Teureongkeu

Trunk is a story that doesn't have much to do with the highlighted, painted so misteriously trunk but it's basically a "manual" for couples to make their lives as miserable as possible. These people really love to torture themselves unnecessarily.

A couple can't use the most effective method called "communicating", instead resort to bizzare ways to test how much they still love each other by the service of a shady matchmaking company. And a matchmaking company that is surprised the couples they match may actually fall for one another and breach a contract? Who knew?

Throw in a psycho with not so clear relation to the protagonists but somehow knows everyone and dips his nose into everyone's business very conveniently.

Not sure about the story but 6 stars for hiring the still fresh in memory Squid Game recruiter Gong Yoo and some good acting by him given the nonsense he has to work with. The main beatch totally gets on people's nerves, she did well.

Seo Hyun Jin isn't ready to be a serious mean girl yet. Visuals are good, ending just meh. Again, happy ending could be us but let's wait until second chance encounter to be together because we haven't depressed ourselves enough.

Suspense dramas are not my favorite but I watched this one because it was also tagged as being a romance drama. It didn't really hit the mark for either genre for me. I thought the editing was rather poor. The first episode does not provide a very good foundation for what is going on an it took the next couple episodes for me to really get the gist of things. Also, while the flashbacks usually indicated how far back in time they were going, the flash forwards were generally not tagged and you had to glean from the context that the scene was happening in the future.

I also found the ending to be very unsatisfying...both the ending of the romance thread as well as the suspense thread...for the latter, some of the earlier flash-forward scenes provides misleading information about the fate of the villain that was intended to point you in the wrong direction as to who ultimately deals with the villain. That is just lazy/sloppy writing.

But on the bright side, I thought the acting was great. Seo Hyeon-jin and Jung Yun-Ha completely sold the animosity toward one another that their characters felt. And Gong Yoo brought to life how broken and submissive Han Jeong-won started and then how he was slowly rebuilt with the help of No In-ja.

Overall, I am glad I watched it but was also very glad it was only 8 episodes.

Gave this an 8 rating because the basic concept of a "marriage service" agency and a FL who plays the wife is not new. Saw another one of these K-Dramas with the same concept, albeit a different script, that was much better. This script was very slow going but if you can stick with it, the ML gives off a strangely calming appeal when he warms up to the FL who is also usually a quiet type person. He is calming amongst all his emotional problems, turmoil with his x-wife and drug problems. He makes you wish you could just handle your own problems so calming as he begins to rely and fell comfortable with the FL and finally begins to realize what a trap he was in with his x-wife (thanks to the FL new contract wife). The music is nice which helps set the mood in the background for the love story. Ending just Ok, not all that satisfying IMO.

Many people find this drama slow and not worth watching but I was totally invested. It does a decent job in portraying dark sides of human and marriage while exposing the characters' vulnerability; none of the characters is 100% 'good', I'd say, they are all jaded and broken in their own ways. With a tinge of exaggeration, the drama realistically shows how complicated and heart wrenching relationships can be. 10/10 for acting skills and the cinematography; I am not a fan of the intimate scenes though. Hope it gets more recognition; even though it may not be as good as the novel(?) according to some reviews, it's worth the time if you prefer the dark, depressing drama type.

Based on a novel, this is a dark psychological drama/thriller exploring complex themes of relationships, marriage and love. It also centers on themes of past traumas, psychological manipulations and complexities of different relationships. It's a powerful well-acted storyline that unwraps slowly but ever so steadily.

Thankfully, It's not a typical "Kdrama" series that you can find plenty of on Netflix and other streaming platforms lately but you wouldn't find Gong Yoo on one of those anyways.

The acting is quite solid especially from the main characters portraying their past emotional traumas and the slow healing they both go through finding each other again (as this was not their first encounter) and possibly lasting love from something that started as an unwanted, bizarre and disturbing contract marriage. But most marriages are contracts is one of themes the show explores and what binds two people together.

I haven't read the novel and I am sure this is not completely true to the book as others before it haven't been but on its own merit, this is a beautifully and well crafted production including the music scores and absolutely worth the watch.