The Devil (2023)

Sort of tricked into somewhat completing the series

The series had a good introduction and followed up well on the suspense, until around halfway through at episode seven. Then it abruptly just nose-dived from the initial uncovering of the truth, which was pretty lackluster despite half of the episodes leading up to it. It continually only worsened with characters making odd decisions that made no sense. It's hard to describe but they spent so much time building up the ML/FL, only to have them look like blubbering fools for the rest of the series. The further diving into the truth also begins to develop large plot holes that weren't pieced together very well. I found myself becoming more and more disinterested with each latter episode and ended up not liking any of the characters at all. Because seven episodes had already been invested, the rest of the episodes were sped through with aggressive skipping just to get to the full unraveling of the mysteries (with exception of a few historical flashback moments). The slight twist in the end would have made the plot halfway decent if it weren't for all of the items mentioned above.

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The world-building that lacks the necessary detail.

I knew what I would get, but I honestly wanted to love it. I adored the first two episodes and thought they were as strong as an introduction can get. And then it led to nowhere.

The idea was there, it just lacked the necessary detail to make it truly engaging for me. Too many questions were left hanging, the folklore was barely touched, the backgrounds of the characters were shallow, the motivations were not set up that well. I don’t even want to talk about the villain on the human side, because that was some next level of clownery.

Loved the “first act” - the introduction to the characters, the initial set up for the story, the questions that were asked that we were supposed to get the answers for as the drama progressed. All that got me curious - I wanted to know more. The variety of the characters was perfection - we had the hardworking and strong female lead who just tried to survive, the scholar that tried to solved the decades long mystery and the sceptic detective who tried to make sense of all the unexplainable. And behind it all an evil force that seems untouchable and always one step ahead.

Sadly, the second act was just too damn long and not written well enough. Some stories were just dropped without proper explanation, how the ghosts work and what can be done with them was not explained either. A 30 second google search can give me more information about all the types of ghosts that were introduced. They just never explored any ideas they introduced.

What's more, I was just too frustrated with the characters. It took them too long to learn from their mistakes and their actions often were simply stupid. Hae Sang was unnecessarily cryptic refusing to explain anything to anyone until it was too late, San Young was all over the place it’s actually hard to even describe her character, and while Hong Sae was fun to watch, for 80% of the show he seemed out of place for the story written - his bits felt more like crime rom-com than supernatural thriller.

For a story like that to work, you need one of the two: rich and interesting folklore or great teamwork. Revenant had none of these. As I already said, the whole world buildup was weak. As for the scooby gang - we had to wait way too long for them to actually start working together, and when they did… the drama ended.

All that said, I adored the casting for the leads. It was refreshing. Oh Jung Se in a serious and stoic role is what we needed. I'm far more used to seeing him in more animated and exaggerated characters, so this was a fun new take.

Hong Kyung going from Oh Beom Seok to Lee Hong Sae is something I thought I would struggle with, but surprisingly, I had no issue putting my hate behind me and enjoying his character in Revenant.

Park Ji Young as a "weak" character was also so weird, but so good! Kim Tae Ri's role was not surprising since her career is short enough to not be type cast yet. She was also smart enough to take roles that are rather different from each other since day one. Loved the duality of her performances even if I was not obsessed with how Gu San Young was written. Kim Tae Ri just simply never dissapoints with her acting.

The production was great. Can we all collectively appreciate the lack of black eyes as the indicator someone is possessed? No cheap snapchat filters for ghosts. Amazing use of light and shadows, good special effects - it never felt like they overused them. Even the supernatural events felt realistic and grounded in the presented picture.

I guess I just have a love-hate relationship with Kim Eun Hee’s writing. I am obsessed with how creative her ideas are, but I’m also pissed at how she cannot truly execute them in a correct way. I feel like she needs someone who will ask her questions about her stories. How does it work? Why did the character act this way? What was the origin of that issue? How does this premise work into the world you built? Answers that will fill the framework of the idea she has.

Overall, was it a fun watch? Sure. Did it have a lot of issues I just cannot see passed? Yes. I knew the directing would be my style based on the people behind it, I knew I would have specific issues with the writing based on the past works of the writer. I knew I would love the acting and I knew I would overall enjoy it, but I would not be amazed. And that’s exactly what I’ve got.

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Almost gave up on this...

Was struggling with this one for a bit and put it on hiatus twice. Only managed to finish it 2 mths after i started watching it. In the beginning this gave me "The Guest" vibes, which i disliked because that storyline just went around in circles for me. And things were a little draggy and predictable with the entire "main characters with parent issues" theme, which i must say seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of Asian dramas.

It wasn't until episode 7 where things got more interesting with the plot. What seemed predictable wasn't, and while i disliked some parts which were over-dramatic (too much screaming...) overall i liked the message that this drama was trying to put across. Which was to make the audience rethink whether it is better to be dead than alive in suffering.

