THREE DAYS EPISODE 1 (Beware spoilers!)
THREE DAYS TRAILER
The show opens with a file being typed up, saved on floppy disk, then sealed in an envelope. It is labeled "Confidential 98." We jump forward 16 years after that, so whatever file is on that disk seems to still be relevant now. The first episode does not reveal anything about what's in that file, but a man dies for it, so it is still clearly important.
After that, the show kicks into high gear and doesn't let up until the end. A car chase, a presidential convoy, and a warning from a dying man. A character falls from a telephone pole -- and does not move. There are masterful cinematic touches here, such as a scene in which the PSS agent, Han Tae Kyung, is the focal point around whom the camera rotates while the action is in slow mo. In the heat of the moment, the sound fades; all we hear is the buzzing of his cell phone, alerting him that his father has died in the hospital.
The soundtrack is a thrill-ride that is completely appropriate for a show like this. It reminds me of the main titles for 'Iris,' where there's a sense of rising tension even in the slow scenes and a pounding drum accentuates the score during the action. Electric guitars integrate seamlessly with the symphonic score to create a slick, ultra-modern feel. My only complaint is that it could use more standard Korean music for the tender scenes (like when Tae Kyung grieves for his father), but overuse could dull the razor edge of the show, of course.
The actors play their parts quite well. There's very little of the over-acting we see to represent high emotion these days. Villains play their parts with subtle menace and the heroes have their own demons that wreak havoc with certain actions. PSS agent Tae Kyung is young, earnest, but seasoned enough to know when to fight and when to run. Officer Bo Won is well-portrayed -- you can just see it in her eyes when she realizes she's in over her head.
Of course, this is only the first episode so there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered: Is Bo Won still alive? Who was the President talking to in the bar while the Minister of Finance was being murdered? Who tipped Tae Kyung off that there would be an assassination and how did that person know? What's in the file? Is it information about the assassination 16 years prior to the fact? What plan were the Security Service agents referring to as "too dangerous"?
Despite the taut, exciting nature of the show, the part about the disk gave me pause. A 16-year-old floppy is likely to have degraded so badly that whatever is on it is irretrievably corrupted. You literally couldn't open the file. And even if the data were intact, most modern systems are now designed without a floppy drive. We've gone to CD and DVD-Roms as storage media. So, even if you got past those two hurdles, there's a third obstacle to consider: What happens if the program it was written in is no longer supported? I remember having difficulty opening a file created in MSWorks just a few years ago. Maybe I'm thinking too much. You're not supposed to think too much when you watch TV, right?
The first episode was so well done; I'm not sure if they can top it. I will definitely be keeping up to date of this one. Have you guys seen it? Have I made you want to? Leave us some comments below.
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