“Sisyphus: The Myth” (시지프스)
“Sisyphus: The Myth” has an intriguing premise, in which an inventor creates a time machine. And as with many time travel stories, you have to suspend your belief in reality to enjoy this production.
Tag: 2021
“The Silent Sea” (고요의 바다)
“The Silent Sea” is based on director Choi Hang-Yong’s short film of the same name. Starring Bae Doona and Gong Yoo, the eight-part series is set on the moon, where the astronauts have been tasked with recovering research from the previous mission.
“Happiness” (해피니스)
There are still 18 days left until the end of the 2021 — and Gong Yoo’s “The Silent Sea” doesn’t even makes its premiere until December 24. But I don’t know that there will be a better K-drama this year than “Happiness.”
“Inspector Koo” (구경이)
“Inspector Koo” starts off strong, with a whip-smart teenage serial killer manipulating her victims, teachers and the police. She is as much a sociopath as a psychopath, which is explained away during a backstory that involves childhood trauma.
“Nevertheless” (알고있지만)
In many ways, “Nevertheless” is a primer for how women are manipulated into diminishing their own wants and desires for a man.
‘Vincenzo’ and adoption myth entrenched in Korean society
“Having been raised using Korean in her family, a Korean American journalist said that she still struggled to speak Korean fluently, and this experience led her to question why Korean entertainment writers and consumers failed to question improbable stories, such as that of ‘Vincenzo,” Lee Kyung-eun — the director of Human Rights Beyond Borders — wrote in her OpEd piece. The journalist she is talking about … is me.
“Hellbound” (지옥)
Director Yeon Sang-Ha (“Train to Busan”) adapted “Hellbound” from his own webtoon of the same name. He makes it clear that cults are the true sinners, which manipulate people’s lives with fear. And that hell isn’t necessarily a place foreign to us, because it’s where we may already be living.
“You Are My Spring” (너는 나의 봄)
“You Are My Spring” stresses the importance of mental health care and normalizing treatment for everyone, rather than as something that’s just for the clinically insane. And … There’s also a serial killer element.
“Dr. Brain” (Dr. 브레인)
If you could tap into the brain of a dead person (or a cat, yes, a cat) in order to save a life, would you? That’s the premise behind “Dr. Brain,” the first original Korean series to make its debut on Apple TV+.
“Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha” (갯마을 차차차)
“Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha” is one of those slow-moving K-dramas that makes viewers wish they had the same kind of relationship as the characters do — not just with love interests, but with their friends.