The ending scene was perfect imo and i thoroughly enjoyed the acting from the three main characters. Although I do wish the Professor's character was written to be a bit more eccentric and less whiney rich boy laden with the guilt of his forefathers. His relationship with Ujin could've been expanded a lot more.

I would recommend watching this if you are someone with quite a bit of patience and can get all the way to ep 7...

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I enjoyed it but….

There were some things that really, really, really bothered me about the show one was that he knew she was possessed by spirit an evil spirit. This evil spirit wanted to kill people, she would have black outs and the spirit would take over and kill people, yet he still allowed her to wander around and not try to keep a better eye on her. The other thing is that he would tell her not to become involved or more involved and kept trying to like tell her to go away. If it were me, I’d have her sleeping at my house to keep an eye on her, and to try and keep the evil spirit from having its way, and going out in committing murder not telling her to go away and not become involved lol. Also he could see the impact he was having on the female his mental well-being, so you think that he would not want her to be alone either. So I just didn’t understand his thinking at all.

Another thing that really bothered me, was about the ghost companion because he made a comment at some point about the male lead being the reason that he’s the way he was and I was like it’s not his fault that his grandma killed you and it’s not his fault that you were a greedy and coveted in what the ML had. So it was never explained really to me why that kid thought he was the reason that he wants the way he was.

Also, when the male he was explaining to the female lead about how ghosts are attracted to people who struggle with the more negative emotions, like guilt, anger insecurity, depression, jealousy etc. this didn’t make sense to me because I was like everybody feels this way to some degree or another. When his ghost companion sacrifice himself on the bridge, when the male lead devastated, having learned his family’s involvement in creating this evil spirit. I’m like anyone feel devastated and guilt ridden in those circumstances. Although I did find it hilariously funny when his ghost companion was thrown over the side of the bridge, I would’ve like it to have had it explain where they took him.

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Before getting into the review, I would first like to commend Kim Taeri's acting. She is simply phenomenal in portraying essentially 2 different characters. This is my first time watching her (have been meaning to get around to watching The handmaiden...) and I'm simply blown away.

Now on to the plot, I would say it's pretty innovative of the writer to craft a horror story based on traditional Korean folklore. I'm not Korean, and I found it quite educational to learn about the different traditions and how they compare with the traditions from my culture. With that being said, I'm not quite a fan of how plot-driven this show is - it resulted in a lack of character development for everyone except the FL and ML. This series is only 12 episodes; 4 less than the usual length of a standard Kdrama but the showrunners still decided to be ambitious and squeezed in other minor sub plots in the first few episodes. Some of them ended up being rushed through and inadequately explained (the case involving parents abusing and keeping the existence of their daughter for no reason). it also resulted in the minor characters being severely under-developed. For instance, it was never explained why haesang's grandma was so obsessed with becoming rich. She was never shown using her money and spent her days reading books. And godd, don't get me started on Hongsae. He had a RBF throughout the show and an attitude worse than a teenager going through puberty. I would have rather he died instead of Munchun. Oh, and Sanyeong's mother as well. I guessed she was supposed to be portrayed as a weakling so the audience would feel more for Sanyeong's suffering but lord it was overdone. I ended up hoping she would just kick the bucket because she was not helping at all. It was never really explained why she ended up the way she is - only briefly implied that she might have been traumatised from having a miscarriage and then finding out her mother died right after. But I wished she would have been written in a more sympathetic way.

Honestly, I would have given this series a 9 if not for the ending. The acting is great all around (even for the poorly developed side characters, their actors did all they could) and the cinematography, directing and sound design were great. But the ending... to me it came on too strongly as some anti-suicide PSA peppered with cliches of how important it is to love yourself. With the context of Korea's high suicide rate, I guess this makes sense but I can't help but feel like korean audiences would see through the hypocrisy. The only reason why Sanyeong was able to "love herself" and "want to live" was because she was finally free of her capitalistic burdens. With her huge inheritance from her dead grandma and father, she was free to finally do whatever she wanted to do in life. And all of this would not have been possible without the help of the ghost, who gave her the riches through exploiting her weakness and killing those she hated. Without the ghost, she would have still been stuck doing manual labour part time jobs! In fact, she would be blind, poor, and stuck with her lousy-ass mother. Hell, without the ghost, she would not even have known of the existence of her father and grandmother, and criminals such as Haesang's grandma and the voice phishing guys would still be alive. So that whole spiel about preventing the ghost from exploiting her weakness seems through loving herself more while trying to kill the very thing that enabled you to remove the weakness from your life seems very ungrateful and hypocritical.

