Hometown

Hometown impresses with its atmosphere, character depth, and suspenseful pacing. But the similarities to the Japanese film Cure (1997) are hard to ignore: hypnotic suggestion, memory lapses, senseless murders, and a mysterious man behind bars pulling the strings. Even the overall mood and slow-burn storytelling feel very much alike. Watching Cure after Hometown is like realizing you've seen this story before-just told in a different country, in a different style. It's surprising that this connection hasn't been widely acknowledged. Still, for fans of dark, psychological thrillers, both are absolutely worth watching-maybe even more so together.

Hometown: A South Korean TV series which includes a few tropes, serial killers, cults, noir, police procedural, but taken together with all of the violence and death involved it elides into the slipstream of Horror. Set in 2000, 1999, 1987 with shorter flashbacks to other years. In 1987 members of a cult launch a gas attack at a railway station killing hundreds. In 1999, detective Choi Hyung-in who lost his wife in the 1987 attack sees a pattern in seemingly random killings and suspects that the cult is back. Only one person was ever convicted of involvement in the attack, Jo Kyung-ho; his sister Jo Jung-hyun becomes involved in the case after her niece goes missing, The timelines cut back and forth, often in a confusing manner so keep off your phone when you're watching this. Killer cults may have milder cults as fronts but paradoxically this makes it even more difficult to infiltrate them. The use of mind control through mixtapes and video tapes is portrayed in a convincing yet horrific manner. The violence isn't just that of the mass killings, individual deaths are also shown in a traumatic way. There are 12 hour long episodes, the strands gradually weave together as the series reaches a conclusion. It all fits together in the final episode. At least i think it does! Stick with this one and you'll find it rewarding. Directed by Park Hyun Suk,Written by Joo Jin. On Netflix. 8/10.

It keeps your attention! You will want to solve the mystery too. This isn't a fast-paced thriller Tyler of storyline, but it's not boring. The OST is nice. I'm patiently waiting for Uhm Tae Goo to get more screen time, I love his works. If you feel Episode 1 wasn't that spectacular stick through it! Episode 2 is much better than, the story is slowly unraveling. It gives me the "Beyond Evil" drama vibes. I'll update my review on some episodes if I feel the need to until the end. I'm giving it a 7 for now, based on 1st 2 episodes.

Can't keep track of the characters and timelines!

Korean series are a challenge for a lot of Anglos because of the characters' names being hard to recognize and remember. This series adds flash forwards and flash backs and having different actors play the same characters in the different timelines and that all adds to the problem of keeping track of who is whom.

I had to just stop watching in the middle of episode 2-I just could not figure out who was missing, who was murdered, when did things happen and how were these people related?

I was up for putting in effort and paying close attention and still I just couldn't figure out what was going on!

Im basically a fan of Korean detective series, but couldn't watch this one.

Bummers.

It is quite strange to say this but this series really has some similarities with the Indian series " Sacred Games" specially in the part of that cult and what they wanted to achieve, their plan to recreate that gas attack again and kill people of that whole town, the police officer who was connected and the mastermind's father part where the police officer was giving him water and most importantly this " Guru" thing who's the mastermind of all. Though this series doesn't have the same storyline as that Indian one but it is somehow similar if you try to think about only the major parts. Though I think it can be coincidence that these similarities are there but deep down I'm still in dilemma whether it's really a coincidence or this series is inspired from Sacred Games!!