[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Three Days" Episode 9

I suppose there's one concession I have to make to this drama- if security professionals in this universe were actually any good at preventing rogue agents from attacking secure installations and doing whatever they wanted, really, where would the tension come from? Yes, the particular plot device used to that end in this episode is a bit groanworthy. And it's especially annoying that most of the background is too dark for us to see what's happening. But it moves the plot forward.

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Unfortunately for the most part the storyline is just standing still. Several significant characters have admitted that there is probably something significant going on here beyond President Do-hwi just being a bad man who needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. There's less planning as much as there is characters continuing to harp on the same point of what is truth and what is real, who to trust and who not to trust, all that good stuff.

It's only near the end of the episode that "Three Days" gets particularly exciting, as Tae-kyeong comes up with a new counterattack. The plan is not a particularly clever one. In fact, if you've seen pretty much any plan Tae-kyeong has come up with up until this point, it's pretty easy to guess what Tae-kyeong's trying to do. Reptition in this case, though, is never boring. Even well-worn tropes have a special sheen to them when synched up to the drama's nice musical score, which turns a mundane spy mission into something fairly epic.

"Three Days" can be pretty charming as long as the effort is pushed into making the proceedings fun. The conspiracy itself is, at this point, pretty standard nefarious corporate misdeeds. Characterization goes a long way to making these proceedings more interesting. We finally get some open questioning as to what Cha-yeong's involvement is in all this. And that was a pretty well-timed bombshell in any case. It's difficult to come up with another rational explanation for why the good guys keep failing. Even the police are pretty skeptical at this point.

What it all comes down to is focus. While "Three Days" has plenty of weak spots, for the most part there's a sharp enough emphasis on the strengths of this drama that it's still a decent amount of fun to watch. I am getting the sense that a lot of the material we're seeing is just filler, though, at least until more exciting stuff happens. The supporting cast of politicians and corporate types are, for the most part, not terribly fun. Still, watching a bunch of pontificating suits does do a good job putting a viewer in the mood for fist fights.

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.