The other reviews for this show are quite positive and I think I'm the only who gets the "ick" from the cheery ass ending. Oh well, but its on par of the course for kdramas which usually start off strong but end poorly. I do still think this is worth a watch though, especially if you're a Kim Taeri fan.

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Jealousy and greed attract very unwanted attention.

I thoroughly enjoyed this twisty-turny story, with not a few butt clenching moments ;D
Oh Jung-se really suited the role of Yeom Hae-sang and the more I see of him in such diverse roles, the more I love him (his autistic character in It's OK to Not Be OK is still a favourite).
Kim Tae-ri is always good and I loved Hong-kyung as the young Detective.
The entire cast were actually very good and there are several well known supporting actors I always enjoy watching, which helps!
The characters' journeys to discovering the mysteries surrounding an academic's investigation into crimes with a supernatural base and spanning many decades, are gripping.
There are shocks, tragedies and a very dark and brutal catalyst to everything that happens subsequent.
There are, unfortunately, also the usual issues of characters not listening, acting alone, making decisions for others and just not communicating in instances when 99.999999% recurring, of people would.
It's a drama and the story needs that to move forward I suppose, but the writer could have thought of more engaging alternatives in those instances.
I also found Kim Tae-ri's character's attitude towards Oh Jung-se's, later in the drama, to be utterly ridiculous, given everything they'd gone through upto that point and given her own predicament.
I wasn't scared by this drama (although it takes a lot to frighten me), but, as said, it did have its moments.
Cases of people that are already wicked or bad in some way, attracting angry/hungry spirits to them, seems to be becoming a trope (that's not a complaint).
There are instances of child abuse, however, so anyone for whom that's a trigger, needs to be forewarned.
I probably wouldn't watch it again, but am by no means sorry I picked it.
It is worth watching.

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A kdrama with a horror twist is one of my favorite genres of Korean tv and with a show starring Kim Tae Ri, that’s written by the same writer who gave us shows like Kingdom and Signal, I couldn’t help but be excited about Revenant.

The series is mostly a murder mystery that intertwines evil spirits and other horrors into its narrative, which is not so different from many other horror-kdrama I’ve watched. The plot builds the tension within the narrative rather well, and each episode usually ends in such a way that you have to see the next one as soon as possible, but it does have a bit of a pacing issue.

The story works more like a mystery than a horror story in my opinion, but the evil spirits and the Korean folklore about such spirits and shamanism is used in an interesting (but perhaps familiar way if you’ve watched many such dramas) as such a tool to communicate moral questions about society, as well as the weaknesses and behavior of the characters to the viewer, like horror stories of this nature do. That’s the purpose of the horror.

For a while it seems like the story goes in a few too many circles with the main characters’ quest to get rid of these evil spirit, and the narrative loses a bit of momentum towards the middle. There is a lot of repetition and too little progress whether it was in the story itself or the characters own personal arcs, even though we are always learning more and more about these evil spirits and the past that explains the present. But towards the end the story does pick up the pace again.

There are plenty of great, interesting characters here, and of course Kim Tae Ri, like the other actors, is doing a great job in their roles but the drama struggles to give all of them time to tell their story while managing to keep a good flow to the story. There were almost too many character and it breaks the flow. The story affects the characters, but the characters don’t affect the story too much. Therefor the story overwhelms the character a little.

In some instances the narrative does seem to drag things out just because they need to fill the time with something. I’ve seen this screenwriter do horror very well before, as well as murder mystery, but mixing the two together seems to have been a struggle at times. Perhaps if the drama had been allowed to be longer, it wouldn’t have felt like it was holding too many balls in the air at once and allowed the story to breath a bit more or add more things in so it felt less repetitive.

An exciting story that allows the story to unfold through the characters and their actions, but ends up dragging them a bit unhesitatingly forward for the sake of the narrative. There is always something hooking you within each episode, but the build up between each cliff-hanger could have been better in some places. It makes the narrative a bit uneven, and I personally would have liked more horror. But overall a very entertaining watch despite the hiccups in the narrative structure.

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"귀신보다 더 무서운 건 사람이에요."

What could be better than Kim Tae Ri fighting demons? Kim Tae Ri, Oh Jeong Se and Hong Gyeong fighting demons. A truly stellar invincible cast.

🔸I feel the beginning could be much more exciting. The story could play with the viewer's expectations regarding the existence of supernatural powers. You could throw in evidence for both humans' and spirits' involvement in a felony, and let the detectives battle with professor Yeom. The middle part is also pretty monotonous and doesn't bear much significance. There is no cat-and-mouse play, no riddles either.

🔸Yet I still appreciate the emotionally and visually beautiful ending. A sneak into the ancient Korean rituals and beliefs made me understand better why many elders believe in spirits and what traditions do they follow.

