Trunk (2024)

A story of marriage, anxiety and a suitcase

finished 8.5/10 🌟
A story full of nuances, it talks about mental health, anxiety and the pain of loss... all wrapped up in a thriller and suspense plot.
What I liked most was the chemistry of the protagonists, although it is not a strictly romantic drama, each and every one of their scenes together was felt
Individually they also had their merits, I liked the references to how humans feel when they suffer from anxiety, hallucinations and substance abuse ✨👏
What I didn't like was that at the end it focused more on the murder, and the chapters seemed excessively long to me and I watched some scenes at x2 speed.
It's not a story for everyone, but it's good for passing the time.

Leia Mais

Edge of Your Seat Thriller

It's a romance embedded into a psychological thriller and murder mystery. Raw, gripping, sexy, and even sweet at times. A who-dun-it mystery that will keep you glued until the end. You have to watch it to the end because it will be a surprise, one I did not see coming. The musical score is good and helps with the tense, mysterious, and dramatic scenes. I would say my only complaints are that it shifts between present, past, and future and sometimes it s hard to tell which moment in time you're in. Also, there are awkward transitions between some of the scenes that I'm not sure make sense and add little to the story. Over all though, it was really good. Congrats to the actors--these roles were dark at times and could not have been easy to play--also the production value was outstanding, clothes, sets, lighting, camera angles, it was all done well.

At 8 episodes it's just the right length. I can easily recommend this one.

Leia Mais

Arranged marriage, what could possibly go wrong?

Man I did not expect to love this show as much as I did. The couple gave me so much butterflies and their chemistry was really something. I loved their dynamic, and although they were often described as ‘opposites’ of each other, somehow I found them the most similar to each other than any other character.

I loved everything about this show. The plot, the characters, acting, the pace. I think everything plot wise was perfect, and everyone got their closure in the end.

I can’t exactly say I was happy with the ending, although it was hinted that everything ended nice and happy but I just had wished after all these 8 sad episodes we would get a nice ending with them. Still, I won’t say the ending was bad but it was a little disappointing to say the least.

Like I said before, 8 episode K-Dramas never disappoint! It reminded me a little of My Mister since it started off very melancholic and it ended like My Mister as well. I love when sad characters find each other and help each other be happier.

I recommend this a lot! It includes a lot of psychological messing with your head as well as childhood trauma/ past marriage issues. I recommend it. Give it a go!

Leia Mais

Who doesn't want to have a good evening with Gong Yoo ?

Mini series, strange & mysterious (8 ep.) with Gong Yoo

PLOT: a toxic, rich couple divorces. The woman (FL2) remarries (1-year contract) and will only return to her husband (the ML) if he also accepts a 1-year marriage contract (with the FL, temporary professional wife). The FL has been harassed by a pervert-stalker for 5 years.
+++ Great cast ♡o｡(๑๏‿ฺ๏๑)｡o♡
+++ Dark, heavy atmosphere, with constant suspense.
+++ Format suited to the trope
+++ Excellent OST

### Open ending a little short.

=> What you need to have a good evening (with Gong Yoo, lol)
***************************************************************************
Mini série, étrange & mystérieuse (8 ép.) avec Gong Yoo

PLOT: un couple toxique et riche divorce. La femme (FL2) se remarie (contrat d'1 an) et ne reviendra vers son mari (le ML) que s'il accepte lui aussi, un contrat de mariage d'1 an (avec la FL, épouse temporaire professionnelle). Celle-ci a harcelée par un pervers-stalker depuis 5 ans.
+++ Great cast ♡o｡(๑๏‿ฺ๏๑)｡o♡
+++ Atmosphère dark, lourde, pesante, avec un suspense constant.
+++ Format adapté au trope
+++ Excellentes OST

### Ending ouverte un peu courte.

=> Ce qu'il faut pour passer une bonne soirée (avec Gong Yoo, lol)

