullness have collectively pushed the nothingness envelope.
It’s not that Go Sa Ri should have the dilemma of which of these four varieties of generic vanilla ice cream she should pull from the case or indeed even whether she should move on to anyone, literally anyone, else (side note: clearly she should run and run as fast as she possibly can), it’s whether she should be concerned that she is the subject of an experiment in some sort of unnaturally dull Matrix.
Also, the plot is basically Sa Ri bumps into the four flesh-colored statues. Sometimes separately. Sometimes together. Nothing much happens when she does. There’s some background work activities or drinking or some such, but this is the barest pretext necessary to excuse Sa Ri being somewhere where an ambulatory piece of cardboard will hover nearby and mumble at her. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
The two best friends to Go Sa Ri, played by Bang Eun Jung and Baek Soo Hee, fortunately seem fun and a show that would be more about them and not four semi-corpselike male mannequins would be somewhat quality entertainment. Hopefully, these two actors find a vehicle where they have more than a few seconds on screen per episode and more than a handful of lines of dialogue. But “Peng” is not that show.
Other positives? It’s short. And…
[crickets]
Not recommended except for those viewers that really like plain salads for every meal all the time.
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