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Pierce Conran

This article contains spoilers.
3/5 stars
Lead cast: Seo In-guk, Park So-dam
Choi Yee-jae’s nightmarish journey through the final moments on Earth of 12 other poor souls comes to a breathless end in Part Two of the webtoon adaptation Death’s Game.


The concept remains the same. After throwing himself off a roof, struggling jobseeker Yee-jae (Seo In-guk) is confronted by the icy glare of Death (Park So-dam). Taking a dim view of his having taken his own life, Death forces Yee-jae to play a terrible game – be reincarnated as 12 other people back on Earth who are about to die.
He is doomed to perish horribly a dozen more times before being sent to hell, but if he can prevent any of those deaths he may continue to live as that person.
Death’s Game: Park So-dam, Seo In-guk in fantasy-action K-drama
After getting the hang of the game during the first few deaths, Yee-jae spends a few lives trying to get, and most importantly keep his hands on, a giant bag of money.
It is only at the end of the first batch of episodes, when Yee-jae meets his girlfriend, Lee Ji-su (Go Yoon-jung), again while living as the handsome model Jang Geon-u (Lee Do-hyun), that he begins to think beyond himself, and therefore starts to learn his lesson.
However, after Geon-u and Ji-su are killed by the psychopathic corporate chairman Park Tae-woo (Kim Ji-hoon), Yee-jae becomes consumed with revenge – the moral lessons will have to wait.

We are then treated to duelling serial killers when Yee-jae returns as artist Jung Gyu-chul (Kim Jae-wook), who kills people to inspire his art – just like the antagonists of Connect and A Superior Day in what is fast becoming one of the most common clichés of K-drama thrillers.
After setting a trap to record Tae-woo in the act of murder, Yee-jae conveniently returns as detective Ahn Ji-hyung (Oh Jung-se), the incarnation who gets the most screen time in the series.
Yee-jae gets his revenge, but while living as Ji-hyung he also learns to be selfless. Yet the detective is only round 11 – there’s still one more soul to go.

At the end of episode seven, he returns for the final time for the most cruel lesson of all – as his mother (played by Kim Mi-kyung, currently also on screens as Shin Hye-sun’s mother in Welcome to Samdal-ri).
The last episode of the series devotes itself entirely to melodramatic wrap-up. The story was always destined to go there, but the sharp cut between extreme violence and pure schmaltz is a jarring one.
For a show that has until now revelled in stylised and grisly bloodletting, the pat moralising feels a touch disingenuous.
12 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in January 2024
Death’s Game is the kind of pulpy entertainment where quibbling over plot points is ill-advised. The plot moves quickly and the storytelling mode switches often, forcing logic to take a back seat to visceral thrills and emotional swings.
Suspension of disbelief is imperative and, thanks to its sheer entertainment value, the show earns our approval – we don’t mind looking the other way when the story neglects to connect its own dots. Yet there is one element in its central premise that was a little hard to ignore.
Yee-jae’s experience playing Death’s game is an elaborate ploy to make him realise how precious life is. No matter how hard things get it’s not something to be cast aside lightly, especially because of the people who will be left behind.

It’s a nice idea, but one that is only achieved by having Yee-jae leapfrog into people’s bodies before they have died. Those other souls are all prematurely removed from their own lives, seemingly never to return again, so that Yee-jae may be afforded the chance to learn his lesson.
This isn’t really a problem most of the time, as we’re too busy following Yee-jae and his 12 incarnations through a series of brashly plotted and well-threaded vignettes. It’s only at the 11th hour, when the show gives us its big moral lesson, that it strikes an off key.
In the end, the show returns us to the beginning of the series and Yee-jae gets a second chance. It’s basically the antithesis of Lee Chang-dong’s masterpiece Peppermint Candy, the ultimate start-with-a-suicide-and-go-back-to-the-beginning story.

But if we’re being honest, the story that grabbed us was Yee-jae’s post-suicide tribulations. Had he originally stepped back from the brink, we never would have tuned in.
Death’s Game is streaming on Amazon Prime.
If you have suicidal thoughts or know someone who is experiencing them, help is available. In Hong Kong, you can dial 18111 for the government-run Mental Health Support Hotline. You can also call +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For a list of other nations’ helplines, see this page.


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Seo In-guk in a still from “Death’s Game”, in which his character, Choi Yae-jee, having taken his own life, is ordered back to Earth by Death, where he must live the last moments of 12 people about to die. Save one and he can live out their life.

Lee Do-hyun as model Jang Geon-u in a still from “Death’s Game”.

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Kim Jae-wook in a still from “Death’s Game”.

Park So-dam as Death in a still from “Death’s Game”.

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Na In-woo as Yoo Ji-hyeok in a still from “Marry My Husband”.

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Ji Chang-wook (left) and Shin Hye-sun in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

Shin Hye-sun in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”. She and actor Ji Chang-wook shine as friends and former lovers who reunite in the “healing drama” set on Korea’s Jeju island, which remains engaging viewing throughout its midsection despite shedding its initial comedic tone.

Shin Hye-sun (left) as Sam-dal and Ji Chang-wook as Yong-pil in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

Ji Chang-wook as Yong-pil in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

Kim Mi-kyung as Go Mi-ja in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

Ji Chang-wook as Yong-pil and Shin Hye-sun as Sam-dal in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

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When Choi Yee-jae committed suicide, Death sent him back to Earth to live out the lives of 12 people about to die; if he saved one he could live out their life
His nightmarish journey reaches its conclusion at the end of Death’s Game Part Two, and it has been a wild ride. Don’t dwell on the story and you’ll enjoy this


Condemned by Death, after taking his own life, to live the last moments of 12 other people about to die, Choi Yee-jae’s nightmare comes to an end in Death’s Game Part Two after a wild and fun ride.


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Lee Do-hyun

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?)


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Review | Amazon Prime K-drama review: Death’s Game Part 2 – violent and fast-paced webtoon adaptation is a fun ride; just don’t think too much about the story