Leia Mais

Most memerable drama of 2024

I enjoyed Seo Hyun Jin in Another Miss Ohh and The Beauty Inside, which I coincidentally watched only a couple of weeks ago, and so I was really interested to see how she would do in this new drama and wow I was not ready for how great she would be! The show hooked me quickly with its mysterious plot and the asymmetrical, curved, modern, wealthy yet cold and emotionless interiors or the main settings contrasted with where the FML comes from, not wealthy yet equally cold and emotionless. The cool tone of the lighting and the stark cinematography reflects how the characters feel no connection anymore to the world around them, the tone at times is so dark and foreboding that it felt difficult to watch, and found myself taking breaks to steady myself to watch further. The circumstances of the arranged marriage between the ML and Seo Hyun Jin's character is never really explained in a way that made any sense to this viewer, and one sort of has to set that aside and just accept that they have been thrown together into this situation. The reward for doing so is seeing the outstanding performances of the two leads portraying characters with hearts so broken come slowly back on line. Many of the most emotionally powerful moments of the film having little or no dialog whatsoever, with much being expressed through the eyes and small, silent kindnesses and affirmations, and I think it takes both great acting and mature, authentic chemistry between actors to pull that off, and they did in spades. Whereas I frequently forget a drama almost as soon as the final credits start rolling. I feel Seo Hyun Jin's performance, and also that of the other actors, was such that this show will stay with me, much as My Mister did before it, for a long time to come.

Leia Mais

Gong Yoo shines brilliantly in the dark

A melodramatic thriller centred on 2 leads and the collision of the utter snakepits each of their lives have become individually. Psychologically claustrophobic plot. Gong Yoo (as Han Jeong Won) and Seo Hyun Jin (as Noh In Ji) work brilliantly together as 2 anti-heroes who yearn for happiness but are trapped not just by manipulative and abusive friends and family, but by their own numbed and stilled psyches. Gong Yoo, suffocated and angry, as always emotes with every careful move of his body and gaze. Seo Hyun Jin's character uses her beautiful closed face to survive so the actress clearly indicates her thought processes by her timing and her movements. When Inji loses control and starts in on the usual FL idiocy (taking all the blame on herself etc.) it doesn't last long.

The main set, the home of Jeong Won's dead parents is one of those architectural excesses symbolically perfect for the hermit-crab existence of JW in the grandiose ruins of his horrible family history. The central element is a modern chandelier of grotesque Versailles proportions hanging over a two story central space off which open all the living areas. In Ji is inserted into this cave-like structure by a semi-sinister version of a matchmaking bureau which specializes in discreet temporary contract-marriages for transactional reasons. JW's ex, a malevolent architect herself, also fits into this set as an absent presence, since she herself actually engineered the whole premise of the show, the dual contract-marriages. The strengths of the performances of Jung Yun Ha and Lee Woo (as her own temporary husband) are central to the plot and to the success of the show overall.

This is a good watch for fans of kdrama for whom plot doesn't matter as much as camerawork, soundtrack and the play of formulaic expectations. A great watch for Gong Yoo fans who always knew he would be smoking hot in bed. But it is a show which bends the rules for the OTP so far that it will be up to you to decide whether or not you have been emotionally deceived and how cynically this was done.

At 8 episodes of 1hr ea. we are looking at one of the new lengths for a kdrama. At this point writers and directors have to decide which standard elements to keep, how much time to allot to them etc. In my timid opinion (timid bec the extremely distinguished director, Kim Kyu Tae is obviously fully intentional in his choices) this type of story needed a 10 ep. structure in order to more firmly establish a key anchor for kdrama, the relationships of family and friends over time as context. At 8 eps, the show was way intense, and the standard time-jump later on in the show felt more jarring than usual. I didnt feel ready for it.

My advice for getting around this is not to binge the whole show at once and go to sleep unhappy, as I did, because I woke up the next day with a completely different perspective and decided I loved the Trunk. The next day I disliked it, the next day...I needed time to appreciate it, and in a classic 16 ep form that appreciation would have been done in tandem with the usual chorus of observers (families, friends and village idiots) within the drama itself. Those characters were in the story but I literally felt they needed their own small corners (time, musical themes etc) to thrive in. Therefore the discussion and perspective has to be internal to the spectator, as in a movie....



