Strangers from Hell

carly10/10

Apr 8, 2022

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I'm going to start by saying I have always been way more of a thriller or action drama kind of person rather than a romance drama (although I do love _True Beauty_). I initially was going to rewatch Shinsuke Sato's _'Alice in Borderland'_ for the 4th time, but I said to myself- watch something new. I was scrolling through the Kdramas on Netflix, and this one popped up. It's been on my watchlist for a while now but I have just never got around to watching it. I think this series is absolutely fantastic at drawing in the watcher right from the beginning. The intro to the first episode was so captivating as it started at the end. Im Si-Wan's character, Yoon Jong-Woo, is possible one of the best-written characters in the entire series (which is expected of the protagonist), one of my favourite things about this character is his relationship with all the other characters, and we get to see both sides of what he is thinking during conversations. For instance, we see that Jong-Woo wants to cause bodily harm to his boss Shin Jae-ho, but he doesn't. This character trait of Jong-Woo shows the watcher that he is more similar to Moon-Jo (the primary antagonist) than both he and the watcher wishes to believe. The true beauty of this drama for me is that it plays with the watcher almost as much as it plays with Jong-Woo. We grow to empathise with Jong-Woo so much as the filmmaking shows us every single aspect of his situation and the way other characters feel towards Jong-Woo. One of the most interesting characters for me was Yoo Gi-Hyeok (portrayed by Lee Hyun-Wook) as we never got to know him. We very briefly got to know the character before he was killed off by Moon-Jo (who at this time, we also knew very little about). I had many questions left unanswered like: Why was he such an intimidating character? Why was he portrayed to be such a subtly tyrannical figure in the commune? This series created so many amazing unforgettable characters- as I was watching this series, my favourite character changed almost every single episode- flicking mainly between Yoo, Jong-Woo, Moon-Jo and Kang. I really want to focus this review not just on the storyline but the character writing as I feel like that was the true show-stealer, no series maybe apart from _Alice in Borderland_ has ever drawn me in through the characters as much as this one has. That's what makes a series good. No unforgettable. **Now I want to say something unrelated.** Today April 8th is Kim Jong-Hyun's birthday, who is forever in our hearts. I am going to celebrate today for him, he was someone who never failed to make anyone smile especially his bandmates in Shinee. He will never be forgotten. Rest easy. You are continueably loved.