If you are about to watch Revenant, you might've picked it because of the cast, but be prepared for the thick layer of folklore and many grafic suicides as well.

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Good Enough

Korean Drama " Revenant" is a horror mystery thriller with some folklore elements.

The movie is a psychological thriller with a mystery that is slowly unfold and an intriguing story. And though the start of the drama is slow and kind of boring, the drama picks up later on and the story gets more and more dark as it progress.

The performances were pretty great and the chemistry between the three main ones was enjoyable. The characters were pretty intriguing as well and kept things interesting even when the main plot got druggy.

Finally, the CGI was pretty great and enjoyable enough. The ending was also masterfully handled and just right for the story.

So, overall, seven out of ten.

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Intriguing enough to keep going...

Story is interesting but you can't ignore dumb decisions made by leads. First 10 ep were good, a solid 8/9 then one particular moment changes the perspective of how you see things and start questioning things. Then not so perfect story falls apart and you can't enjoy it quite well. Major spoilers ahead!!!
Now talking about the moment. Gu sanyeong was inside line of prohibition on a rainy day. Then evil spirit threatens her to kill her mom, then she freaks out and goes out to save her.
Another dumbest of them all moment goes to FL's mother when she listens to evil spirit and goes to kill yeom haesang. Then comes back and leaks info about thumb search and asks to spare her daughter. Lets assume that her brain got fried after all the shock. That way its better. Other minute things, maybe they used to give certain thrill to audience. Yeom haesang, the one who has most knowledge about ghosts among those alive uses subway, where he has no control over doors. When older detective got killed, he says dont open door until I get there.
Plotholes: 1) the very purpose of a horror story is how to contain/get rid of evil spirit. They should be clear and fault proof. In this there are 2 methods. One method, which includes 5 objects and name is stupid no matter how I see it. Evil spirit needs 5 objects to take over human body, and leads need them to seal evil spirit. This way spirit wins everytime, the moment they found objects it takes over their soul, and if they get objects/name wrong they die.
2) they found the skeltal remains/5th object, spirit didn't touch this object yet, but still took over Gu sanyeong. Existence and someone finding out the objects is enough?
Despite all the complaints I enjoyed most part of the drama. Acting is great and background score is refreshing. Na byeong hui (evil grandmother) is the only consistent thing lol. She's trash alive or dead. One thing for sure is evil spirit is genius and other characters are dumb.

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It’s good but something is missing

I liked this drama. I really did. But something was missing for me. Usually horror stories bring a sort of dopamine rush which was not there for this drama. The story was interesting and several plot lines were only revealed at the end. The pacing of the drama was good too and none of the episodes felt draggy or boring.
The acting of the characters whilst great, I could not be completely engaged. I think this was a stylistic choice by the author who decided to write a plot driven story not a a character driven story. This is why many characters save for the female lead felt very one note for example the mom was supper annoying that’s it, the grandmother was super evil that’s it. The back story of the ghost was tragic but somehow when it was being played out the scene did not land.
Having said that there was a fairy talesque vibe to the story. The folk practices were sometimes fun to watch and the cinematography was awesome. We usually don’t talk enough about the technical aspects of drama making, but to me the most fabulous job was done by the camera/ cinematography crew. There was a very solid technical team behind it. And I wish more people realised how great the people behind the camera could be.

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a captivating drama that leaves a lasting impact

Revenant is an electrifying Kdrama featuring the incredible duo of Kim Tae Ri and Oh Jung Se as the lead actors. As a devoted fan of both these actors, I was ecstatic to witness their remarkable performances once again. Kim Tae Ri's acting has been consistently exceptional. Her portrayal of the FL in Revenant is simply awe-inspiring, displaying a seamless blend of natural talent and skill. Oh Jung Se, a truly outstanding actor, brings his unparalleled charisma to the ML role. His performance is captivating, effortlessly drawing viewers into the story with every scene he's in.

Revenant kicks off with a death on a dark and stormy night, setting the stage for a thrilling horror tale. The drama cleverly avoids excessive exposition, opting instead to show rather than tell, enhancing the suspense and thrill of the story. Drawing inspiration from Korean folklore, Revenant weaves a haunting narrative that keeps the audience engaged and curious to uncover the truth.

The suspenseful jumpscares, mixed with moments of comedy and creepy vibes, create an enthralling atmosphere that keeps viewers at the edge of their seats throughout the 12 episodes. The plot is masterfully crafted, with layers of lies and real-life experiences that leave you yearning to know the answers to the mysteries presented.

The director's vision and the writer's talent shine through in every aspect of Revenant, creating a captivating drama that leaves a lasting impact. Although there are moments where information is conveniently placed, the impeccable presentation of the story more than makes up for it. It's a must-watch for anyone who enjoys suspense thrillers with a touch of the supernatural.

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