The kdrama phenomenon is built on 3 pillars. 1/ Technical power of the soundtrack combined with careful editing to produce a range of emotions swiftly and exactly. 2/Extremely sophisticated comic sensibility combined with essential theatrical structures and astoundingly skilled camerawork to produce real aesthetic satisfaction, 3/The imaginary reintegration of a positive and hopeful society via the love of family and friends and communal meals and other rituals. I think that 3/ is not satisfied here. The fans love the weird romantic formulas but they occur ontop of the engine for producing those feelings.

On sex. love and formulas: Kdrama love is built on an exchange of symbolic promises of care and support. These include bandaiding, tentative and sometimes complicated handholding, sleeping together without sex mainly so that love can be awoken by watching the partner's childlike and vulnerable face, gift-giving, and feeding. Near-death experiences of one of the pair are often necessary. The actual protestation of love is couched in terms of care and protection - I will always be by your side, etc. Sex has to occur very near the culmination of most of this. The weakness of this show is the placement of these elements out of sequence, when one of the basic pillars of kdrama is a little weak. Modernizing kdrama is always perilous but necessary, so kudos for the effort.

Leia Mais

This show is like experiencing all 4 seasons

It started as a little bud that bloomed beautifully. You’ll experience all 4 seasons of emotions throughout the entire show. The coldness, the rain (tears), the spring (the closeness and warmth) and summer (the blooming of affection). Just going to list a bunch of stuff I loved about this show:
- Portraying the depth of each person’s affliction and imperfection.
- The role of boundaries in relationships and things you just can’t cross.
- Self worth in relationships and knowing when to let go of people that don’t deserve you.
- The obsession in relationships and how some ppl just don’t see you the way you see them.
- Mental health awareness and escapism through drugs when in reality you need others to help you and you can’t do it alone.
- relationships that help to heal wounds
- NM serving as a metaphor for modern day marriages and how easily disposable marriages can be with money and paper
- assigning gender roles in women that need to be stay at home moms and wives aren’t for everyone
- many different aspects of marriage and children from multiple views

Overall, it was a very thought out show I really enjoyed the depth of the themes it was like peeling back layers of onions the more I watched. Great acting I actually liked her stone cold character it created a contrast of when she bloomed beautifully at the end you know she healed and is in a much better time in her life.

Leia Mais

THE DARK ALLURE OF "THE TRUNK" OR "THE CHANDELIER" LIKE SOMEONE SAID IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NAMED. ?

After watching The Trunk, I went online to read a post/article on it. I don't know if it was a coincidence, but the first half of the comments were about how boring and terrible the drama was and how they were all waiting for “When the Phone Rings.” (I genuinely don't know why people compare two unrelated dramas with completely different vibes. If you don't like a drama, then you don't. Period. I'm still going to watch When the Phone Rings, though. I hear it's really good. 😂) The second half were people who appreciated the beauty of the drama just like I did. I get it. It's not for everyone, just like every other drama out there. But me? I was hooked from start to finish. So, here's what I liked and didn't like about it (nothing major on this part).

What I Liked:

Character Development: The transformation of both Noh In Ji and Han Jeong Won was incredible. In Ji’s resilience and Jeong Won’s evolution from a damaged man to the man he grew to become. Their chemistry was palpable too.

The Themes: The drama delves into some serious themes like emotional trauma, toxic relationships, manipulation, healing, identity, and love. It tackled how people can be scarred by their pasts and how these scars affect their present.

Suspense and Pacing: The twists, especially surrounding the trunk and Eom Tae Seong, were good suspense. The tension between In Ji and Seo Yeon was great too.

Soundtrack: I have to give a shout-out to the soundtrack. They were great, and I’m already adding some tracks to my playlist.

What I Didn’t Like:

I wanted more surprises in how Seo Yeon’s character developed. Tbh, I don't think she really changed 🤷🏽‍♀️.

That accident that happened when Seo Yeon walked into traffic. I don't know. When is the kdrama industry going to get their accident scenes right?

So, yeah. That's it. I talked too much. LOL. But I highly recommend The Trunk for anyone who enjoys a mix of suspense, romance, and psychological drama.

