Hellbound

 

Genre: Dark Fantasy/ Thriller

Director: Yeon Sang Ho

Rating: 4.6/5

 

Netflix’s latest Korean drama Hellbound opens with a shocking and brutal scene as a man sits in a busy café starring at the clock, sweat dripped from his panic fever as it hits 1:20 pm as the brief silence approaches a rumble reaps through the streets. A tree old demon like beast barges through the city to grab him, beat him senselessly and burn him into a pile of ash and bones. From that chilling opening moment the series lead up tension for its whole six episodes. Diving into a world which is at threat of damnation turns us all into a monster of a whole another breed. The Train to Busan director adapted his own webtoon for Hellbound and its hard not to immediately intrigued by the premise as people began to receive prophecies from strange creature that they will soon be dragged to hell for their sins. Which created quite a chaos and causing the world to fall into state of panic and condemnation. That opening brutal scene was a wakeup call for the outmost seriousness of this concede. There are no wings, nodes or slight jokes to break the tension, no meme ready moments. For Yeon however the focus is less on the creatures themselves as provoking they maybe then the all too human actions they enlist. First half of the series focuses on a desperate people group tied together by the chaos of these creatures. Detective Jin Kyung Hyun is called upon to investigate the deaths and Min Hye Jin is an attorney hired to represent a terrified woman who is doomed to damnation and then there is Jong Jin Su a quietly charismatic figure who heads the new True society, a cult that cease the emergence of these creatures as a sign that humanity has strayed from god’s path and preached people to change before it’s too late. Jong played by the actor Yo In Ah is quite normal and handsome wholly in control of every moment, he makes it seem complete understandable as to why someone can be taken to trail for judgment of their sins. The wrath of god in one thing but the punishments being showcased are far worse and insidious. It seemingly takes no time of the whole world to fall in trap of this cult’s hysterics, hideous propaganda. This is most tragically conveyed through faith of one damn sinner, a terrified single mother played by Kim Shin Ah in a heart wrenching performance that really stand out. Yeon spins three episodes achingly developing the roots of this new world and then there is a time jump. Now the second half of the show we can see the world has completely changed as the True society wants them to be, the True society has become a world renowned religions and highly followed to. We see more and more people dying due to these prophecies but now people are hiding the fact they received prophecy to avoid getting it filmed and leaving their families being mistreated by the whole society. but the show takes an exquisite turn when a new born hardly 23 hr receives a prophecy as the mother goes into infant cell to make a video of the new born to send it to the father. She records the prophecy in utter shock. She searches through all the rules and regulations published by the True society to avoid the prophecy and be a good pious human but she ends up finding nothing on new born. Plus, what sin can a new born ever commit. Watch to find out the rest as I want the review to be less of a spoiler but this turning point really crumbles the whole True society. I personally being a Kdrama addict was waiting for this drama to come out and it really served what the trailer promised.