Tyrant

Wow, what can you say about Park's new show! The pacing, acting, script and plot were all TOP NOTCH in the first 3 episodes.

The main heroine plays it cool: fits the role well. The govt baddies all seem 3 dimensional, and also including the Black ops team. The only criticism is Paul, whose English is kinda bad and unbelievable. His Korean acting is a lot better. All other supporting characters have a great script to work with!

Usually for many K dramas, lines are repeated, actors OVER act, and the action is slower paced. Not with Tyrant... layers & layers of tough-as-nail characters that play their roles superbly. Nothing is predictable until we hit the last episode. Some lazy script writing complemented by a vial/virus as black as... Venom from Spiderman comics/movies! A bit disappointed but still a thumbs up.

Don't waste your time.

It has no plot whatsoever.

A lot of people are constantly killing each other over some bio-virus in very stupid action scenes that get boring and repetitive over time.

Though during the first episodes you don't even know who belongs to which faction and why they are doing what they are doing - but who cares?

Certainly not the "director" of that desaster nor the "screenwriter" - if you can even call them that.

When they shoot at each other, the winners always hit their targets in one shot from a hundred meters away, while their victims always run right into the line of fire without ducking, taking cover or even aiming at their targets.

But even when one side is only armed with some knives and the others with machine guns, the guys with the knives somehow win.

Then there is an old assassin who, despite his old age, beats up twenty youngsters.

He also manages to shoot through thick wooden doors with a handgun with a silencer (!) and hit his target right in the head without even being able to see it before.

Oh, yes and he also has his magic shotgun (with a silencer no less) he shoots people in the head without any misses from long distances.

Okay, it may help that his targets just stand there, don't take cover and do not manage to hit him once with their long range rifles and machine guns.

That way he manages to kill about 30 heavily armed, trained assassins at the end of the fourth episode.

And then, there is the crazy assassin girl.

She is just skin and bones but manages to take out groups of trained and armed assassins just with a little knife.

She also shoots people without ever missing from hundreds of meters away, just with some short range handguns and while walking towards them.

Okay, it also helps that these guys never think to duck or to shoot back.

There are also many scenes where she manages to sneak up on people on empty, football stadium sized grassfields, without them noticing it.

Or she just appears out of nowhere in some empty rooms.

Though she is that super-assassin at one time she gets stabbed and shot multiple times and then thrown down to certain death from a bridge.

But what do you know - she survives all of that somehow fresh and peachy! (Facepalm!)

How does that little girl manage to do all that, you may ask (apart from a really bad script and directing)?

Well her qualification is that "she is the daughter of an assassin" Ohhhh...facepalm!

The whole plotless show is just an endless repetition of tedious, boring and ridiculous fight scenes and shootouts.

Also, there isn't one interesting person you'd root for - they are all crazy and weird, but not in an entertaining Quentin-Tarantino- way, but more in a really obnoxious, annoying straight-to-streaming-services C-movie way.

When you have no good story to tell, just let people fight and shoot at each other, over and over and over again.

The worst K-show I have seen in a long time.

This is one giant plothole without bottom.

I haven't found one single scene that made any sense or was not laughable. Within the same korean spy agency they murder each other in the dozens for some reason you only get to know at the end of the show.

The Americans also get involved and a lot of allies and colleagues spend the whole season murdering each other.

The Koreans also hire some outside assassins to do the job for them.

Why?

No idea.

Anyway, these hired assassins single-handedly maim and murder hordes of their opponents who never manage to hit them with a bullet once or to stab them.

Perhaps in korean 007 spy classes they don't teach you how to shoot or some basic martial arts.

And that is basically the whole show. Two assassins hired by korean agents are killing korean agents who hired them who also kill each other while American agents kill everyone.

The action scenes are laughable at best because the two assassins always survive every fight unscathed and kill hundreds of people without anyone in Korea caring about some mass murderers on the loose.

Nothing makes sense in that show.

They tried to fill a giant plothole with one laughable action scene after the other.

There is also no irony or fun in that show like in other over the top action movies or tv-shows. All the characters are stale and unlikelable there is no hero and you'd wish for all of them to drop dead right away.

It is an insult to the intelligence ot the viewer - even to those who normally consume these kinds of shows.

Only the last episode reveals why there is some mass killing going on in Korea among Koreans working for the same spy agency.

They all seem to fight over some kind of serum that turns people into supersoldiers. The only drawback of that genius serum is that it kills you when you are hit by sunlight.

Right. No supesoldiering during the day. Really a supersmart serum worth killing your colleagues for. Duh.

But it turns out one of the killing parties already has that serum and they already have supersoldiers!

And what is more, their serum does not kill whoever takes it because their supersoldiers always walk around happily during bright and sunny days.

Sooo, why fight for an inferior serum and kill everyone when you already have a way better one?????

And why are shows like these even made?

And why did I watch it at all?

Someone please give me some serum that makes me forget I watched it!

And please don't kill half of Korea to get it for me.

Thanks!

I love Korean movies and series but this one????

I give up!

What was that???

A lot of people are killing a lot of other people and I really did not understand why they did it and who these people are at all. There is no story there, I liked none of the people, nothing. They used a lot of flashbacks and some non-linearity but only to cover up how bad everything is.

Okay, when you have no story but only mindless action then at least that should be good? No, what is worse than the nonexisting storyline are the fighting and shooting parts. They are always the same, very amateurish, lack any originality and they are extremely boooooring.

Not only that, since I didn't know who these people are and why they are killing each other, I didn't care at all who wins or who loses.

Honestly, I don't know who makes stuff like that and why there is nobody pulling the plug on something like this during production.

Or maybe this is a new cinematic artform: no story, just mindless and boring murder and mayhem for hours.

Honestly, I give up!

The long-expected "The Tyrant" doesn't disappoint! Still, there is a small fly in the ointment!

Director Park is juggling too many balls for the first three episodes. He makes it slightly difficult for the viewer to trace them, especially in the dimly lit scenes. So when he catches them all successfully in episode 4, the viewer is already a bit tired. Just as the capsule is missing, something is missing in the storyline to rivet you wholeheartedly to the screen. I have high respect for Director Park. Yet I think he starts telling the story as if he has all the time in this world, while towards the end, he rushes to bring all the loose ends together. Perhaps because of his vast vision? He takes joy in crafting films that reflect his personal vision, paying little heed to traditional storytelling or pursuing commercial success. He offers his perspective and style, leaving it to you to accept or reject. Much like a true modern artist, he indulges in his individual style and preferences. So it takes time to like it or lump it.

However, he has the knack of selecting a brilliant cast, which makes up for the high mortality rate in this movie/drama.

Of course, Kim Seon Ho as the calm reserved and charismatic Director Choe makes the most of it as usual!