bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Pierce Conran

This article contains mild spoilers.
2.5/5 stars
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s prolific run of horror dramas continues with the limited event series Monstrous, which launched all six episodes of its first season in one go on Tving.
Though the show is co-written by drama scribe Ryoo Yong-jae (My Holo Love) and directed by acclaimed indie filmmaker Jang Kun-jae (A Midsummer’s Fantasia), make no mistake about it – this fits squarely into Yeon’s idiosyncratic world of pulpy occult, broken characters and downtrodden humanism, which also includes Hellbound and The Cursed.


Just like those titles, this new horror-thriller is stitched together with the zippy pacing Yeon has become known for.
Over six half-hour episodes, the show presents a simple two-pronged narrative, dovetailing a horror-mystery with the personal tragedy of its two lead characters. The story and stakes are efficiently introduced but that also becomes the show’s Achilles’ heel, as the story is perhaps too straightforward and overly reliant on high-concept thrills that have by now become very familiar.
8 new Korean drama series to look out for in May 2022
The premise involves the unearthing of a cursed statue of a Buddha’s head known as a “Gwibul”, which sparks mass, violent hysteria when it is carelessly installed in a provincial town hall by an unscrupulous local governor in Jinyang county.
Occult expert Jung Ki-hoon (D.P.’s Koo Kyo-hwan) is hired by monks to track down the head in Jinyang. To decipher the Tibetan script on the enormous bust, he reaches out to his ex-wife, archaeologist Lee Soo-jin (Shin Hyun-been of Hospital Playlist), but unbeknown to him she is already in Jinyang studying the Gwibul.
Foreboding signs soon start to manifest around Jinyang. Stubborn crows crowd around the Gwibul, dead fish flank the banks of an eerily still pond and black rain pour downs on the region. Before long, certain locals start going berserk, attacking anyone around them as their eyes mysteriously cloud up.

The narrative impetus of the show is the quickly escalating threat posed by this supernatural phenomenon, while the emotional drive comes from Ki-hoon and Soo-jin and how their backstory is dredged up by the crisis.
The two were happily married and had a young daughter named Ha-young (Park So-yi) but one day she was cruelly taken from them. Both parents still carry guilt about their daughter’s death, and the nature of the calamity befalling Jinyang forces them to relive it.
Characters who are affected by the Buddhist statue are each afflicted by visions of their deepest fears, and when they lash out at innocent people around them, in their minds they are actually grappling with their past traumas.

Soo-jin is one of them and we get to see through her eyes how she experiences the phenomenon. Her trauma is repeated as though through flashback and gradually she imagines herself in different situations which her addled mind then twists into bastardised and horrifying versions of her terrible loss.
These ghoulish dream fragments are probably the most compelling moments of the show, but the concept of a virus or possession twisting and engorging one’s deep-seated fears has already been done a number of times in Korean media of late, and those weren’t terribly impressive to begin with – I’m looking at you Dark Hole.
Speaking of Dark Hole, for much of its run, Monstrous also places a group of scared survivors in a confined space who try to keep the monsters outside at bay until their fears pit them against one another.

This set-up was initially popularised in Korea through Train to Busan and has been particularly prevalent over the last 18 months, in shows like Sweet Home, Happiness and All of Us Are Dead. Nothing new is added to the mix here.
Monstrous makes a big show of things suddenly going haywire in and outside Jinyang County Hall. There’s a deranged farmer with a scythe, someone jumping off the roof and people being run over by cars. Even as survivors retreat to, and barricade themselves within, the lobby of the Country Hall, the carnage never really stops. The show indulges in lengthy bloodletting as possessed locals stab each other repeatedly.
The spectacle is bleak, bloody and barbaric but, in a show that doesn’t care to build any of its characters (beyond the bereaved parents who are themselves barely fleshed out), it feels cruel and gratuitous rather than tense and shocking. It certainly isn’t poignant.

In his first major commercial outing, director Jang conjures up some suitably foreboding imagery and crisply moves the story forward. In his intimate low-budget works Jang has shown a great knack for combining character and atmosphere. Throttled by the script’s shortcomings, this skill is never afforded a chance to shine here.
Ultimately, the clearest indication of Jang’s participation may be the cameos of Squid Game’s Kim Joo-ryung and Kim Soo-hyun, the leads of his 2012 lo-fi masterpiece Sleepless Night.
When shows don’t work it can be pretty simple to pinpoint the elements to blame, but sometimes the problem isn’t with the elements themselves, just that there isn’t enough of them. Monstrous could have used a few more tricks up its sleeve, but most of all it needed more of what matters most: world-building, story and characters.
Monstrous is streaming on Viu.


