Goldsofa
Wasted Potential
Fair warning.. this is gonna be an unpopular take, but here’s my two cents.The biggest flaw with the show is the story and how it progresses. The original concept for the show is good. A ruthless consigliere from Italy comes to Korea to reclaim a hidden vault of gold. The first episode is killer, and it’s what originally hooked me, but the entire plot quickly devolves into cheap thrills. The plot points are predictable and there is a complete lack of character motivation. The original character motivations that the show introduces fly out the window. There are so many character decisions that don’t make sense. The show depicts the characters to abide by a certain set of principles and suddenly those same characters renege on those same ideals. A small example if you will: Hong Cha-Yong was introduced to be greedy and with somewhat loose morals, yet she drew a hard line on violence. The moment she meets Vincenzo, violence is now suddenly justified in her eyes. In another instance, Vincenzo is shown to carefully and methodically think himself out of difficult traps. But when plot armor is needed, he suddenly becomes the dumb protagonist that barges in without a second thought.
Unfortunately, the show’s problems don’t end here...
In my eyes the most controversial aspect of the show is the comedy. It’s completely and utterly absurd. The comedy doesn’t feel natural at all. It’s as if the characters know they’re in a drama and are making gags at that fact. It’s incredibly hit or miss. I won’t lie and say nothing lands. Some of the jokes are solid and had me chuckling out loud, but out of the 20 episodes this was far and few in between. The general outline of the plot is pretty gritty and intense, and out of nowhere the comic relief kicks in and it falls flat so often. It’s incredibly jarring and pulls you out of the show immediately.
The casting is excellent. Song Joong-Gi is excellent in his role. His kinda scrawny stature had me questioning how ruthless he can appear, but he completely convinced me. A+ performance. Jeon Yeo-Bin is charming and does justice to her character. The real limitation is the writing for her character. I think she did as well as she could have given her script. Without revealing any plot points, there are side characters that had interesting potential that, unfortunately, was not realized.
Final thoughts:
At the time of me writing this review, the show is rated at 9/10. This is grossly over valued in my opinion. No chance this is the same quality as shows like Flower of Evil or Stranger. This show is best described as wasted potential. The writers went hard into slapstick comedy mixed with extremely intense crime drama, and the two genres did not mix.. at all. There were seriously good merits in sticking with either or, but the mix killed it for me. I watched this weekly so it was bearable. Not entirely sure how bingeworthy it is, but I can say I won’t be rewatching this.
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An Emphasis in All the Wrong Places
Again My Life is an excellent drama that does many things well, but falls short on a few instances. The few missteps in this drama are by no means a deal breaker, it’s great from start to finish, but these few inconsistencies held the drama back from truly being one of the best. If you’ve read this far and haven’t watched it yet, this is your cue to stop thinking about it and just watch it. If you want to skip all my positives for this show and just read my negatives, read from the line-break onwards.The premise of the story is simple, a prosecutor dies and gets the chance to come back to life at the tail end of high school. I can’t say too much more about the plot without getting into spoilers, but the description on MDL should be enough to get you interested. This show is a political drama. As of writing this review, the genre has the tags mystery and fantasy. I would say these tags are slightly misleading. The fantasy element (coming back to life) is only in the first episode; after that, there’s never even the slightest whiff of fantasy again. The mystery element is definitely there, but more so than anything, this show is political maneuvering. The prosecutor died in an attempt to bring down a corrupt politician. Now that he’s alive again, he has close to a decade to come up with a plan to put an end to the corruption. With a plot like this, the male lead is critical to the drama.
I feel like the producers of this show knew that the story would live or die on the shoulders of the lead actor. A talent like Lee Joon Gi was the only way this story would stay afloat. And that’s not a knock on the story, it’s a compliment to the acting prowess of Lee Joon Gi. I don’t know the exact number, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lee Joon Gi had 90% screen time… he’s on screen all the time. Lee Joon Gi’s acting in this drama is quite different to his more recent dramas. In Flower of Evil, he acted as a psychopath alternating between stone-cold killer and loving husband/father. In Lawless Lawyer, he portrayed a bashful and arrogant lawyer with a pretty heavy chip on his shoulder. In Again My Life, Lee Joon Gi gives a much more nuanced performance. His acting is one of a thoughtful and careful tactician. Lee Joon Gi is planning out moves years in advance, he’s setting up plays in high school that won’t make sense until after he graduates law school.
In a sense, this drama is a game of chess. Lee Joon Gi’s character is a grandmaster, and his opponent is played by the actor Lee Kyung Young. Let me be clear, there is no female lead. The only other main lead aside from Lee Joon Gi is Lee Kyung Young. All other actors are purely supporting roles. The heart of the story revolves around the two lead actors. Lee Kyung Young is the antagonist, and he does an excellent job. His character is that of a political kingpin; he deals with corruption, scandals, bribery, murder, the whole nine yards. He’s ruthless, but he’s not an idiot. Lee Kyung Young does an excellent job of portraying his character to be a man of experience, a politician who thinks several times before he makes his move. The character of Lee Kyung Young is very akin to Frank Underwood from House of Cards.
Let me say a few more things about the supporting actors. Jung Sang Hoon was excellent with his comedic relief. His friendly banter with Lee Joon Gi was well scripted, and if it wasn’t scripted, it was pure genius. I wish Kim Ji Eun had more screen time. Her character was very intriguing and I wished the show would have explored it more. I enjoyed her acting from The Veil, and this drama definitely added to her acting talent. I hope to see her in a lead female role in the future.
Also, a note on the background score. It is very reminiscent of 90’s film score. Grand, sweeping orchestral pieces are cool and all, but it’s become pretty cliche. Some of the music definitely fits the different moods of the show, but I found it to be unimaginative. This is also my personal preference; if you don’t mind huge cinematic scores, then this won’t be an issue at all, but for me, I was kind of over it.
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Power will corrupt, and absolute power will corrupt absolutely. If you wanted to end this corruption, you could only do so from the standpoint of a higher power. But if you attain a higher power, you too will become corrupt. It’s a never ending cycle. It’s like that old line from the original Spiderman movie: “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain”. If it takes a monster to beat the devil, is it worth throwing away your humanity for such a cause? This is the central theme of the drama, and its also the drama’s biggest weakness. When you set such a profound subject matter as your central theme and not tackle it properly, the whole show comes out as lukewarm. There were many points in the drama were I wished to see a more grey morality of Lee Joon Gi’s character. The show goes at length of describing the necessity of being villainous to catch a villain, but it shies back every time. It feels like the subject matter was too controversial to be put on Korean television so they heavily toned it down. What we got instead was the classic unblemished white knight ousting the corrupt politician.
Ultimately, 16 episodes wasn’t enough. I understand that Lee Joon Gi’s character got sent back in time by a decade, but there was a seven year time-skip. I would’ve liked to see more of his college life before and after his military service. There were opportunities to flesh out some of the supporting characters, but the producers decided to bypass all of that. Instead they gave a very bland and generic season 2 set-up at the end of the last episode.
This show has a lot going for it. There is very minimal romance, so that may come as a negative for some, but other than that, the biggest downside is the unexplored themes. We get to see Lee Joon Gi develop to be a kingpin of his own, and that’s a thrilling watch in and of itself. But the unexplored themes, and the generic season 2 set-up ending had me desiring more from the show. I still recommend this show, especially if you’re a Lee Joon Gi fan, this show will hit all the sweet spots. And even if you’re not a massive Lee Joon Gi fan, this show still has some nifty frills to keep you entertained.
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