A Shop for Killers (2024)

Worth watching for the characters.

Listen up, jeong jian. (*opinions are bound to be biased and subjective.)

A Shop for Killers is a character driven action thriller with a melodramatic tone. It is a non-linear narrative, focusing on a slow reveal of intentions, secrets and character. I find the premise very dark, where basically multiple groups of middle aged men, who are professional trained killers, are hunting down a seven/twenty one year old orphan girl to kill her.

I loved the part where the show heavily focuses on the characters and their backstories, immersing us in their experience, hardships and dilemmas. The pace slows down and it feels like a gloomy melodrama. I love how there are minimal cringy dialogues and scenes(except for a couple characters) and the lack of much dialogue in the flashbacks really leaves the viewers to put themselves in the characters shoes and guess what they're feeling, instead of endless monologues where the characters just put all their thoughts out and make cringe expressions. *cough* moving *cough* I LOVED the backstories of both jian and jinman and especially related to young and mute jian.

What do you do when there are trained killers after you, parked up in front of your glass wall, ready to shoot you in the head the moment you're in sight? You crawl past that wall and act surprised when they shoot you.

And what do you do if multiple drones surround your windows and shoot at you non-stop? You stand in the centre of the room, frowning and act surprised when your window is blown up.

And what the heck do you do when someone tells you that your friend who's right next to you killed your uncle and there's proof of it in the computer right next to you? You go to that computer, put your finger over the mouse and stop. Don't open that file. Instead, tell that person to leave and go help your friend up. And act surprised when that "friend" suddenly ties you up and tells you how they killed your uncle and are going to kill you next. For f*ckʼs sake, jeong jian!

I got attached to all characters except for jian. I was excited to see jian in the first couple episodes, where she's shown as this badass girl who knows how to defend herself. She even fights off some boys s*xually assaulting her friend alone. But when she has to actually defend herself, she's brainless and starts crying. It happens all the time. The "strong female lead" is Always a facade to attract viewers. With time you'll know that it is every other female lead, the one who makes the stupidest decisions, the FL that's been written, played and seen a hundred million times. Jian is no different, and finding this out was very disappointing. Poor writing.

Many plot holes and illogical things like jinman taking his shirt or whatever it was off to give it to minhye when right behind them are a bunch of clothes hanging. Jian & Co. doing stupid shit left and right, not to mention the ending where the main antagonist hasn't even been seen in a while, less alone defeated.

The antagonist is... very dark. He kind of creeps me out, which means the writing and acting was good. Something about a man who is a sadist, who likes inflicting pain on others and simply loves to kill is very disturbing to me. I hope there's a season 2.

i love the character of jinman. The only time i felt he acted out of character was when he just listened to a recording of jian and easily took his own life, which too turned out was a scheme of his. Jinman truly thinks before he moves and he moves fast. And i love him for that. All the other characters like minhye, pasin and honda were very beautifully written and acted. 10/10 for all these characters and their stories.

OST... was there any? I do remember hearing some drums so that was good.

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