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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Days" Episode 8

We finally get some nice, clear character ambivalence from Tae-kyeong. He's a man that's honest about his limitations. Not in a refreshing way. It's a bit unnerving just how little confidence Tae-kyeong inspires in any scene that doesn't directly involve crazy action stuff. He has to be one of the more wishy-washy action heroes I can recall ever seeing on-screen. It's certainly different from the genre standard- but I'm not sure whether it actually works.

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"Three Days" itself seems to admit this, as the episode abruptly changes gears from Tae-kyeong's inner conflict to more explanation about the specifics of the conspiracy. It's a pretty dumb conspiracy, but then most real life conspiracies are so that's not a particularly fair mark to hold against it. I like how there's just enough evidence that the bad guys clearly feel this could all be easily covered up, yet at the same time there's also just enough evidence that it keeps escaping and ruining everybody's plans.

The villains at this point outnumber and outgun the good guys. They even have the benefit of spies ostensibly working for Do-whi, and it's not totally clear yet whether Tae-kyeong even realizes that this is a problem. But with greater numbers comes greater potential for screw-ups. The bad guys appear to be fighting against each other, not even for any good reason, they're just being overly paranoid and not bothering to stop and think.

The viewer, too, is ensnared in this sense of hopeless paranoia. It really is starting to look like nobody can be trusted at all. When the preview suggests that media coverage of Do-hwi is still pretty skeptical, that's actually fairly believable. We might have access to Do-hwi's inner thoughts and calculations, but nobody else does. Do-hwi doesn't even share these inner thoughts with everyone because who's going to believe him? At best they're just crocodile tears only showing up now that he's been caught out.

This kind of genre stuff predominates the episode. There's relatively little action, and what we do get isn't terribly remarkable. It's not bad, but I suppose my expectations were set a little high by the last preview. "Three Days" is still lacking in the kind of amazing dramatic statement that's necessary to make the program a must-watch, but it's still doing a passable job in everything that's attempted. If only the script were as ambitious and epically pretentious as the musical score. Those are some pretty good chords there.

Review by William Schwartz

"Three Days" is directed by Sin Kyeong-soo, written by Kim Eun-hee-I and features Park Yoo-chun, Son Hyun-joo, Park Ha-sun, So Yi-hyun, Yoon Je-moon, Choi Won-young and Jang Hyun-sung.

 

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