Mouse (2021)

The reveals are worth it even for someone who had read a significant spoiler prior

I've watched a few of the same themed Korean dramas. At no point do I feel Lee Seung Gi is acting a part. Where I often commend actors at the exact moment that I am moved by their interpretation, Lee Seung Gi's acting is immersive that I forget it's a drama. The feeling of it being very natural is primarily the reason I want to give the show the highest rating.

I've watched a few detective-themed Korean shows as well and I must say Mouse has the best utilized team. There is always a character of a cool chief, the slightly clueless but useful sidekick, the rat, the dependable detective, the rival, the ex partners, the detective that crosses between good and evil, with compelling reason. The cast are memorable and even though they fulfill the said character roles, their acting doesn't lean on cliché exaggeration.

Onto the more faulty parts -

The storytelling comes to an abrupt disconnect in the middle. From a cohesive narrative episode by episode it's as though an unrelated arc is suddenly introduced. That wouldn't have been a problem if presented more smoothly.

I am also not a fan of the scientific fiction but I give merit to the idea. I'll leave the morality discussion to those who are interested.

From the reviews across platforms, I've noticed the mother isn't criticized enough. She is more concerned about assuming the sin for the son rather than feeling sorry for the circumstance she maneuvers that allows him, them, to turn out the way they have. The pd lady is another character with useless lines. Aside from her program being too convenient for the plot, she poses herself as a significant character with moments of taunting the "father of all psychopaths" in the show but actually doesn't do sht -- and I'm glad it is other two characters who actually are given essential parts in the end in relation to the main character.

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Thrilling, brilliant, loved it, but still left me wanting a little more…

I’ll start off by saying that I absolutely loved Mouse and I can confidently say that it’s one of the best murder mystery/thriller dramas I’ve seen. Even though I picked up on the clues very early on in the second episode, I was still completely left in the dark as to how the story would unfold and what would happen to our main characters down the road. The writers and director consistently kept me engaged and anticipating throughout the entire show, and I never really felt that the plot line was being “dragged” as is unfortunately the case with so many dramas. And of course, Lee SeunGi and Lee HeeJoon were excellent in their roles, and by the end I was completely in love with both of their characters.

Mouse is DEFINITELY worth the watch. And that’s why I’m giving it a 9.5/10.

But that being said… there are a few things that I felt were lacking, or had more potential than was actually realized. I’ve managed to narrow it down to two factors. One*, there were certain characters that I felt were too one-dimensional and could’ve benefited from more complexity and character development. And two**, I would’ve loved to see the social, political, and particularly ethical themes surrounding the treatment of psychopaths explored with more depth.

* In the end, Mouse presented us with as close of a “good ending” we could have for the victims/bereaved families as possible, but I still wasn’t quite left satisfied. More specifically, I didn’t feel there was the right amount of closure for the side characters’ stories; NOT because things were left unanswered but because their story was never properly explained in the first place. I was constantly wanting to get an inside look into the psyche of characters like BongYi… what thoughts were going through her head, how did she work through her internal struggles? We were given her backstory and an explanation of how her trauma affected her in the present day, but not much beyond that. She had so much more potential for character development towards the end but instead she became a helpless little girl, for lack of a better term. And what about characters like Detective Park DuSeok? He was just a dude who lost his kids to the Head Hunter, but I felt there could’ve been more insight on how he struggled to reconcile his desire for revenge with his own moral compass. And Choi HongJoo - who became a key character - I felt like I only ever got a stranger’s perspective on her life, rather than being persuaded of her conviction. I guess you could say that besides the two MCs everyone else felt like a prop to the storyline. Even if I liked them, and even if they served their purpose.

** I understand that the main objective of Mouse is to thrill you, keep you on the edge of your seat, maybe creep you out a little lol. And this objective was well accomplished. But for all the talk of the psychopath gene and the introduction of the “abort psychopathic fetuses” bill / debate between the two political parties that was shown in the beginning, there was hardly any dialogue that truly laid the topic out in full. In the end it was just an agenda that provided a motivation for the puppeteers in the story; one that really only came into play within the last episode or so too. Just imagine if the script also played with this theme? How psychopaths affect society, how society affects psychopaths… The ethical issue of preventing a life that also has a 1% chance of being a genius. I’m also surprised that there was never a mention about sociopaths vs psychopaths. Or the possibility of psychopaths existing without causing physical harm to anyone. Especially since they kept mentioning how a “trigger” was necessary to start a psychopath’s killing spree… What if that trigger never occurred?

Again, I just wanted more dimension beyond ‘catch the killer and make him pay’. As entertaining as it was without it, I believe Mouse could’ve reached an even higher class if the two things I mentioned were included. But oh well! The cast and crew still deserve plenty of praise!

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It was so good until the ending eps!

This is a completely fictional plot but with some realism: psychopathic genes. Should we abort babies with this gene or let them live? This ignores the nature vs nurture concept.

The beginning episodes starts off so strong, and so melo. We have a bunch of sad characters with a sad lore in this drama. I liked when it was focused on one case: the Moojin Serial Cases. I was into it, it was a little over the top alongside the broadcasting news show, but it was intense.

Then, it went downhill from there, when the writers started adding other cases and info on top, and the lines start to blur. There started being more harder to believe scenes. The show does a lot of cutting, and then going back to the scene later on to reveal a bigger picture, which is an unique directing style, but can be confusing for viewers like me.

