Evilive

Korean Drama '' Evilive '' is the journey of a man towards embracing his inner darkness.

The drama is a complex psychological thriller, without getting too complicated for the viewer to follow. With excellent performances by all the cast members and, especially, the three main leads, the drama manages to pull off a difficult plot, as it presents a story of a man who comes from nothing and starts descending deeper and deeper into darkness, after getting a taste of it. In the end, it makes you think about what it takes to turn someone into a monster anyway.

The pace of the drama, in addition, was masterfully managed, although there were some times that things got a bit too slow. Also, the gore was just enough to provoke but not to disgust.

So, overall, eight out of ten.

The show has a high quality production, no doubt. Story-wise, it has a bit of a Breaking Bad feeling to it. What I'm rating here is the overall feel I've had while watching it - my personal watching experience. Even while the story was progressing, I kept waiting for the knack; the development that I was hoping for. There certainly is lots of development, but to me it often felt like I missed the process itself, and the results were just there. It's hard to describe. It's all there and fairly understandable. Besides that, the show is extremely dark - to the point where it's hard to continue the next episode. I don't mind dark atmosphere, but there could've been a breather here and there, for me personally.

Still, the show is very high quality. And the 5/10 stars might just reflect that it is a banger for some and not for others.

At the beginning of the episode it is quite curious what the sequel to each episode will be like, a lawyer who looks cold on the outside seems to have a dark past meets a gangster who has a lot of criminal records, whether they will later unite as allies to work together on criminal cases or something like that, because it looks like the storyline will be tense and there are lots of hidden secrets behind this lawyer. The actors are also classy, all of them have played in several crime thriller genre dramas like this and the story is also quite good. Hopefully in this series they can execute a good story and create a touching atmosphere for the audience.

Usually I prefer watching gangster and action k-movies over kdrama of that genre because the drama, no matter how good, always moves on the idealistic side. BUT NOT THIS ONE It starts off kinda normal and expected, but as you go you realize there's more to it.

Rather than character development, you get character unboxing, it's subtle at first but enough to make you keep a judgmental eyebrow raised throughout the episodes.

The ending was superb, unexpected only because it's a kdrama, but once you see you it, you realize you had been expecting it all along and it makes perfect sense.

Shin Hakyeon served, as expected. His acting is beyond perfect. All three male leads matched each other very well, it felt balanced.

My favorite part is the things I thought were cliche while watching, until the ending hit me and turns out they weren't just for cliche but actually part of the character.

All in all, I went in with high expectations, and though it was different, it didn't disappoint.

Technically 8+, even 9. Story wise not that unusual. We've seen it before. Trajectory very similar to Breaking Bad. In the beginning, the outward appearance/mannerism of the lawyers' is a bit too stagey to me. And there's a lot of violence.

It's a rabbit hole of no return once you take the pill kind of plot. Even the character has real doubts before life events force the hand. And the usually corruption runs deep in a Korean political climate.

However, no other secondary meaning or redeeming qualities of note that I can see. Just one upmanship after another. Yes tension is pretty high and consistent. Dialogue is pretty pedestrian also. Well, at least the kept the diabolical transformation to the end and did not compromise the character.