Abyss (2019)
Review of Abyss / 어비스 (2019)
This was appearing at the very top of my Netflix for a very hot minute, and it took about a month for me to crack and finally watch it. I had no idea who the male actor was, but only noticed that he was ridiculously tall. Apparently Ahn Hyo-seop has become quite the hearthrob because of his height and looks.
I was a bit weary to watch this, however, because the last Park Bo-young drama that I watched was Doom At Your Service. And my god did I not like that drama. Nothing happens! I wrote a review about it on the blog that was pretty scathing to be honest. It had potential, but, alas, it was just too boring and out there for me.
Abyss is slightly similar in that vein. I knew the first warning for me was that A) this was the first Park Bo-young drama I was watching since Doom At Your Service and B) her freaking male lead from DAYS, aka Seo In-Guk, literally appears in the first episode of this drama. I should’ve seen that as a sign, as I only could watch up until episode 13. I couldn’t make it y’all.
Let’s dive into this review and why I was losing my sanity watching this.
Content
The core concept of Abyss is that there’s this little orb called an Abyss that the male lead, Cha Min, manages to get his paws onto after the grim reapers accidentally kill him.
He wasn’t supposed to die yet, they felt bad, so they revived him with the Abyss and then actually give him this powerful little orb. Which is kind of a dumb mistake because they don’t explain it and he accidentally revives a full-on serial killer.
There’s a catch about this orb though: the person who is revived will have a change in appearance based on their inner soul. So our male lead goes from what society calls ugly to model-status. Our female lead, a prosecutor murdered in her apartment, becomes more plain looking and like a coworker (who she then impersonates for the majority of the series).
But then this little orb, after being held in the hands of the serial killer, disappears for the rest of the series. It isn’t mentioned until someone important dies, but then it isn’t used on her.
While our main character was out here just reviving people, including our female lead, before then we just transitioned. There’s something else that I found was dropped: what body to Go Se-yeon’s, the female lead’s, body.
They dig up the grave to find out that there’s no body in the casket, which then shifts the search for the serial killer to finding the body. Obviously there isn’t one, but it isn’t mentioned again by the cops.
Now, while I have been negative so far, but there was something really good in this drama. The momentum in the first half of the drama up until the serial killer is quote-on-quote caught is absolutely perfect and riveting. It had my attention and I was genuinely interested in the series and the writing was very good.
But then it all starts to go downhill as Cha Min is just accepted as being alive and with this new face/body, then there’s the search for the serial killer’s accomplice. It’s muddled as the family dynamics begin to come into play, as well as how the person Se-yeon was impersonating comes back to Seoul with plastic surgery.
The romance isn’t important to me, but there is good character development. The romance is a really slow burn, one where we literally didn’t see anything until like episode eleven or twelve.
I also do understand that there’s going to be so much criticism about how exactly the concept of beauty was handled in the drama—e.g. Park Bo-young’s face is seen as plain and not enough, or how Cha Min’s new look is the ideal.
There also just wasn’t enough suspense for the second villain’s reveal because it was obvious and done really early, so it was just a matter of catching him.
Side note, because it seems to be a theme on my blog of not recognizing people that I’ve watched a lot of content from, this time I didn’t recognize Han So-hee. Literally right after watching and ranting about Nevertheless, which she stars in.
God, I hate the drama and how it made toxic behavior romantic. But yeah in this drama she plays Cha Min’s ex-fiance whose managed to professionally commit fraud over and over again.
Overall Thoughts
The drama had a lot of potential, especially if we considered the prospects of the paranormal aspect of the drama. Like what if the serial killer had managed to utilize the abyss in a way that was able to aggravate his murder spree even more.
The supernatural and romantic parts of this drama tends to be left in the dust, which leaves us as viewers stuck in-between genres. The acting itself was fine, but you can’t completely fix a script with good acting. I don’t think it’s completely terrible, just confusing at times.
