[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Two Weeks" Episode 5

The drama has run into a bit of a holding patterm. It's still the same consistent quality of entertainment, it's just a little too consistent. In the last two episodes Tae-san made a daring escape, tried to recover from his wounds, and was able to get on the offensive somewhat by trying to track down evidence that would clear him and prove the involvement of greater nefarious powers.

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This episode covers nearly the exact same ground. Tae-san makes another narrow escape, struggling to survive against an enemy that clearly wants him dead when he needs to survive for at least the next two weeks. It even literally covers the same ground, as Tae-san goes back to the rural district, attempts to hide incognito, and once again makes contact with locals while trying to juggle his need to escape with his basic skills with his general propensity to act like a scumbag with his desire to behave like a decent human being.

Even the cliffhanger is the same basic principle, albeit more extreme. And consequently it really falls flat. We know that Tae-san's not going to die, at least not anytime soon, because the drama's only just starting out. The appearance of danger, and the ambiguity of the choices Tae-san needs to make are the drama's really effective strong points. It can't just throw the same setpieces at us and expect the same reaction all the time.

One potentially interesting element is introduced as we get a taste of Jae-kyeong's backstory and find out she has had past personal dealings with the villains. The question immediately comes to mind of whether they remember who she is- the one advantage of Jae-kyeong being slow-to-act is that so far she probably isn't on their radar. If they knew that Jae-Kyeong's grudge is a lot more personal than just being an ambitious young prosecutor, the situation could get dangerous for her fast.

This drama needs more focus on other characters. I like Tae-san, but at this point the drama's just doing itself a disfavor by insisting on centering all the action around him when he really doesn't have that much to do. There's little point in reminding us about Tae-san's backstory when it's still fresh in our memory. There is, at least, some set-up to possible conflicts with other characters that are brought up this episode, so hopefully the plot threads for those points will come to fruition soon.

Review by William Schwartz

"Two Weeks" is directed by Son Hyeong-seok, written by So Hyeon-kyeong and features Lee Joon-gi, Kim So-yeon, Ryu Soo-young and Park Ha-sun.