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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Triangle - Drama" Episode 16

Plenty of time is spent at the hospital this episode, as characters agonize over whether or not Dong-soo is going to make it. Thankfully that question is resolved at the end, so hopefully we don't have to endure any more of these extremely sad regretful lengths of the soundtrack which establish how awful the whole situation is. I'm upset that Dong-soo was stabbed less because I care about the character and more because these scenes are so obnoxiously overwrought.

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It's not just his fault, though. I'm still at a total loss as to what Jeong-hee's motivation is supposed to be, or why she's even in this story in the first place. Jeong-hee isn't really an obstacle or challenge to Yeong-dal's revenge scheme. She just sort of stands around and looks sad whenever news breaks out that Yang-ha is going to be fighting with Yeong-dal.

As far as the fighting goes, the arena is corporate boardrooms, and the weapon of choice is rousing speeches that inspire rounds of applause. I find myself wondering whether this is going to become a constant fixture in the drama. I know fiction is under no obligation to accurately represent boardroom politics, but that's when doing it in an obviously incorrect way serves some broader narrative point. The victories in the boardroom, as presented, are horribly unsatisfying.

The main bright spot here are the gangster battles. Bok-tae strikes back at his enemies, and they prepare to strike back at him. We're looking at the prospect of a genuine war here which, coupled with severe beatings and bullying in the sphere of dubious business, makes for some reasonably exciting action. Obviously this relates to the boardroom stuff, but if not for the fact that the main characters are in the boardroom, there's very little compelling reason for us to actually watch any of that.

The character who's most intriguing here is that guy in the red shirt- whose name I can't seem to remember. I'm not sure it's ever been brought up. All we really need to know about the man is that he's aggressive and doesn't put up with nonsense. Kind of like Yeong-dal, except older, and not distracted by the whole brother plot. This isn't really a good episode, but the fact that we're finally out of the hospital at least makes me optimistic that we'll get into fresher territory soon.

Review by William Schwartz

"Triangle - Drama" is directed by Choi Jeong-gyoo, Yoo Cheol-yong, written by Choi Wan-gyoo and features Lee Beom-soo, Kim Jae-joong, Im Si-wan, Oh Yeon-soo, Baek Jin-hee, Kim So-hyun.

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