Somebody (2022)

Aesthetically neat, the rest? Messy is the word

At first I thought that I wanted to give a good review simply because they’re displaying a type of autistic (“asperger” is no longer a term in the diagnostic manual since bout 2013 btw) that Korean media doesn’t usually share (ones who don’t stim and such, youknow, the typical representation)..

Anyway, as the story grows, I feel like the movie is trying to communicate that instead of her being an autistic, she’s more of a ‘psychopath’ (that scene with her mom when she was younger). I understand this but I feel like many people would misinterpret this as a part of her being autistic tho it has nothing to do with her autism..

Overall, I feel like they’re prioritizing their artistic aspects. Well, their lighting, filter, storyboard, and wardrobe choice are the ones that made me wanna stick around. Also, heyyy, not a fan of Kim Yong Ji, but this hair suit her really well, she looks gorgeous.

Well, anyway..
Many plots jump wayyyy too much. I can catch up yeah, but I’m scared that I’d decode the wrong message or something… this style of script… I feel like it’s becoming a little old-fashioned… I understand that the scriptwriters were trying to reveal certain information at a certain timing, but I personally wish that they have a nicer method for it…

Some scenes, btw, just don’t add up. Overall, the characters lack of depth. They’re pretty dumb too (despite knowing the crimes happening between people from the app, they couldn’t be a little bit more cautious, what?). Plus, you can still stir people’s emotion with less duration of sex scenes, no? (Unless if the sex scenes are the actual highlight of the drama, then ok).

Ah also, I thought that the “somebody” app will have the “someone” chatbot.. I mean that’s the thing that brought Sum and Samantha together, no? Well, anyway, why would Samantha made Sum the CTO is they’re simply selling a Tinder. “Somebody” is literally “Tinder”(!?)

Idk what to say about the ending. It traumatized me the way she did that to him, I really wish I can forget that.

Leia Mais

Love it or hate it

I'll start off by saying I really like this drama, especially with how they used the soundtracks. I'm also a fan of the psychopath/serial killer genre and I like how the "cat and mouse" portions were executed. I just felt letdown by the pacing issues that resulted in some early episodes being a bit of a drag and the last episode a rush to tie up loose ends. Some of the writing wasn't great too, with characters (looking at you, Gi-Eun) making the world's dumbest decisions and putting themselves in harm's way repeatedly. Mok-Won's character also felt really random and underutilized, with the show taking pains to carefully carve out her backstory as a shaman, show her meeting girls in the club etc etc and all that just for her to basically not have an impact on the conclusion at all. Instead, I wished they would have tried to flesh out Fingers and Samantha more, as they had close to 0 screentime yet had a serious part to play in affecting the ending.

The acting was amazing, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the female leads are actually rookies. Kim Young Kwang was also excellent and he really embodied the character perfectly. The cinematography was next level and I really liked the arthouse vibe of it. Too often Kdramas devolve into the cliche "slow-mo" while staring at each other type scenes with the cheesy OSTs blaring in the background and I would say this drama stands out among the rest with its cinematography. The creative use of the soundtrack was also fantastic and I'm so glad to be introduced to Schumann's Vogel Als Prophet lol.

This is an extremely polarizing show and you will either love it or hate it. I can see why many have dropped it - plot that meanders aimlessly in the beginning, characters making horribly stupid decisions, excessive sex/nudity scenes, but I would still encourage thriller fans to give this a chance.

Leia Mais

...They confused the Socio vs Psycho traits

Sorry NOT Sorry but Somebody was dumb af, frustrating and uncomfortable and I'm gonna tell you why:

1. I blame all this on the writing. The actors and actresses did the work and their job, they did it well but the writing is shoddy, confusing and was not thoroughly researched

2. It's either you're a sociopath or psychopath - you can't be both

3. Both traits are incapable of love or liking or holding a relationship or implying a relationship. It's distorted and not really love/like

4. They implied the police officer was more interested in d!k and not protecting herself and the situation around her by doing the most of nothing and nearly getting herself killed multiple times

5. He has been in these women faces time and time again and have not done anything - again it's either you're a sociopath or a psychopath you cannot be both

6. Nature vs Nurture hence Sociopaths are made and psychopaths are born And I was hella confused by this during the conversation he had with the little boy and the maze

7. They have confused mental illness with autism- she's autistic; on the asberger spectrum

Leia Mais

HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL BUT MEH..