Netflix K-drama Pro Bono: Jung Kyung-ho shines as fallen star judge in breezy legal drama

Prime Video K-drama Surely Tomorrow: Park Seo-joon makes muted romcom comeback

Netflix K-drama The Price of Confession review: Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Go-eun in prestige pulp

K-drama Taxi Driver 3: Lee Je-hoon and company kick new season off in style in Japan

Korean drama reviews

K-drama review: Monstrous – occult horror from Train to Busan and Hellbound director is bleak, bloody, but too basic for its own good

Koo Kyo-hwan in a still from Monstrous.

Koo Kyo-hwan (as occult expert Jung Ki-hoon) in a still from the horror K-drama Monstrous.

Shin Hyun-been (as archaeologist Lee Soo-jin) in a still from Monstrous.

Kwak Dong-yeon (as local troublemaker Kwak Yong-joo) in a still from Monstrous.

Shin Hyun-been in a still from Monstrous.

K-drama review: Military Prosecutor Doberman – meandering legal action-comedy finishes strongly

Ahn Bo-hyun as Do Bae-man in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman, the popular military legal Korean drama series that has finished with a bang.

Jo Bo-ah as Cha Woo-in in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman.

Kim Woo-seok as Tae-nam in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman.

Oh Yeon-soo (left) as Commander Noh Hwa-young and Jo Bo-ah as Cha Woo-in in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman.

Ahn Bo-hyun (left) as Do Bae-man and Jo Bo-ah as Cha Woo-in in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman.

K-drama Sh**ting Stars: in romantic comedy set in showbiz, Kim Young-dae is a prima donna actor and Lee Sung-kyung a put-upon publicist

Kim Young-dae (left) and Lee Sung-kyung in a still from Sh**ting Stars.

Kim Young-dae in a still from Sh**ting Stars, a K-drama looking at Korea’s idol culture and celebrity behaviour.

Lee Sung-kyung in a still from Sh**ting Stars.

Kim Young-dae (right) in a still from Sh**ting Stars.

Lee Sung-kyung (left) in a still from Sh**ting Stars.

Business Proposal’s Kim Se-jeong set for Today’s Webtoon, Twenty-Five Twenty-One’s Nam Joo-hyuk eyed for Vigilante – K-drama casting latest

Kim Se-jeong in a still from Business Proposal. She has been lined up for a role in Today’s Webtoon.

Nam Joo-hyuk in a still from K-drama Twenty-Five Twenty-One. He is in talks to play a police cadet who hunts down criminals at weekends in Vigilante. Photo: tvN

Kim Hye-yoon in a still from The Girl on a Bulldozer.

Lim Yoon-a (centre) in a still from Exit.

Ahn Bo-hyun in a still from Military Prosecutor Doberman. Photo: tvN

Nam Joo-hyuk in a still from Twenty-Five Twenty-One. Photo: tvN

K-drama review: Grid – Disney+ sci-fi drama starts well but devolves into just another Korean time-travel mess

Kim Ah-joong in a still from Grid.

Lee Si-young (as the mysterious time-traveller Ghost) in a still from Grid, a sci-fi K-drama series on Disney + that has just finished its first season and looks set to follow up with what is perhaps an ill-advised second.

Seo Kang-joon (right, as Administration Bureau worker Kim Sae-ha) in a still from Grid.

Kim Ah-joong (as detective Jung Sae-byeok) in a still from Grid.

Kim Sung-kyun (as murderer Kim Ma-nok) in a still from Grid.

Kim Moo-yeol (as Administration Bureau worker Song Eo-jin) in a still from Grid.

K-drama review: Soundtrack #1 – Disney+ romance a poor showcase for Han So-hee and Park Hyung-sik

Han So-hee (left) and Park Hyung-sik in a still from Soundtrack #1.

Han So-hee (left) as Eunsoo and Park Hyung-sik as Sunwoo in a still from Soundtrack #1. The limited-series Korean drama is screening on Disney+.

Han So-hee (left) as Eunsoo and Park Hyung-sik as Sunwoo in a still from Soundtrack #1.

Lifestyle

K-drama

Entertainment

Arts

Culture

Film & TV

K-Pop


Co-written by Yeon Sang-ho, Monstrous follows an occult expert and his archaeologist ex-wife faced with a cursed statue that sparks mass violent hysteria
Relying too much on high-concept thrills, the six-episode series lacks in areas that matter most: world-building, story and characters



Co-written by Yeon Sang-ho, who also gave us Hellbound and The Cursed, Monstrous feels suitably foreboding but relies too much on high-concept thrills.


K-drama news

What's hot in Korea

South Korean celebrities

Fame and celebrity

TV shows and streaming video

An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


Review