1% brain, 99% brawls. Watch it for the action, not the story.

I will say that if you are someone who absolutely need things to make sense for you before you can move on, you are not going to be able to enjoy this show properly. This is a true mindless action-packed drama that requires you to shut down and enjoy the show as it is. This show shoves plot holes in your face without even trying to hide it and you're not afforded too much time to ponder about it before they hit you with the next sequence of events (some people may hate this). Give this show the Jackie Chan treatment, brawl > brains.

Episode 1-6 was intense....and brutal (more about this later)
The action scenes were aplenty and very well crafted. It felt like there were real techniques involved with the boxing and also knife handling later on in the show. My interest in boxing skyrocketed while watching this show- a testament to how well done the action sequences were. Credits to the camerawork too. Bish bish bish!

The bromance between Geon Woo (Woo Do Hwan) and Woo Jin (Lee Sang Yi) was beautiful. It was the perfect marriage of suave and goof. It felt very natural and I wasn't missing the absence of the usual ML/FL romance in this one because of them. They made me want to root for them till the very end which is maybe why this is the first drama in 2023 that I binge-watched.

Kim Myung Gil (Park Sung Woong) as the main villain, as usual, doesn't disappoint. I hated him in the shortest time. Dude is just a legend at delivering the evil role. His 1v1 fight with sushi ahjussi was epic...I was screaming a little internally at the Zoro moment. Both the knifer ahjussi were amazing at their role; pity we only got to see them for so little.

The characters were all well-connected and had proper backstories and personalities. None of them felt redundant to the plot and I love the fact that they did not reduce the female characters to weak damsel in distress characters. The ladies were kicking ass along with the guys. Good blending and timing of comedic light-hearted moments throughout the series as well.

Now here is where it starts to fall off...
Episode 6 was brutal...this level of cruelty was not expected and rarely seen in dramas but movies. It was so hard for me to watch some of the scenes and I had to take time off after that to recalibrate before I could continue the show the next day. But that was not the reason why it was bad, I actually appreciate the art and intention behind it. However, it did feel like some characters didn’t have to die..The director makes you fall in love with the cast only to kill them off next in a very abrupt manner. It was to me kinda cheap tactic to stir the emotions of the viewers. **I swear if they killed off Woo Jin; it sure looked possible at one point, I would have not continued watching anymore. Thank you plot armor. I didn't get time to properly soak in the fact that some of the characters I grew to love were ALL DEAD in ONE EPISODE and episode 7 just begins after a time skip as if nothing happened. Whut.

The annihilation of the good guys and the immediate time skip did cause the pacing of the show to feel all of a sudden, jarring. The defeat of the main antagonist felt anti-climatic and pointless considering how brutal he was, how much resentment the protagonist had for him, and how much they lost in the process. The revenge certainly didn't feel sweet. The late introduction of Da Min (Jung Da Eun) was uninspiring at best tho I don't think she could have done any better personally. It just sums up the last 2 episodes of the series..uninspiring and anti-climatic. Would love to see the boys achieving some of their personal dreams mentioned at the start and what they did with the gold they received...so much potential so many questions..

I am speculating if the Hyeon Joo (Kim Sae Ron) DIU case which happened around the time of filming episode 6 caused her to leave the show being the reason behind the lackluster ending. Could this possibly have been a 10-12 episodes series? Was the ending so drastically different because of the loss of a key character at a late stage? Was the massacre done because they had to close the story? If so then I think they did a reasonable job at recovering the story.

Regardless, I did enjoy most of the series and was glad that I discovered Woo Do Hwan through this show. Dude is a star in the making. Marine Pride!

Read More