Leia Mais

The soul in the trunk

I apologize for my English

It is not easy to “define” the genre of this series. And it is not easy to put into words the emotionality it left behind.
Because “The Trunk” is figurative, it represents the soul and the journey, arrival and departure. It represents short-term and long-term memory. It represents the expertise developed in the perilous ways of life. “The Trunk” is everyone's black hole into which we throw, voluntarily and involuntarily, what we call “junk” for our psyche. At the same time, it is the place where we store the “scents” and “sensations” that define being “alive.”
Few times do trailers deflect expectations so profoundly, and even fewer times is the product so memorable to the point of countering those unmet expectations.
However, viewing the series requires a fair amount of mental stability so that one does not passively endure the tidal wave of emotionalism, which is brutal, raw, cynical, and intimate for long stretches.
Once again, Korean scriptwriters, actors, and actresses are extremely skillful in portraying the dark side of the human soul. Depictions that are never grotesque but almost always “disturbing” because they are extremely real or realizable. The negative in the series is not utopian but sadly anchored in reality.
From the first moments, the rhythms are deep, psychically tribal, flanked by music and settings that support the “dark” and “noir” framework of the plot. High praise to the music, it enters directly into assonance with 21 grams and leads the mind to live the optical experience firsthand. Special mention to the architecture of the protagonist's house, initially I interpreted it as the bony cavities of birds. Large spaces of emptiness encompassed in “slender” but strong structures. This impression changed as the plot progressed. After the first few episodes, with the knowledge of the protagonist's “illusions,” the house's architecture became a representation of the encephalon, with its bright places and cramped spaces in which memories lurk. To then become, until the end of the series, the soul, the “the trunk” of the protagonists, but also the curse that each one hides inside. And it is on this last development that the architecture and interiors reach the pinnacle of visual representation. From the “hallucinogenic” chandelier to the spiral ramp/slide in the “Archimedes screw” imagery of the involution and evolution of the soul. Even the materiality of the walls, rough, and porous, marry the essence of beauty to perfection. The unpolished, the need to come to appreciate the essence only through consciously experiencing suffering.
And this catharsis, emblematic but not sensational, again, not utopian but realistic, envelops the protagonists, whom I identify in four characters. The main couple consists of Seo Hyun Jin (the wife, No In Ji) and Gong Yoo (the husband, Han Jeong Won). The second couple was composed of Jung Yun Ha (the first wife, Lee Seo Yeon, of Gong Yoo) and Jo Yi-geon (the husband, Yoon Ji-o, of Gong Yoo's first wife).
A masterful performance by Seo Hyun Jin, a soul troubled by the most intimate betrayal and the perpetuation of the most visceral social bullying. Wife by “contract,” detached, seemingly emptied of feelings and emotions. Polished beauty that unfolds becoming pure roughness, pure emotion, warm.
Gong Yoo confirms the acting prowess already appreciated on the big and small screen over the years. Here we find him in a mature, complete, confident acting guise. He enacts the “lost” and “hallucinated” soul of a son “psychologically raped” by his father, family, life, and everyone but especially himself. Fascinating his “chase” to rebirth, nothing superhuman, everything rough, harsh, bitter, true, and alive.
Special mention to Jung Yun Ha, the charming first wife of Han Jeong Won, intelligent, cunning, bewitching, a mantis in the body of a "Medusa". This chimerical image formed in my mind as the episodes passed. And as a "Medusa", she is the cause of her demise, her pain. It does not retreat in its treachery, its viciousness, its brutality of control and domination over everything and everyone.
Jo Yi-geon, victim and perpetrator, accomplice and protagonist, fits perfectly into this trio of characters. In the space, marginal to the trio, she best expresses her acting characteristics in staging the brutality of being used while experiencing the darkest love.
Interspersed with them is the avowed “villain,” Kim Dong Won (No In Ji's stalker Um Tae Seong), who cynical viciousness does not let on but portrays it without physical reins and with extreme reasoning. Ratiocination disarms the viewer because its brutality is not embellished but is naked, unadorned, and internal to those who perform adorable pastry gems.
“The Trunk” represents a psycho-social journey of destruction and rebirth, with this phoenix-like soul leading us in questioning ourselves about being protagonists of our own lives, with mercy and compassion for ourselves.
Finally, as sleet, hope and “forgiveness” appear.

Leia Mais