Mouse finally came to an end last week after 20 (in fact 23) episodes. Everytime I finish watching a drama that is on its initial broadcast, I tell myself I should stop doing that because it is so irritating to have to wait another week for the next 2 episodes. Yet I had gone on to watch Mr Queen and now Mouse.
I think Mouse was produced in the 八点档 manner, where post-production was done just in time to air the next episode. While Mouse is an interesting drama in itself, perhaps the concept of it was too ambitious to attempt the 八点档 manner, so much so that there needed to be a mid-season Restart and another 2 episodes of The Predator mid-way during the 2nd half of the season. I didn't really keep taps, but it did seem like the duration of every episode was different. The finale itself was almost the length of a mini-movie.
Since it was quite a drag to watch how the drama panned out, I thought I'd write about this. And hopefully production crews don't attempt something so ambitious ala Mouse again. And if the production team embarks on Mouse 2, which seems to be hinted at with the 2 little unexplained scenes at the end, I certainly hope the entire drama gets produced before the first episode is even broadcasted. Great concepts can be let down by overly ambitious execution.
Concept
While Mouse appears to be set in contemporary times, it introduced the fantasy idea that psychopaths are born with a certain genetic marker which could be tested prior to birth. This genetic marker either causes a person to be a genius or a psychopath. The bill to legislate the genetic testing of foetus for this genetic marker was initially not passed, and it lead to a Councilwoman and her deranged (in my words) experiment of 2 boys who have this genetic marker.
Another fantasy concept was that brain transplant was an operation that could be done, albeit secretly.
Logic
While a drama is a drama and should have some liberty in fantasy, I thought the script for Mouse went a little too far with its psychopath gene and brain transplant. I remembered thinking how odd it was during history class when the teacher shared that there was a period of time when (pseudo)scientists claimed that criminals' skulls conformed to certain measurements. Well if you're only measure the skulls of criminals caught, there might be a certain probability there. However, I'm quite sure that no matter the era, not all criminals are caught and had their skulls measured, so the theory of criminals having certain skull measurement could just be pure nonsense.
I think because Mouse was produced the 八点档 manner, the production team wasn't able to review the final product before broadcast and found that they had to produce extra episodes like the Restart and The Predator probably because the drama was at the risk of losing viewers who couldn't understand what was going on after like 9 episodes of a shadowy killer. There were just too many teasers like hinting at the killer but not actually showing his entire body or face. So the Restart was to help viewers recap the murders committed and The Predator was basically to show all the murders again, from the killer's perspective.
Another logic gap was the age of the actors (both adults and children) and how Lee Seung-gi's character managed to get into the cell of another inmate. I was totally argh! how could that have happened?! but that closes the arc of Go Moochi's initial craziness. While Mouse tried to be twisty, Go Moochi wasn't part of the twistiness and remained a normal person till the end.
Cast
Lee Seung-gi is a huge name in the Korean entertainment world. But other than a few random episodes of the 2013 Noona over Flowers, I've never watched any production Lee was cast in. Which means I had no prior impression of Lee's other roles and was just able to watch his performance with a really fresh pair of eyes. I was already expecting a twist in Lee's character, as it would seem too easy for him to pick a role which was a nice policeman. Must say I wasn't too disappointed with Lee's performance. Especially towards the end when Lee's character was able to emote like a normal human.
Lee Hee-joon is a new actor to me, so I'm not sure if his acting style is always so over-the-top like how he portrays Go Moo-chi.
Park Ju-hyun and Kwon Hwa-woon acted in Zombie Detective, so I'm not unfamiliar with them. While it is interesting to see Kwon Hwa-woon portray a different personality from that of his role in Zombie Detective, I didn't see a large different in Park Ju-hyun's acting in both dramas.
Jung Eun-pyo's performance was a huge surprise to me, and I dare say one of the highlights of the drama. I've seen his work in Top Star U Back, Moon Embracing the Sun and Sign (I think) and I couldn't initially recognize him until I googled for the name of the actor portraying the character of a criminal.
Jung Ae-ri's character is undoubtedly the craziest in Mouse, and I would liked to have seen more of her performance, and for the script to flesh out her character and motivation more, else it felt like she was a mere filler.
No comments:
Post a Comment