The trailer was so well made that it’s probably the best thing about the series. Such a promising storyline with so much potential but ended up being a huge let down.

The cinematography and acting was good but that’s it.

I hated the pacing of the story. Weird and unnecessary plot lines that ended up being half baked. Most characters lacked depth (the Shaman? Samantha?) and there was not much character development of the MCs either- like I literally still know nothing about the serial killer. We get a brief flashback of how it started and a mention about potentially being abandoned but nothing else. So how was he before he started his kills?

It’s great that they included a disabled character who’s also a police officer but does she have to be made that dumb? Like, I can’t even..

There was no build up in the MCs’ love story. One moment she’s curious and attracted to him and then almost suddenly they’re deeply madly in love?? Like what?? How?? Felt very superficial..

So many episodes but so much nonsense and a lot of the important parts that should’ve been explored, just left out.

It’s almost like the main point of the story was the unnecessarily prolonged explicit scenes (which btw does not add anything to the story) and the rest are just fillers.

Leia Mais

Definitely something else

This for sure was an odd one. It started interesting and that is why I even continued; the whole AI/Someone theme was pretty nice but it went just downhill with hella weird ending.

Story
Story was fine, but storytelling? Or rather lack of it? Not so much. Plot depended on illogical decision made by characters is a bad storytelling. So many tropes that were abandoned and never explored and to be honest unlike other series, I am not even disappointed by this since they were pretty unimpressive. I am mainly talking about things like Gi-eun and Seom relationship, what was even their problem? It was mentioned briefly and resolved in one scene after like the shortest dialogue ever or Yuno being abandoned by his mother (it was mentioned once and never brought up again). Some dialogues were very vague. Also, whole police theme was just waste of time and brought nothing to the table. Overall, it just felt pretty flat but pacing was good (with rather abrupt ending).

Characters
The biggest fault I have with this series are totally unrelatedeble characters and their decisions. But the worst character was probably Gi-eun. She did not bring anything to the table and her decisions were the worst. Yuno was also not it, just your typical psycho. Seom was just weird and annoying at some point in the story. The only interesting character was the Shaman and only her actions were logical. Oh, yeah there was also Samantha, her role probably should have ended with being in the company, because there was almost nothing coming out of her involvement.

Acting/Cast
What saves this series is definitely acting. I think cast did great job in trying to capture that odd, eerie vibe and this is what distinguishes it from the others.

Still even great acting cannot save so-so story and badly written characters. Music was fine, I guess but nothing out of this planet. I would rate it 6. I probably only finished this because it was quite short. There is nothing making me to want go back to it. I would only recommend if you are looking for something different than your average Netflix K-drama.

Leia Mais

A waste of your time

turn around, don't ever look back, the writer might be on crack, story dumb weird af, i know it is fictional, but a lot of the stuff you thought supposed to occur in real life following some of their actions, like police and normal civilian responses to things and no logic, no common sense situations. Watched with a group and everyone agreed that NONE of the characters are likeable and horribly written. Was this the intention of the writer? Who knows. But a bad way to write character plots, it's a Netflix series too, but it felt so minimal budget and quality, I have watched more than 50 K-series by now and this is by far the worst. If anyone claiming that this show is awesome, it's abstract, it requires deep understanding, go, continue to stay in your defensive corner and talk for this trash of a series.

Leia Mais

Great Momentum...Poetic Ending

I utterly respect the acting, production value, and behind-the-scenes work that made this series possible. I would have to say that starting with the first episode, I was enthralled by this show. Up to Episode 5, the momentum was really great, but Episodes 6-7 were a bit rough pacing-wise. With Episode 8, I was a bit puzzled by the developments, but it was poetic in the end. All I have to say is that our main character Kim Sum takes the initiative, which makes for a sort of anti-climactic ending. It wasn't a battle and glory type of ending, but it fits right with the theme of this show. It resembles real life, with people that have strange personalities, troubled pasts, and capabilities to perform acts that strain the boundaries of nuance. It seems she's accepted that and closed the storybook on her own accord, poetically ending what was started at the beginning of the show. This may sound like sophistry, but for those that watched the show, this is the best way for me to express my feelings about the show without giving away any specific details. For those that are hesitating, it's a tough watch, but I found it compelling in the end.

Leia Mais

Interesting plot but lost potential

I decided to give this show a try simply because of the plot description, although the pacing was quite slow for my liking, I decided to give it a chance. But unfortunately, I lost interest fast. The plot started to stray away from the original idea that was provided. The idea of the shaman was quite random and had no influence on the story, nor did the random sex scenes, or the person who only showed their hands on video call.

