Soul (2009)

The fact that Soul is so ignored and overlook is considered a transgression by me! The fact that it's buried deep, deep under so many (over)hyped dramas regardless their genre is distasteful! Soul is a deep, dark, thought-provoking drama; not for the timid and demure people (i guess, that's why it's buried).



Story

The drama is an excellent and unique combination of horror, crime and psychology that actually works!



First few episodes, and the drama is rather weird, difficult to follow at times, too many seemingly unconnected stories, dark and gritty cinematography. What the actual hell? Horror. If this drama does one thing right is setting the atmosphere, noone can deny that. The female lead is a likeable girl who can see ghosts and ultimately be possessed by them. The drama is possibly the only kdrama about the supernatural and ghosts which actually tries to be... not scary, but rather creepy and spooky, and it succeeds!



The girl wants to avoid them, be free of them and be normal, but she can't. And there is one guy who makes her feel safe and can potentially help her. No, not in a cute/romancy way, no, the script is just too good to resolve to romance to be likeable! The guy is a genius psychologist and crime profiler with a dark past. He does help her, or... that's what he wants us to believe! Plot twist? He uses her in reality to get revenge for his dark and sad past! And here we have the base concept of the drama which isn't really obvious from the beginning. Revenge, and its repercussions.



The drama pretty quickly switches from horror, and moves on to crime and psychology and here things get serious and interesting fast. Soul wants to address several morality issues and negotiate the very core of the human identity. It revolves around the idea of serial killers, how are they made, what do they think, can they be saved? What does it mean that we can examine and judge our own emotion-driven behavior and that of others? Can killers still be considered human? Where are the boundaries of responsibility between stepping up and overstepping? Can violence be stopped without more violence? Can there be serial killers who are not psychopaths? And in the very end, when we do step up are we better than those we hunt? Is there a difference or it's just an endless cycle?



The drama is very twisted in the best way possible. It is thrilling and offers several plot twists. It did have its boring moments and some problems of discontinuation while it took a few episodes for the plot to connect all the dots and find its way. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic overall experience. The story was to the point and quite fast paced. I can't say it was unpredictable but that didn't stop it from being interesting.



Acting

Lee Seo Jin shines the most in what i want to describe as one of the most twisted and yet most sentimental characters i've seen in kdramaland. He delived on several levels being sensuous and pleasing to every sense.



Im Ju Eum's role was rather demanding. Her character walked in the fine line between vulnerability and helplessness. I thoroughly enjoyed her 'crazy eyes', she suited the character completely and i think she really felt it. There were scenes where she was really incredible, and other were i felt she overacted quite a lot. Overall, she was great, and quite memorable, if she hadn't been lee seo jin's character wouldn't have developed and worked as exceptionally as it did.



I want to especially mention Lee Kyu Han for his amazing performance as a disturbed serial killer and Yoo Yeon Suk for his impression of a serial killer in-the-making.



Recommend/Rewatch

This drama isn't child's play, it's rather heavy and difficult to digest. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. If you are a crime and psychology fan, this would appeal to you. Horror is present but takes the back sit rather quickly. I can see myself rewatching it in a few years.

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If you're looking for a good horror drama, I don't think this drama is for you. However to me horror isn't that appealing in general, so it felt irrelevant during the drama. The word disturbing comes to mind, instead of horror. It was more of a psychological journey to watch it and personally it left me speechless. It was a thrill to watch it from start to finish, so many plot twists you could not expect. The emotional scale of the actors was amazing, it was so nice to see such raw emotions on-screen. I feel like in many Korean dramas, the actors don't express themselves enough. To me the music in any TV show is very important and in this, it was one of the best. Absolutely beautiful. You have to have an open mind, when you watch this. Everything is not explained literally. It almost has an artistic feel to it, which not everybody can understand.

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I knew I would like this drama when I saw the poster and read the synopsis.
At just episode 1, I was sure I would love this drama.
And now, 20 minutes after I finished the last episode, I can say I was correct.

I love series and movies that are not black and white, but where you have to judge the concept of 'evil' yourself - what is too much, is revenge always bad, who is the real bad guy - things like these.

The actors... oh, the actors. Im Ju Eun was way better than I expected, but the guys... Lee Seo Jin and Park Gun Il were both just awesome here. Even if the series hadn't been good, I would've finished this just for those two.

I wouldn't say the genre of this is horror though - more psychological thriller, but mostly a study of humanity, in my personal opinion.

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***Mild spoilers in this review

Story: The premise of this drama was interesting. Ha Na and Doo Na are twin sisters living with their mom, attending school, and enjoying life. However, Ha Na discovers she can see ghosts and become possessed by them after witnessing the suicide of a fellow classmate. From there the drama touches on a few different storylines. We have the murder of Ha Na’s sister Doo Na who goes on to possess Ha Na to seek revenge, the meeting between Ha and criminal psychoanalyst Shin Ryu who ends up using her supernatural abilities to kill criminals, and exact his own vengeance, and  two separate murder cases that are used to drive the story a bit further.