Choi Hong Joo is the most unlikeable character in this show. She's literally in everyone's business and holds all the clues, but she doesn't reveal anything.

Despite the complicated plot that went a little all over the place in the rush to the end, the cast played an pivotal role in drawing me in to keep watching. And the kid actors!! There were so many.

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THE BEST "PLOT TWIST IN THE PLOT TWIST IN THE PLOT TWIST IN THE..." DRAMA

PROS:
- Endless plot twists until the very end of the drama. A plot twist in the plot twist in the plot twist in the...
- Brave writer(s). No other writers could easily kill (important) characters in the early episodes.
- All characters have the same position. Even main leads are not that standing out.
- Super-ultra-satisfying duration. Yeah, it's 1.5 hours an episode because the story is pretty long.
- Touching anti-climax. My hearteu couldn't accept the death of kind people in the drama...
- Solid plots. There are no duration-eating sad or romance scenes.
- No overwhelming romance stuff. There's a little aspect in it, but it doesn't lead the drama to the romance genre. It stays focused on the mystery/crime/thriller genre. Still, you can ship some characters in here xD
- The whole plot can change your heart. Like, you used to hate a character, but in the end, you would love that character.

CONS:
- TAKE A NOTE! There are a thousand names you HAVE TO remember. If you can't remember it properly, you will lose the plot. I regret I didn't take a note and I have to struggle to figure out what's happening and who's who.
- It forces you to binge-watch the drama, else you would forget about what has happened in the drama.

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A maior trama que já vi

Eu fui atrás de spoiler então acabei achando algo que apontava pra quem era o assassino, entao eu fiquei encucada dizendo que não podia ser ele porque não fazia o mínimo sentido mas gente esse dorama é uma loucura??? Eu realmente não sei, você sente vontade de puxar os cabelos, de gritar. Eu me senti uma tola, idiota porque quis que o outro morresse o tempo todo e no fim ele era bom ? que tristeza e ainda mais a avó da bong yi, o padre, o go mu chi que sempre quis que fosse feliz o tempo todo, fiquei arrasada. Chorei tanto com a morte do detetive filho do presidente, ele não merecia morrer. A conexão, a rede de pessoas envolvidas tudo por causa daquela velha safada, nojenta que não tinha o que fazer e uma coisa que começou anos atrás, envolvendo o pai dele que vetou o teste de gene pra abortar bebês, o filho do headhunter. Tanta coisa, tantas pessoas que sofreram e ele ter sentimentos no final? Genial!!!! Mouse é um dos doramas mais bem feitos que já assisti e eu nem tenho palavras pra explicar.
E obviamente aplaudir de pé a atuação do seung gi nesse drama, impecável!

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Mouse came highly recommended to me after I had finished Beyond Evil. Perhaps because of this (and its stellar cast), I had incredibly high expectations for this drama. Unfortunately, the drama failed to meet those expectations.

The premise of the drama is incredibly unique, and the acting throughout is absolutely stellar. However, there was just way too much going on and too many twists it tried to take that it ended up becoming tiring. My parents, who have a hard time keeping track of characters as it was, got even more lost than I did. I think the drama could have done just as well even if it had been simplified, but instead, the second half of the drama seemed extremely dragged out and almost boring. Honestly, the last episode was stellar and they probably could have cut out 5 episodes before it and just gone there (okay, not actually, but you get the point). There are also certain cuts that are really sudden, and I kept thinking there was something wrong with my stream but it seems like that's just how it's cut.

It's a drama that started off well and ended up well, but the middle was a bit of a mish mosh to me. I'm still giving it a decent star rating because the acting really was magnificent, but unfortunately, it won't be a drama that I immediately think to recommend to others.

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Amazing casts did so well in confusing the audience from the truth

My friend and I watched this together when it was still ongoing and I still could not forget how we went crazy over every plot twist and the truth slowly revealing itself. Kinda sad how many spoilers it has now on social media platforms.

Because both of us just watched to fill in our boring/free time, we did not care how realistic it would be, nor did we mind the little details. We ended up, however, impatiently waiting for the next update. I would admit that the background story about how psychopaths are created was unrealistic, however, that was what made the plot intriguing. We mainly had our focus on guessing who the actual psychopath was, and that made us go crazy every episode. Of course, we each had someone in mind, but because of how well the actors played their roles well, we kept on getting confused and kept on switching sides. One episode hinted that this character may be it, but another would hint that it was another one. It was a series of us guessing who's what, and a big gasp at the last episode.

Overall, it was a fun ride, both of us had been kept on the edge of our seats in every cliffhanger. If you haven't been spoiled yet, this drama will sure give you a lot of goosebumps.

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Would be better as a film

I didn't think Mouse was as good as some people would say. Despite having an quite interesting plot, the execution was slow and sometimes even confusing, in a way I would wonder how some things could even make sense in the drama's universe.
However, the plot twists and the way the main revelation was "hidden" on the previous episodes were just chef's kiss – even if you had already gotten a spoiler (like me)
That being said, I would thoroughly recommend you to binge-watch it if possible in a 1.5 or even 2x speed, as you will forget what happened before if you don't watch it for a long time and also don't lose much of your time that way.
But if you don't want to watch the 20 one-and-a-half hour episodes, "Mouse: The Theatrical Cut" is a much, much better way to spend your time, as it summarises the drama.

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