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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Riders: Get Tomorrow" Episode 3

Tae-ra (played by Choi Yeo-jin) is a woman who attempted to commit suicide in Yoon-jae's presence for no good reason. Well, whether she had a good reason for trying to commit suicide is debatable, but it soon becomes clear that it was a poor decision on her part to drag Yoon-jae into that whole mess. As incredibly morbid as that character introduction sounds, the entire plotline regarding Tae-ra's recovery goes along all right- not too weepy, not too dark, and not inappropriately funny either.

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The main point of frustration here is how it is taking "Riders: Get Tomorrow" way, way too long to get to its own premise. It's only this episode that Gi-joon actually lays out his business model. This is quite possibly the only time in my life that I have ever wanted to see a powerpoint presentation. Because really, if the entire point of your drama is that it's about a rickshaw business, there really should be reference to that within the first episode, let alone by the third.

Gi-joon's predictable lack of success does manage to be amusing, though, because of course Gi-joon does not live in a world where independent business is encouraged, even if it's an idea that everyone pays lip service to. Instead, we have to work at jobs that are kind of stupid, and also probably illegal. I mean, yeesh, they have unpaid internships in Korea too now? Those things are the worst possible scam. Word to the wise- most employers are more impressed if you got a job flipping burgers than if you worked an unpaid internship. They think anyone who will work for free is just a sucker.

So-dam (played by Lee Chung-ah) is another useful character in this context. Unlike our three male leads, So-dam is assertive and driven- yet at the same time she doesn't put up with obvious abuse. And of course this gets her into trouble, too. And yet while So-dam's character is well-defined, her place in the story is still unclear because, well, there's not really any story to speak of.

The pacing is driving me nuts, and I can only hope that the cliffhanger will finally get the characters into actually riding around in rickshaws. As of yet it's not even clear who's going to be playing what kind of role when the actual story gets moving. The jokes in "Riders: Get Tomorrow" can be funny, every so often, but this project was not billed as a slice-of-life drama and I'm really annoyed about how "Riders: Get Tomorrow" keeps pretending like it is one.

Review by William Schwartz

"Riders: Get Tomorrow" is directed by Choi Do-hoon, written by Park Sang-hee and features Kim Dong-wook, Lee Chung-ah, Choi Sang, Yoon Jong-hoon, Choi Yeo-jin, Cho Byeong-kyu and more.

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