Connect (2022)

Great show with great casts from great director but I feel like something's lacking

I was having high hopes for this show because the casts are my favorites and the director is famous for his gory and violent scenes. I enjoyed watching the show because of excellent acting from my favorite actors and great cinematography.

Jung Hae In proves he is acting genius and master of genre, expressing various levels of pain realistically and perfectly acting with only one eye. Go Kyung Pyo’s acting as serial killer is refreshing and Kim Hye Jun facial acting is great but her action scenes are kinda lagging in some scenes.

But what I feel most lacking is maybe suspense/ tension/ story development? I didn't feel so much excited to know what would happen next (maybe because I got spoilers from behind the scenes videos that Disney+ released in advance before the drama's premier).
OST is nice with Haein’s sweet voice but using the same song repeatedly for many times (although it's necessary for the plot) made me bored.
CGI and VFX are great especially the tentacles used for regeneration.
The gory and bloody scenes are not that disturbing to me.
The chemistry between the casts is great but felt the kissing scene between DongSoo and Yirang is too early Lol.

At the moment of writing this review, people are making noise about the rear nudity of the actors which is nothing strange in acting field but it feels like they used stunt doubles for those scenes.
[Edited - Jung Hae In confirms that he used stand-in (body double) for nudity scene in an interview.
https://youtu.be/nAEMUGOsz4o]

The sex scene was unexpected haha but didn't expose too much.

The last fighting scene between DongSoo and JinSeop didn't help me to maintain suspense and the ending scene hinting for another season is unexpected.

Overall I enjoyed watching the great performance from my favorite actors but sense of satisfaction was not that much and probably I won't rewatch this show within a short period of time. However if there'll be season 2, I'll definitely tune in to explore their so-called new Connect World.

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Bloody mess

If you have watched some classic Takashi Miike films, you probably know what to expect. If you haven’t, I recommend you to check the tags and see for yourself if it is something that you can stomach or not.

What I liked:
- Opening credits: a gorgeously made animated intro.
- Cinematography and directing: nice camera angles, great color grading, some beautiful shots and well choreographed action scenes. Certainly a pleasure to the eye.
- CGI and gore: The CGI looks realistic enough and the gore scenes seem like they came out from a video game or a webtoon. As a result not only you can feel the influence from the source material, but at the same time the gory scenes are as bloody as they should be to not disturb the viewer. The gore and disturbing scenes are actually pretty mild comparing to some of his work (Audition, I am looking at you).
- Duration of the episodes: each episode lasts from around 37 minutes to 50, something that greatly helps with the pacing.
- Female lead: we finally have a strong morally grey female character.
- Easy and fun to watch: again, if you are not into violent and gory series, you will probably hate this, but if you like watching these type of shows, you will be entertained enough.
- Jung Hae In looking like an anime character: self explanatory. I am shallow, I know.

What I disliked:
- Lack of suspense: even though it is a fun ride, as a viewer I didn’t feel like I had to watch the next episode immediately.
- Plot holes and nonsensical scenes: unfortunately there are way too much nonsensical stuff (plainly speaking the characters' actions are dumb).
- One of the characters that appeared in the last episodes: I found that particular character very unrealistic (I know this is a sci-fi drama but still).
- Comedic relief: I felt like they added some elements as comedic relief and even though they didn’t focus on them, I found them unnecessary for a live action.
- Unnecessary actions between our two main characters.

What I found mediocre:
- ML’s character: this is just a personal thing, but I found the male lead to be a bit underwhelming at times. He is definitely not your typical hero, but his foolish actions and the fact that he could barely fight made some of the scenes a bit boring to watch.
- Plot: even though there were a lot of plot holes and nonsensical stuff happening, like I previously mentioned, the plot had potential and the concept was pretty good. I definitely had fun watching it, as I knew I had to think illogically to enjoy it.
- Acting: definitely more on the positive side, but certainly it didn’t have the great performances that I expected.

All in all, it was fun and easy watch that you can only enjoy if you know beforehand that you need to throw your brain out of the window.

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