Slow burner - but what a pay-off!!

This movie is amazing. It had such an impact on me, I thought about it going to sleep, during the night and again first thing this morning. It has even driven me to write a review here, although probably no one will ever read this apart from me....

So - please do watch this, it is a beautiful gem of a movie with a plot twist near the end that will make every opaque story development earlier clear and comprehensible and - what is even more important - painfully emotional and sad.
As a viewer you cannot but be drawn into the characters' mysterious life but you have to be patient. If you are someone requiring constant action, linear storylines - this is probably not a movie for you. This might explain some of the unkind comments posted in the comments section.
But if you can give the story the time it needs to fully come to fruition, if you are able to just watch and follow the characters, wondering with them what is going on in some scenes, empathising with their confusion and puzzlement, - then this is the movie for you.
The acting is out of this world brilliant. Jung Woo Sung's facial expressions - a mixture between utter emptiness, curiosity and puzzlement when his charater is faced with yet another weird reaction by the people around him, another person who recognises him, but whom he doesn't - are fascinating. Like an eager puppy he stares into other people's eyes, hopeful, in search of recognition or a memory. Something that, however, usually does not happen.
I never understood why MDL wants you to rate the "rewatch value" of a drama or movie. This is not something I ever took much notice of before I started watching Kdramas. Now I am slowly beginning to see its value...because the rewatch value of "Don't Forget Me" is a full 10 points! I will definitely watch this again tonight! And probably a few more times. It's a movie that will keep on giving, becoming more meaningful the more times you watch it!

Leia Mais

Hamlet in a Chaebol

Forget Game of Thrones and Succession!

This show is an amazing revenge drama! Its complex plot is beyond compare and may put some viewers off after watching the first few episodes- but if you have a little patience, trust that all will become clear as more episodes follow, you will be rewarded with an awesome viewing experince!

I'd never thought a show with a financial backdrop highlighting the inner machinations of a chaebol would ever hold any interest for me - but this show is absolutely not what you'd expect from reading the plot synopsis.

Much like the US dramas mentioned above, this is a psychological drama, a portrait of several families corrupted by the greed for power and money and the toll this takes on the individuals. Lives are blighted and ruined and it is absolutely intriguing, suspenseful but also painful to watch.

I can't imagine how the writer could have come up with such an intricate, complicated plot - the mind really boggles! I don't think I have ever had to follow such a tangled web of fateful encounters, murderous schemes, past betrayals, adultery, political corruption and manipulations followed by the most brain-twisting machinations and plots by the various interested parties to try to hide them.
There are unlikeable characters in Moneyflower, but the writer has managed to make them incredibly multi-facetted and threedimensional in a way that is very rare to find in a TV drama. As a consquence, the viewer cannot easily pick a favourite character to wholly cheer for or to wholly despise outright.
I have not discovered a single glaring plot hole which can often be found in such intricate plots. There are a few very convenient, fateful co-incidences and one lightning-speed recovery from a coma - but a regular viewer of Kdrama should be familiar with these tropes and not be surprised by them.

The closest comparisons to this show I can think of are the already mentioned Game of Thrones and Bloodlines (a Netflix production) - these were similarly focused on family, power, the internecine struggle for the one true, legitimate succession within a powerful family (business).

On the other hand, Moneyflower's central character's dilemma also reminded me an awful lot of HAMLET in that roughly speaking, in both:

the rightful successor to a powerful family (Hamlet/Kang Pil Joo), whose father has died under questionable circumstances ( Hamlet sen. is poisoned/Jang Eun Cheon's father's life support switched off prematurely?), has to use all his faculties and deceive everyone as to his true intentions (Hamlet's "antic disposition" and alleged madness/Kang Pil Joo's myriad manipulations) to survive in a poisonous, treacherous, shark-tank environment (Elsinore/Mooshimwon) whilst trying to avenge past wrongs, surrounded by untrustworthy minions and spies (Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern/Secretary Oh), with support from just one trustworthy friend (Horatio/Yoo Gong) all whilst having to come to terms with a doomed love interest (Ophelia/Mo Hyun), whose terrible fate and mental torment he is largely responsible for....

There's a HUGE price to pay for Hamlet to get his revenge in the end - oh my! I do hope Moneyflower ends differently but - I'm not too hopeful that Kang Pil Joo's quest for revenge will succeed as he intends...

What more is there to say?

ACTING:
The acting is so good I don't know what to say. There is no way I could imagine any other actors portraying the characters than the ones cast here. I am running out of superlatives. This is really the best of the best.
As a viewer, your emotions will get a thorough workout if you have come to care for the fate of one or more of Moneyflower's characters.. This can be quite exhausting, but once having become involved and interested in the characters, you will love, hate, despise, sympathise, pity the characters -sometimes within the space of a single scene you will go from wishing them dead to a form of sympathy and pity...

