This drama is probably the biggest shocker I’ve got this year. Since I’ve finished Devil Judge I thought that nothing good will happen to me this year in terms of kdramas and I’m so happy that I was wrong. I didn’t have high hopes, since I didn’t really know what to expect from it. And boy, was it a wild ride.

So the idea is pretty familiar and I think that’s what put me to sleep at first. Over four hundred most desperate people stand to a fight for life and death to win a ridiculous amount of money. They need to compete in a games that resemble child play but the slightest slip may result in a gruesome death.

The whole drama looks very innocent, with those live pastel colours everywhere. Contrasted with violence and blood that basically everywhere it all adds up to a very weird detached from reality feeling. And the tasks also seem pretty innocent. Just until machine guns fire up to kill anyone that break the rules of the game.

Let’s talk about acting. From the beginning till the end everything is absolutely perfect (I’ll quickly ignore English speaking actors, since we know not to expect anything from them. Let’s just say, I’ve seen much worse). We have fantastic Lee Jung Jae in the main role and Park Hae Soo that I’ve doubted before (loved him in Prison Playbook but still wasn’t sure about his acting skills) but no more. The rest is equally amazing, but I'd have to list the whole cast here. Let's just say there's no weak link here. And cameos are pure gold. I’ll refrain myself from spoiling who shows up here, but just wait for it.

And the whole premise of it. At first I thought we’ll see something similar to teen dystopian stories that were so popular past couple of years. You know, Hunger Games and the rest that emerged on the wave of it’s popularity. But this drama focuses more on the true human nature. What people can do when they have no other option but to fight. How far they’ll reach just to survive. And we see truly heartbreaking choices that our heroes must make. We quickly discover that they’re not so pure of heart that we thought at first. But who would be with a gun pointed to their face.

Overall this drama shook me to the core. I was glued to the screen for whole nine hours of it and honestly it doesn’t happen often. It kept me at the end of the seat with barely any rest, as the characters that had no time to relax I’ve also felt continuous pressure. I’m writing it shortly after finishing the last episode and I think that those emotions will stay with me for quite a while. This drama is a gem and I hope to see more like that.