Gyeongseong Creature
I figured to keep going with shows with subtitles for a while.
This one was pretty good, but also a bit uneven between the first and second season. First season I really liked, the second season was disappointing.
It takes place post WW2 in Japan occupied Korea. The Japanese are doing some secret research to create monster they hope to use as a weapon in a secret facility under a hospital. The story is about a rag-tag group of heroes that infiltrate the hospital and run into the monster and try to save the day. It’s a fun combination of action and adventure and science fiction. The setting feels unique. There’s a bit of a revolution theme taking on the occupiers and occasionally employing complex plots and decoys to fool the guards. At times, the heroes are a bit too competent (taking on dozens of guards alone), but the characters are generally enjoyable.
The second season drops the ball. For some reason they do a time jump to the present. So you lose all the charm of the setting, the established secondary charaters, and the revolution theme and ploys. The first season was 8 episodes that were over an hour long. The second season drops it down to 7 episodes that are about 40 minutes long. And most of that is spent re-establishing the main characters (which is a mystery that unfolds but is kind of obvious). The main characters go from being hyper-competent, to basically being superheroes, so most of the action doesn’t feel like it has any stakes. And the common bad guys go from being faceless army soldiers in the first season to a bunch of literally faceless black-outfit wearing people that randomly show up. I still generally enjoyed watching it, but it was a significant drop off in quality because of a really questionable decision to time jump to the present.
There’s a post-credits scene at the end that suggests there could be a third season but I don’t know if anything is confirmed.
I started watching the new season of Alice on Borderland.
