Lee Junho's “Confession” (2019) Review : An Interrogation
By Nabil Bakri
Overture
I said to myself after uploading the Boys Over Flowers Review: “That’s it, I won’t
be reviewing any more K-drama!”
Well, here I am, reviewing a Korean drama for the
second time after Boys Over Flowers (which
is a part of an article trilogy concerning three adaptations of Hana Yori Dango (or Meteor Garden)) in the 9th anniversary of this blog. I
never thought I’d be reviewing TV shows let alone a Korean one. I have spent my
life focusing exclusively on enjoying and criticizing Hollywood movies and sneering
at Korean, Indian, Chinese—basically any other form of moving pictures (and
songs) outside the great United States of America and set celebrated works like
Gone with the Wind, Titanic, Jurassic Park, and Game of
Thrones as the standards of moving pictures. In 2014 (or 2015), however, I started
to reconsider my entire outlook on moving pictures after I saw and swept away
by Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, and Ayat-Ayat Cinta. I decided to just focus
on good stories and good moving pictures instead of countries. Eventually, I see
moving pictures as stories and not as ‘Korean’ or ‘Indian’ or ‘Chinese’, they
are just stories and regardless of who made them, as long as the story is good,
they deserve my attention. Furthermore, Hollywood products are declining
rapidly in terms of quality. Since the 2010’s, they only produce remakes and
sequels—I thought Marvel Universe would be a great experience when I saw The Avengers in theatre back in 2012,
but it is just too much now and they need to stop making more movies and just
end the story. In 2018 I saw Meteor
Garden and I thought I need to watch more shows like that including
K-Dramas. As I said before, I had to start looking at them as stories
instead of country of origin. Now that I think of it, I’ve had had an
experience exactly like this with Titanic,
when I sneered at the film because it is a romance and I hated romance because I
thought it was lame and not a monster movie—but once I saw, it blew me away and
shattered my outlook on judging films with the regard of their genres. So far,
however, I only saw dramas that were familiar to me because I knew them since over
a decade ago. But I think I need to start watching original contents and get
familiar with other Asian dramas. And I think my readers want to read more
Asian-Drama-related articles. Congratulations, you have successfully talked me
into this.
After I saw The
Legend of White Snake and published the review, I stumbled upon a Korean
Drama that looks out of its place in the sea of Korean Dramas. It was the
poster that hooked me first. I remember trying hard to watch I am Not a Robot over a year ago and
failed dramatically (at least to this day) and avoiding romantic dramas or any
of those flowery-pink-wonderful dramas. I dislike Boys Over Flowers and that tells a lot about my taste in these
dramas (for now). But let say in a huge DVD shelf, among the many stereotypical
K-Drama covers, I stumbled upon a dark one that looks so different from the
rest of the shelf, one that looks inherently serious and I am typing this while
staring at the poster. Of course I’d say “yes, I’d like to give it a try”. So
shortly after The Legend of White Snake
Review was uploaded, I sat on my comfortable couch and started my viewing
experience of Confession—and now I am
here to interrogate the drama and determine whether or not this drama is guilty
for the crime of being a bad show.
Once upon a time…
Confession is a crime/mystery drama originally broadcasted by
TVN from 23rd March-12th May 2019 to a considerably
smaller audience due to its nature by being broadcasted through a paid
cable-TV. In 60 minutes each, the drama reaches its conclusion in the 16th
episode, making it a nicely proportioned drama (unlike those dragged to more
than 20 episodes), to me, at least. The title Confession does not tell you a lot about the story, so I am going
to tell you the overall narrative of the show. Confession tells the story of a young and charismatic lawyer, Choi
Do-Hyun, who is determined to clear his father’s name after a suspicious case
in 2009. His father admits killing a military officer and sentenced to death despite
the lack of evidence. Ten years later, Choi Do-Hyun finds himself entangled in
his father’s case and starts to unravel the mystery. With the help of a
determined police officer Gi Choon-ho and a spirited yet annoying reporter Ha
Yoo-ri, Choi Do-Hyun goes full-speed against the true criminal involving people
he loves. Let’s say it’s Detective Conan
but without the shrinking-pill and the endless episodes—or Sherlock Holmes but without the overly genius detective—or maybe Eli Stone but minus all the comedy and
premonitions.