Having just finished the last of the episodes I'm still completely bowled over by this drama.
Most impressive in addition to the amazing plot is the acting - honestly I don't think I can praise this acting ensemble enough! I wish I knew how and where Korean actors learn their craft. I'm so curious as to how they manage to express so many conflicting emotions with their facial expressions and eyes.

I want to especially mention Lee Mi Sook - I was terribly prejudiced against her because of her surgically altered looks. But although I am deeply, deeply disturbed by her looks and saddened by what she has done to her face to make it look so alien and artificial, her performance as Jung Mal Ran has really impressed me and won me over. She really is a good actress and manages to convey emotions very well despite the fact that her face is very masklike. It is a shame to think what level of expressiveness she might have still had at her disposal had she allowed her features to age naturally and her face to be less frozen...

The three younger actors playing the central trio of Kang Pil Jo, Jung Cheon Boo and Na Mo Hyun were also exceptional. Just perfect. Fans of Jang Hyuk will get exactly what they have come to expect from this actor: a perfectly nuanced performance depicting a complex character's emotions, making the viewer empathise so much with his painful past experiences that shaped Kang Pil Jos's motivations for his actions in this drama. There are lots of scenes with Lee Mi Sook where the two almost set the screen on fire with their unusual, uncomfortable, erotic chemistry! (Best have a fire extinguisher at the ready!) The intimacy is almost unbearable to watch sometimes.

The young couple Jung Cheon Boo and Na Mo Hyun are written as extremely complex, well rounded characters with some major character growth and development that both actors show beautifully. I particularly LOVED Na Mo Hyun - this is one of the most satisfying female characters I have come across in KDrama so far! Do not be fooled or put off by her happy-go-lucky naivete in the first few episodes! She undergoes some major changes that are deeply satisfying to watch esp. as a female viewer!

Leia Mais

Very violent but some intriguing storylines

Viewers intending to watch this show should be aware that it is extremely violent, gory and depicts shocking levels of physical violence.

It is a mystery to me how such graphic violence can be rated as suitable for viewers from the age of 15 in S Korea!

Oddly enough, harmful objects such as the blade of a knife are blurred so us viewers aren't exposed to the shocking sight of a bare blade (?!) -- but seeing a killer smashing in the heads of their victims, people mindlessly kicking and bashing people (usually WOMEN) to a bloody pulp while they are lying on the floor begging for their lives (and they are NEVER ever trying to defend themselves, kick and scream and shout and cry or hit back) is shown at length and in detail...

I am really starting to hate this violence trope in Kdramas - specifically in crime/police thrillers...

I watched this show for Jang Hyuk and the acting was good (no surprise there!) but I was disgusted by the gore and violence. I liked the more humane side stories, when the police discover the scandalous exploitation of the poor, homeless, mentally-ill and help those victims.
Those storylines were very well-portrayed and I would have liked it if they had focused more on psychological insights to the characters (i.e. Moo Jin Hyuk's marriage before his wife was killed, his grief process, the father-son-relationship, Kang Kwon Joo's pursuit of her father's killer, her struggles/grief and determination to right past wrongs...) - but I guess this is just not that kind of show.

Leia Mais

Jang Hyuk - From action hero to 'Rear Window'... (?)

I enjoy this drama immensely. Not only for the obvious reason of watching Jang Hyuk but also because of the two female detectives who are more competent, less submissive, helpless and docile than females are usually portrayed in Kdrama world.
Watching Jang Hyuk - who is known as an action man - playing a character who is physically incapacitated in more than one way and forced to sit still and immobile in a wheelchair for the first couple of episodes is a revelation!

The early scenes with profiler Oh Hyun Jae in his hideout instructing the young female rookie detective were amazing and demonstrated what a brilliant actor Jang Hyuk is - because I was never not completely mesmerised by his performance and wanting to find out what Oh Hyun Jae was going to do or plan next.
The actor must have relished this chance to play against type as it is very much the complete opposite of what he is usually asked to play (at least in the first few episodes...)

Leia Mais

Amazing cinematography!

I find some of the reviews here really really harsh! I agree that the plot is unnecessarily convoluted and confusing and I did not much care for the mystery element of the story. However, this is a solid, entertaining show with amazing production values and a highly unusual setting. I'm surprised no one mentioned the beautiful cinematography, so far! The images of the mountain, the forests, and those sweeping (drone?) shots zooming up those moutain ravines or following a convoy of fire trucks in the night.... Those shots were amazing! The shots of the forest fire were also brilliantly done, everything looked so real, it was really suspenseful watching the rangers working in such a dangerous environment.
It all looked very real and it must have been a difficult, exhausting shoot for the actors - all of whom I really admired!

As other reviewers have mentioned, the real star of this show is nature and the beautiful scenery where the show is set. If you like this sort of thing, you'll enjoy the show. If you're main interst is following a riveting who-dunnit thriller/murder storyline this show might leave you a bit disappointed...

Leia Mais