Disney+ K-drama review: Connect – Takashi Miike’s wild and grungy Korean drama debut disappoints after strong opening

3/5 stars

Ha Dong-soo (Jung Hae-in) is a “connect”, a superhuman whose body can heal itself and, most impressively, reattach limbs and pieces when they are cut off.

When that happens, be it a finger, a hand or even a whole arm, red cords pulse out from the host body and its severed elements, in search of each other, until they connect and recombine.

When Connect began – the show premiered its first three episodes at the Busan International Film Festival in October – its wild story and freaky visual elements were a bit like those bloody vines erupting from severed body parts, equal parts exciting and unnerving.

It would have been nice if this metaphor could have extended to the whole series, with the story threads finding purchase in the back half of the narrative and pulling themselves all together.

Sadly, Connect’s many narrative tangents end up being more like the roots of a big tree on a very small pavement. They shoot off in every direction and leave behind a very bumpy path.

Connect: Jung Hae-in stars in Takashi Miike’s violent, wickedly fun K-drama

Dong-soo is just an ordinary, albeit very handsome, young man working hard at a junkyard during the day and plucking away at his guitar in the evenings, as he softly croons his way onto YouTube with an indie song that becomes an unexpected, but anonymous, sensation.

He tries to keep his superhuman abilities under wrap, but one night he is abducted by illegal organ traffickers.

He’s sliced up in a grimy operating theatre and left for dead, but when the surgeon isn’t paying attention, his body pulls itself back together, except for one eye, which doesn’t have time to reattach itself before Dong-soo is forced to run away.

This eye winds up in the head of Oh Jin-seok (Go Kyung-pyo), a salaryman who moonlights as the infamous “corpse art killer” who arranges his victims as macabre statues for the whole world to see.

Jin-seok’s new eye sometimes acts up and, unbeknownst to him at first, establishes a connection with Dong-soo, who endures painful moments of double vision. This sets the two characters on an inexorable collision course.

Also in their orbit are the detectives trying to catch the “corpse art killer” and the organ traffickers pursuing Dong-soo, who imagine the financial possibilities of getting their hands on a “connect”.

The show is filled with outlandish elements and these are terribly fun to watch when they first appear on screen and spread throughout the wacky, urban-horror world orchestrated by Takashi Miike, the celebrated and wildly prolific Japanese filmmaker known for classics such as Audition, who makes his Korean drama debut with this series.

Behind the outrageous concept, Connect is built on a foundation of familiar pulpy elements that remains pretty solid throughout the first half of the series.

The organ trafficking gang is a juicy Korean thriller trope that is nicely revived here and the procedural side of the story, led by an excellent Kim Roi-ha as Detective Choi, who gets a nosebleed each time he has a hunch, helps to ground the story.

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Once the show moves into its second half, those foundations start to become shaky. In this way it feels like all those two-part Japanese blockbuster manga adaptations, such as Attack on Titan and especially the very similar Parasyte, which tend to open with thrilling and intriguing Part 1s before crumbling in overblown second parts.

Among those weak points in Connect, sadly, is Choi Irang (Kim Hye-jun), the only major female character in the story.

At first she’s a gutsy amateur sleuth who helps Dong-soo against the traffickers, but as the story progresses, her back story is lumpily attached to the show’s sketchy mythology. Making matters worse is a very half-hearted attempt at romance, forgotten almost as soon as it’s introduced.

Likewise, Jin-seok emerges as a compelling serial killer, thanks to Go’s imposing stature and dead-eyed expressions and the way the stylish show uses perspective and shadow to make him a threatening presence.

We expect some fireworks to happen when he finally becomes aware of Dong-soo and his ability, but it’s not the showdown we hope for. Rather than a tense dance between them until the climax, their unusual relationship takes a back seat while other, less interesting things crowd the narrative.

There’s also the issue of Jin-seok’s motivation as a serial killer. Decades after the likes of Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, it’s getting pretty hard to give serial killer characters novel reasons for doing what they do, but Connect doesn’t try very hard to set itself apart. Jin-seok becomes less interesting the more we find out about him.

However, his presence does remain effective, such as in a gloomy alley scene where he wears a dark gas suit, and he has at least one delightful ghoulish idea in his grand final plan.

Like many Korean streaming series these days, Connect barrels towards a wispy climax that sacrifices closure (and logic) in an effort to set up an unappetising follow-up season.

With such a strong trio of opening episodes the show is still worth a look, but be prepared for a downhill trajectory.

Connect is streaming on Disney+.