A Very Lucky Day (2023)

Genius & Missteps

'A Bloody Lucky Day' initially captivated me with its promising premise and a cast brimming with potential. The portrayals by Oh Taek and Yoo Yeon Seok were particularly commendable, showcasing a range of emotions – fear, love, despair, and hope – with admirable finesse. Lee Jung Eun, embodying the anguish and vengeance-driven mother Hwang Soon Kyu, added depth to a story woven around loss and revenge.

Despite the strong performances, the series, unfortunately, falls short of its potential, primarily due to a script that seems stretched beyond its natural conclusion for monetary gains. This dilution of narrative intensity becomes glaringly apparent in the conclusion of episode six, which, in my view, would have been a more fitting end to the story.

The series' pivotal moment – the confrontation between Hwang Soon Kyu and the antagonist Geum Hyuk Soo – was disappointingly executed. The build-up to this moment, laden with Soon Kyu's grief and hunger for vengeance, loses its impact in a sequence that felt more like a convenient plot device than a logical progression of the story. This anticlimactic resolution contradicts the strength and determination previously shown by Soon Kyu, reducing the character's journey to a mere footnote.

Additionally, the series introduces peripheral characters that serve little more than cannon fodder, whose sole purpose seems to be their inevitable demise at the hands of the killer. A particularly frustrating instance of this occurs during a sequence involving the taxi sending out an emergency signal. Two characters, instead of sensibly calling the police upon noticing the distress signal, choose to recklessly follow the taxi. This decision, devoid of any logical reasoning, inevitably leads to their swift and somewhat predictable deaths. Their inclusion and quick exit from the plot, while infuriating, at least doesn't prolong their senseless storyline. It was a moment where one might fleetingly think they almost deserved their fate for such blatant disregard for their own safety.

Despite these criticisms, the series does manage to redeem itself in parts, especially with the clever subplots involving the killer, which added a layer of intrigue and suspense. Yet, the final moments, involving an underdeveloped and ineffective detective character and a somewhat clichéd intervention by Taxi driver Lee Sung Min's son, were underwhelming, to say the least.

The soundtrack, another aspect where the series could have shined, was lackluster and failed to complement the tone of the series effectively.

In conclusion, 'A Bloody Lucky Day' is a series with a strong start and commendable performances that, unfortunately, gets ensnared in its own narrative complexities and commercial constraints. It's a series that could have been a masterful exploration of grief and retribution but ends up as a mere reflection of what might have been

Lees verder