After a while, I've found one interesting and intriguing Korean drama this year named 'Alice'. It is still an ongoing drama with only 4 episodes so far but I can't wait to see what's next to come. I might add some more review with conclusion later on if it is needed.
There's nothing new in the premise of this drama nor the theme since it is about time travel, parallel universe and changing the past or present or even future with the hope for a better life of human kind in some way. The plot is quite fast for early episodes with back and forth timeline from one to another scenes to tell its story and background in general. Perhaps it was meant to give a better understanding to the viewers of what it's all about.
While some people made a rather pointless argument about the age gap between the main characters and how difficult it is to understand the pace, I would like to point out more on the riddle to solve among the characters themselves. It may not be well-received by those who crave for cheesy easy cliche romance drama with shallow plot. Anyway, we will see it in the next episodes whether the lead female - physic professor is truly the mother or it is entirely different person to the lead male - police detective guy. I like Joo won and Kim hee seon here no matter the age gap thing since it is not too obvious in their overall appearances. Kim hee seon looks a lot younger in her 40s and Joo won is good as he is. ( to be continued)
UPDATED TODAY 25/10/2020
So, I finally finished watching this drama's last episode today, but on a note of only being curious with how the writer wrapped the whole things up instead of eagerly interested and couldn't wait for it. I was full of expectations and excitement on the earlier episodes since it blew my mind away. However, it changed drastically as it progressed towards the end. As if it lost the charm and poof the magic was just gone and became draggy, boring, predictable and utterly nonsensical with so many plot holes. It has a similar case with 'Memory of Alhambra' where suddenly everything gone sour although it started with a good premise. Let me break down some of the things that made me shake my head so many times throughout the story (spoilers alert):
1. Park Jin Gyeom (Joo Won), the main character, the child of prophecy, the special 'creation' with - special time travel ability without card-added later on, ended up as a crying, whiny, clueless, a bit psycho man who wasn't supposed to have another doppelganger as villain since his mother was a person from the future of 2050 who stayed 70 years in the past on 1992. He, who was being told as not having enough emotion but crying over his inability to save his mother several times. He can be at the right place and the right moment to save the professor with his 'lightning speed' many times because the time delay in between the dangerous moment was quite long and the bad guys were taking some times off to threat his victim before doing something vicious. He who eventually didn't die or disappear although the time was reset and everything else went back to normal as if his mother magically didn't come to 1992 and she supposed to maybe not even got pregnant if she didn't meet his dad Min hyuk at Alice. The most ridiculous thing was when his dad/Min Hyuk sedated him and kept him somewhere safe,then the professor Oh Seok Won (time traveler) asked Min Hyuk where Jin Gyeom was when he went back to Alice headquarter, a few moments later Jin Gyeom magically on his way to Alice and truly knew where he was going just like that and managed to get inside to then killed Oh.
2. Yoon Tae Yi (Kim Hee Seon), the mother and the physic professor shared the same names but different personalities.At first, the writer indicated that they were 2 totally different person who can live in the same time in 1992 and 2010 and has different neck mark. Yoon Tae Yi/Park Sun Yong as the mother was the creator of Alice/time travel machine, came to 1992 to collect the book of prophecy and leave little 9 years old Tae yi- professor later on- alone as when the police came. But then she was the one who took care of her and easily claimed as her mother. She who tried to invent another way to stop the time travel was not fully described as the inventor of the machine but more like only Alice staff at first, but then she was described as utterly genius who knew from the beginning about the book of prophecy and it was her ego not to stop the machine at the end. The most weird thing was when she killed herself just to save her son. The 2nd Yoon Tae Yi as the physic professor was a genius and had to witness her dad's death by time traveler, got a long amnesia, fascinated about time travel, an egoist with anger management problem but later on had something going on with Jin Gyeom and much later on met with the mother who magically transferred some memories to her as if she became the mother in one hell of a confusing episode. Her busy body to find solution was mere business out of nothing achieved for it in the end. She was ended up the one who remembered everything. That's it.
As for other characters, the plot twist over plot twist just made them funny and confusing characters which were added to make the story merrier without any proper explanation as to why it happened the way it was. They live, they died, they were nothing. The different skin mark between Alice and illegal time traveler in the end made no sense, no difference and just nothing. 1-10 episodes were OK and the remain 6 episodes were lame. Ending was lame. The genre was forcefully mixed half way too for no reason with a pinch of comedy, cringe, romance moment. For final score for me as a mere drama viewer is almost 7 out of 10. I suspected either the writer was being changed or simply lost the golden idea half way.
* the illustration is made by me last week in speedpaint process based on the real poster.
* for Fashion notes: I like Tae Yi's clothing style with her Jackets, blazers in casual mix and match.
