Taxi Driver 2 (2023)

A banger season 2!

For those of you who have not watched this drama is missing out big time!!!! A webtoon adaptation, this one's a brilliant sequel to the awesome Season 1. An amazing cast, great harmony amongst them with details pertaining to each character's individual growth as well as screen time, it gives justice not only to the perpetrators but also to each actor and a message to each one of us. With the highest ratings in this timeslot this year, surpassing their own rating history from S1, this one is a must watch. Great OST this time as well. Following up to the episodes, although the first few episodes kinda were slow-burn, the latter half initially picked up their own awesomeness and delivered promising end as well to all the sub plots cum individual cases. Loved it throughout.

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a mediocre watch at its best & painful at its worst

How this drama went from being a dark and violent action thriller with cases that would either make you furious or leave you heartbroken in season 1 to this lame attempt at the same plot is unfortunate!

Coming from someone who, when presented with anything that is centred around vigilante justice, will devour it up, this season was a huge miss and it physically hurts me to say this.
In season 1, you could connect to the deluxe taxi team members and understand where they were coming from- each one of them had been wronged and were carrying unresolved trauma from the past, they had stories to tell and justice to get.
Even the other cases depicted were often so raw and so brutal that it sometimes got overwhelming but then that was the essence of this drama. It made you question at times what exactly was the right thing to do.

This season however had none of that. It was considerably less violent and dark and the cases- that very much had the potential to be brutal and tug at your heart strings and make you feel something- were presented in a very lacklustre manner. And what were those punishments? did you see what that guy was doing to the kids? how does taking his wealth away do anything?

The major flaw was the weaker writing this time around. Our heroes for justice had it too easy throughout the show and the villain despite having a lot more power were always one step behind. It was caricature-ish at times which I think was intended with some over the top performances but yeah didn’t work for me.

More often than not I can take my brain out and set it aside for some mindless entertainment but for that I must love the main characters, unfortunately there was no chemistry among the team members - nothing,zilch- I felt nothing for them and couldn’t be more bothered about who got hurt or even which actor played whom except for maybe kim do gi (who doesn’t like a good looking man?) There was no character development whatsoever- could very well have had machines doing their jobs!At least one of them should have had an individual arc or maybe could have introduced a new character who they end up taking under their wing.

One of the bits that annoyed me was the comedy if you could call it that- the two car guys were essentially there for some slapstick comedy to lighten the mood but boy did it not work! I would often find myself cringe at their lame attempts.

They couldn’t even make me hate the bad guys. Embarrassed to say it out loud but I was so done with the good guys always getting their way that I found myself rooting for the villain- like please for once be smart and don’t do the dumbest and most predictable shit ever but I guess they didn’t think of me as someone powerful enough to listen to and well see whose loss it was!

Also, do these writers know that it is okay to maintain an aura of secrecy around a new character and not letting the audience know about their true intentions? Make us doubt if they actually are the bad guy for once! I am so done with those characters sticking out like a sore thumb while pretending to be normal and this is also both the actor’s and director’s fault. How about introducing a new character who doesn’t scream I am a foe for once?

The product placement was still very much in your face - someone please take notes from our one dollar lawyer- but the prosecutor not being a part of this show spared me from that stick balm thing to look refreshed.
Coming to that I missed her here, not that her character wasn’t pretty bland and annoying at times but her joining the deluxe taxi team was something to look forward to and I wish they had cast someone else for that role given the original actress had prior arrangements.

They left too much unresolved for the last 2 episodes. If you’re going for a redemption arch do it sooner and not squeeze it in the last episode.I really liked the cameo in the last episode, that woman has such great screen presence that she lit up the screen and I for once wasn’t tempted to shut down my laptop.

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