[Drama Review] 'Missing 9' - Episode 1

AKP STAFF

Chanyeol, Cao Lu, Jung Kyung Ho, Baek Jin Hee, Lee Sun Bin

Are you ready to get stranded on a deserted island, audience?

K-dramas these days are getting bold. They're getting experimental, they're trying to break norms and clich�s, and MBC's new Wednesday-Thursday drama 'Missing 9' is exactly one such production, according to its production team.

The story revolves around 9 survivors of a plane crash, who end up deserted on an island. But episode 1 begins on a very mysterious note, by leaving us to question, "What happened to the 'Missing 9'?" We're forced to ask this question because in the beginning of the episode, Ra Bong Hee (played by Baek Jin Hee) is found on the shores of a beach in China, 4 months after the plane crash. She's supposedly the sole survivor, and her return is met with mixed feelings from everyone involved with the case, except for her poor mother.

One thing to note immediately with the start of the episode is that, the people in this drama, the people who show up in front of Ra Bong Hee asking questions and demanding answers, they are not nice people. Or to put it better, they are people with hidden agendas, each with their own selfish goal and need they want fulfilled or accomplished, and that is exactly why no one apparently was generous enough to offer Ra Bong Hee a hair dryer when she gets found, investigated, and sent home to Korea. (Because that hair...)

Okay back to the actual point, let's list out a few names of the people who are trying to get answers from Ra Bong Hee about the 'Missing 9'. There's Jang Do Pal, who seemingly has taken over as the new CEO of Legend Entertainment with the former CEO missing, there's the investigation team chairwoman Jo Hee Kyung, and then there's Joy's dad Yang Dong Geun, in the role of attorney Yoon Tae Young. That's a handful of people with hidden agendas that Bong Hee will have to deal with!

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But look, Bong Hee is an Inspirit, or a fan of INFINITE!

But in terms of the drama's sequence, production, and all that, did anyone else feel like a lot of what happened leading up to the plane crash - so the scenes with Seo Jun Oh (played by Jung Kyung Ho) at his schedule and the Legend Entertainment crew taking off on their flight, and so on - seemed very... unrealistic?

It wasn't until after I finished the 1st episode and thought about what happened more that I realized why. The drama uses a rather back and forth sequence where Bong Hee is recounting the tale through her memory. This means that the present, including all of the scenes that occur after Bong Hee gets found, brought back to Korea, interviewed, and are all reality. However, all of the scenes which tell the story before the plane crash, including how Bong Hee got her first job and what occurred on the plane before the crash, are memories from Bong Hee's mind, and therefore they have an exaggerated quality to them in some aspects, because people's memories aren't picture-perfect. They distort and favor according to the person whose memories they are. Finally, the scenes which consist of memories within Bong Hee's memories, such as those of boy band Dreamers (Dreamerz?) discussing their comeback song, have an older, grainier quality to them, and a darker tone in general.

Still doesn't explain wtf is going on in this scene...

Now, for a comprehensive list of the main characters we have on the Legend Entertainment plane. We have the Dreamers band members Seo Jun Oh, Choi Tae Ho (played by Choi Tae Joon), and Lee Yeol (played by EXO's Chanyeol). We have Jun Oh's manager Jung Ki Joon (played by Oh Jung Sae), actress Ha Ji Ah (played by Lee Sun Bin), actress Yoon So Hee (played by Ryu Won), Legend Entertainment CEO Hwang Jae Guk, and his secretary, Tae Ho Hang. If we add Ra Bong Hee, that makes the 'Missing 9'. The plane also had two pilots, flight attendants, and the three girl group members (including FIESTAR's Cao Lu). To say that there was a lot of drama on the plane before the crash would be an understatement, but what we'll need to focus on is when the plane begins showing signs of crashing.

Your words are falling out of your mouth and they're not making any sense whatsoever.

Once the plane is about to crash, the passengers begin to display their real characteristics. For instance, Seo Jun Oh, who has been described by Bong Hee as selfish and conceited and impractical, tosses a pillow to save Yeol and Ji Ah from a falling chandelier piece, despite not having shown any signs of caring for anyone around him until that moment. Jun Oh's manager Ki Joon shows more concern for Ji Ah than anyone on the plane, including Ji Ah's boyfriend, Tae Ho.

In the final moments of the episode, also the final moments before the plane crashes into the ocean, the story fully unveils a new mystery of what happened in the past that made Dreamers' producer Shin Jae Hyun commit suicide. Tae Ho claims that Jun Oh was responsible, while So Hee also described Jun Oh as a "bad person" to Bong Hee. But another point to note is why all of the key employees of Legend Entertainment were summoned for a meeting and were all heading in for it together when Jae Hyun's body landed on the hood of the car.

All in all, the first episode was only a brief taste of what 'Missing 9' is all about, leaving us with mystery after mystery to wonder and fret over so that we are ultimately left with no choice but to tune into the next episode to find out. Not only do we need answers as to how the passengers managed to survive trapped inside a plane underwater, but we need to know what happened to the other missing 8, we need to know who really forced Jae Hyun to commit suicide, and we just KNOW that that's not even the end of the mysteries in the drama. A first episode that leaves us hungry for more. Keep it up, 'Missing 9'!

OMG my nose is stuck in between my fingers HALPPP