Even though the show is about a serial killer, there weren't many killings. I wish we had more insight into his background and possibly more interactions between him and the MC. They are supposed to be each other's love interests, but there weren't many interactions to account for that, so it just seemed unusual.

The three friends were supposed to band together to find the serial killer, and although they did (sort of) it was really underwhelming in terms of how they went about it. The ending doesn't make it any better either.

Leia Mais

So much potential but meh

As many others I was super excited after watching the teaser but,,,
First 2 episodes were really interesting, good pacing and everything but it went downhill so fast.
Overall the pacing was very odd - some parts were brushed over way too quickly and others were unneccessarly slow. I found myself doing other things every now and then cause it was pretty boring at times.

I would have loved to get more backstory for most of the characters - I watched 8 episodes of this and know literally nothing about the male lead. The cop was annoying as hell cause none of her actions made sense; the shaman was kinda random but could have been super interesting with some more background infos. The lovestory was also kinda annoying imo cause it felt like it was just brushed over and from one moment to the next they were basically obsessed with each other?

Acting was great! Music and cinematography were good as well.
The teaser was the best thing about this drama tbh.

Leia Mais

An uncomfortable PLEASURE.

"Somebody" is gonna be a work that will remain in my memory for quite a long time for it's way of storytelling. Some disturbing scenes but yet so artistic for the cinematography.
It might get a bit boring for those who don't prefer dark and slow paced thrillers. Few scenes were too long and few just ended abruptly which should've been stretched a bit longer. I did feel there loopholes here and there in the story which could;ve been a little more explained.
However, a real nice one! Something absolutely new in the industry. Cinematography...boom! Acting...top-notch! All should really give it a shot I believe... not for the story, but for the amazing performance delivered by each cast!
Kim Young Kwang, Kang Hae Lim, Kim Demi did an absolute wonderful job. KYK is seen mostly in rom-coms, son to rich family and all. But he really showed his A-Class performance by coming out of that zone...hats off to him!
Also, the BGMs all sat so perfectly. If anyone knows the songs that played in the BG, please lemme know TT

OVERALL, I did enjoy the series.

Leia Mais

Creepy Thriller Potential Ruined By Bad Writing

LIKES:
Cinematography, colour palate, location selection and music all well done. [But too many very dark scenes/no lighting.]
Interesting view of how a disabled person can live; apartment and driving. I liked seeing all the tech to make a wheelchair bound person live independently.
The concept of the AI chatbot, was what drew me into the drama in the first place.
I liked the shaman ceremony, but I wished they gave more backstory to her supernatural abilities. The costumes were well done for this too.
The ML was nude frequently, not just all the females. That was a little more balanced than what other dramas have shown in the past.
ML acting was on point and did the creepy killer justice.
Everyone was well chosen for their roles and the acting was pretty good, considering the crappy writing.
For a k-drama the production wasn’t too bad (shaky camera moments kept to a minimum).
FX: The blood and gore were well done, even though the method of killing sometimes was far-fetched.

DISLIKES:
Writing:
Sloppy writing, plot holes, limited back story and character development. No character growth for any of the main characters. Backstory of Male Lead non-existent, and what we did get seemed like an after thought. Overuse of Love at First Message/chat going on, but because there was no substance, the impact was lacklustre and failed. Believability non-existent. Some very stupid moments: a cop going to a very secluded area, without researching the location before going or telling anyone where she’s going. Her cop senses should’ve been screaming at her, long before she got to the final location. She does the same stupid behaviour towards the end of the show too. Make her a weather reporter or something that doesn’t use investigative skills, that would’ve at least made it more believable! Side stories that didn’t add anything to the story, for example the Boss Samantha, was underused. Also for a thriller, a lot of it was so muddled. I figured it out, but I’m sure other viewers were confused.
Directing:
Many times the reaction of characters was way too delayed. Also pacing was a huge issue after the first two episodes.
Production:
Lighting issues and many too dark moments, that felt like lazy camera work or editing.

OVERVIEW: I never read the book, my observations are purely based on the show. I’m glad it was only 8 episodes, although maybe writing would’ve been better if it had more episodes. It’s an okay watch, but I’ve seen a lot better from K-dramas in this genre. I’m on the fence about recommending it, as I won’t watch it again.

Leia Mais