Amensalism (2020)

I'm all for enigmatic, metaphorical dramas where you're never entirely sure what's happening. Hey I was one of the few people who loved A Piece of Your Mind and I still think that Someday or One Day was this year's best drama (and one of the best ever made).

So with a title of 'Amensalism' and an intriguing premise involving death dreams, I decided to overlook the terrible acting of Prince and tune in. It started off okay with a kind of dreamy and ambiguous tone. Prince was... actually even worse than usual, which I didn't think was possible... but it was interesting enough to get me through the first few episodes.

Unfortunately, overall, the show is a thematic mess and the plot is even worse. Having watched to the end, I honestly couldn't tell you what it was even about. A huge part of the plot was taken up with a conspiracy completely unrelated to the male lead's dreams or his near death experience. I squinted and cocked my head sideways but still couldn't see how 'Amensalism' factored into any of the relationships depicted.

Worse than that, the show undermined its own mythology more than once for head-scratching "twists" that the show could have done without. It also assassinated one character very badly and then expected both the other characters and the audience to forgive her the next episode. In the end, it came down squarely on the side of a standard predestined romance with a crime thriller complication.

Overall, Amensalism was an unfocused mess and I don't recommend it.

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