Pros: The characters were engaging, and I really enjoyed the connection between Ha Na and criminal psychoanalyst Shin Ryu. You could see how Ha Na and Shin Ryu descended into their own personal madness, and there were some extremely sad moments that made me feel for the characters, especially Ha Na. It was a very powerful look at how one should be prepared to dig two graves when looking for revenge.

Cons: As much as I enjoyed it, there were flaws. There were lapses in logic and the direction of the story. Yes, it was a tad cliched with all the screaming and the “scary” bits, but I didn’t really mind. What I did mind were some of the plot holes and unnecessary scenes.

For example, at the beginning of the very first episode, we have this scene that seems super important, a foreshadowing of events to come perhaps? Well, not exactly. It had no impact on the story whatsoever. I went in thinking that this scene was going to happen somewhere in the 10 episode drama, but it didn’t, so why include it?

Another example of a lapse is the reason for the murder of Ha Na’s sister Doo Na. Ha Na witnesses an altercation between the girl who commits suicide and the male bully in her class. After the girl commits suicide her ghost leads Ha Na to the roof where she dropped her phone before jumping. The audience is lead to believe that there is some sort of incriminating evidence on the phone that would be bad for this bully and his two goons. The bully finds out about Ha Na and the phone and devises a huge ploy to get the phone back involving kidnapping Doo Na. But the phone is never mentioned again. Ha Na left it in the basket of her bike which she threw aside to save her sister, and it disappears. But it doesn’t even seem like the bullies have it. There was no indication they took it, and the next day nothing is said about it. They instead worry about if they’ll be found out for their involvement in Doo Na's death. You’d think the writers would’ve spent a few minutes on why the phone was important, or at least shown these guys taking it back. That was the purpose behind kidnapping Doo Na. What was on it, why was this bully harassing this girl? It seemed like the writers were going to make a big deal about why this girl killed herself and the phone, and it wasn't properly conveyed.

There were other things such as characters knowing information they shouldn't have known (the main antagonist learns about Ha Na's supernatural ability, but it's not shown how), or when Ha Na finds a picture of Shin Ryu  looks him up and states that they’re the same age (this really bugged me). Maybe the subbers got it wrong, but there is noooo way Ha Na and Shin Ryu were the same age. No way. When they first met she was in high school for crying out loud and he was a 30+ something-year-old man working with the police. Sure there's a 2-year jump and she's older towards the end, but they still wouldn't be the same age. It was just another situation that made me scratch my head.

And, in the last few episodes, we have another murderer loose who is killing white collar criminals. Other than a few TV broadcasts, Shin Ryu’s interest (he subsequently teaches a class on this new killer), and the fact that the antagonist frames him for these murders (the audience is never shown how this is done), we have no idea who has been killing people, and don’t get any resolution on the matter. I mean maybe the bad guy hired someone to do these murders to frame Shin Ryu, but again if this was the case the writers should’ve conveyed that to use somehow.

Overall: Plot holes aside I still enjoyed it and I would recommend it. I love the revenge aspect of any show, and it was satisfying to see the bad guys get their due. The ghost scenes were pretty cool, and honestly, this is perfect for people who are into suspense and a little bit of horror. Are there flaws? Yeah for sure, there wasn’t a lot of closure on certain things, sometimes the acting was cringy, and the ending was very sad, but it’s short and sweet compared to other dramas that have 20+ episodes. Just be ready to question a few things and shake your head at times.

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Really Good Story Buried Under Amateurish Execution

The basic story idea is excellent. I found it held my interest and was worth watching once but I doubt I'll come back. There are too many rough edges and I'll forget about it too soon.

The series blends vigilantism with a revenge theme plus the supernatural.

At times especially in the latter half I found myself thinking more about the odd twists and some stilted acting than about the story. That's bad.

The script was a draft that needed some drastic editing and smoothing. There are too many lapses in the plot, meaning events pop up and are left hanging, or the scene to scene logic was rough. The main characters' development felt off way too often. The main Yoon Ha Na character was a little too witless and helpless too often.

The writers had some interesting ideas exploring the grey between good vs evil. And I give them credit for following through on the implications of someone 'good' falling into that dark side. A main protagonist does some serious evil and the writers don't push a cliche redemption.

And while the main antagonist never finds redemption he takes directions I didn't expect towards the end.

The opening teaser scene in which Ha Na is chased onto a roof is extremely odd. As the story approaches the end I expected that opening scene to reappear and be explained. Nope. It never gets fitted into the story anywhere at anytime. It should have been cut.

The story takes some weird unexpected directions in the last third that are interesting but don't fit well. I got the feeling that the writers were directed to come up with enough material for 10 episodes when the story kinda wanted to end at about the 7th episode.

None of my negative comments are directed at the cast who did the best they could with the material and direction.

The first half or more of the episodes had some rough subtitling, but towards the last few episodes it really gets bad with consistent failures in basic grammar. The confusion as to when to use past tense vs past perfect is common here and also many TV series, but the most distracting was the frequent use of 'did went' when 'did go' was correct.

Despite the many flaws I found it entertaining if not always for the right reasons.

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