[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Full Sun" Episode 6

I have trouble keeping track of the secrets in this drama. Some of them seem really obvious but half the characters don't know them yet. Others kind of come out of nowhere, and then, once more, I'm stuck trying to guess how many characters have figured this out and at what point a sudden revelation is going to pop out and spin everything on its head. Basically, while I think I know what's going on here, I'm never really sure.

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The weird thing is, described abstractly like this, "The Full Sun" actually sounds kind of exciting. Unfortunately in practice the drama just does an excellent job sucking the oxygen out of the room because there's so much information management that there's almost no time left over for people to actually do anything. It's just a lot of talking about how complicated the storyline is. And occasionally we get to see some diamonds.

I guess the music is kind of interesting. I like how they use a wide variety of instruments. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a good musical score though, mainly because I can't easily connect it to whatever emotional resonance the drama is trying to achieve. I'm paying attention to the kinds of instruments played at this point mainly because there isn't really anything else of interest to latch on to.

Trying to guess which way the character development is supposed to be going, for example, is getting to be a bit of a fool's errand. Up until now I've been looking at Yeong-won's character as the skeptical type, but events this episode make that interpretation a lot less tenable. She just seems unusually pleasant and polite this time around. I wouldn't mind this so much except that there's not really any particularly convincing reason for her attitude shift.

The trouble with "The Full Sun" is that it's way too focused on dialogue, and there's not much in the way to break up the monotony. At this point I'm actually longing for the more direct stupidity of the first episode, because it was at least engaging somehow. This episode barely even has anything that could reasonably be called a climax. There's just not much here that's worth paying attention to. "The Full Sun" is a drama desperately in need of balance and whimsy. Everything about this production feels like it's going through the motions, and if nobody making this stuff is excited, how am I supposed to feel about it?

Review by William Schwartz

"The Full Sun" is directed by Bae Kyeong-soo, Kim Jung-hyun-III, written by Heo Seong-hye and features Yoon Kye-sang, Han Ji-hye and Cho Jin-woong.