Story Logic
THE GOOD
The story, if it is to be true to its genre, is
arguably logical. The actions and reactions are as logical as they can be and
there is no such thing as impossible events. If a man got shot three times in
the chest and on his back, well, he’s dead. If a man got hit by a truck in a
high speed, that’s going to end the man’s life. Just like many other crime
stories, the drama is started from a very usual circumstance that can easily
happen in real life. Mutilated body, psychopath, government corruption, wrong
accusation, and murder in hospital disguised as negligence are, sadly, normal
things that happen or can be found all the time throughout the world. Confession tries to make a long thread
of these terrible situations and it does the sewing pretty well. Just like what
we expect in a multi-billion dollar corruption case, it all started with the
smallest piece of puzzle before leading up to the grand designer of the
conspiracy. Each character in Confession
reacts as a character should be and thus keeping the sense of reality intact.
THE BAD
Coincidence seems to be one of the greatest plagues in
stories. We acknowledge the fact that coincidences do happen in real life, but
we all know or aware of moments when they start to seem ridiculous. Yes, the
story is overall logical, but in putting the pieces together, Confession often cheats you by presenting
the mantra of coincidence. Now, the
drama is rather smart, it conceals the coincidences as pre-determined chains of
reactions (it is set in a way that it does not look like a coincidence), but
there are just too many characters surrounding the main character who happen to
be involved in a similar case. Almost none of them are regular character
without any connection to the mysterious case. The whole case is set in such a
way that it is too good to be true, too perfect, or too far-fetched. Remember
how I claimed that the actions in Confession
are bounded to reality? Well, there is this one case that looks off, a hanging
scene, but I am not going to talk about this in detail because it is a huge
part of the story—well, it is only 16 episodes so nearly every scene is crucial
and to spoil one shall ruin the whole experience. In the end, as a crime drama,
Confession appears to be very
logical. There’s no nonsense and ridiculous chains of reactions. Confession actually triggers you to
think about your government and what they are capable of—does not sound too
far-fetched.
Story Consistency
I really need to watch more K-Dramas to be able to
tell you my analysis regarding this point because I am familiar with extra-long
dramas and extra-short miniseries, but not an average-looking K-Drama. I learned from my friends and the internet
that a typical K-Drama would not be as long as multiple-seasons American shows
nor as short as HBO’s miniseries. But if I to tell you now, I’d say the story
is very consistent. Confession
focuses on Choi-Do Hyun and it sticks to this character till the very end of
the drama. In Boys Over Flower and Meteor Garden 2018, the focus of the
story often shifted from the main characters to side characters. It is okay
considering the number of episodes you can put on a TV show, but those shifts
often come at the expense of the main character—they distract the story from
the main characters and usually have nothing to do with the main characters or
would not change the course of life of the main character thus the shifts are
pretty much useless. You won’t find such inconsistency in Confession—from the first episode you are introduced to a
crime/mystery drama all set to unravel the mystery of a murder in a place called
Hwaye. All actions from all
characters that follow the set are necessary to move the story forward—all are
very consistent in walking together to answer the mystery, none is useless.
Tone and Pacing
Confession is surprisingly dark and serious. The story is
perfectly packed in 16 episodes that it left no room for romance or any other
side stories. As previously mentioned in Story Logic and Story Consistency, Confession chooses logic and consistency
over imaginary. As a drama that promises you a decent and serious crime drama,
it gives you just that. The basic story of Confession
is not as complicated as Game of Thrones,
for sure, so stretching a simple story to 16 episodes is a hell of a task.
Fortunately, the drama takes its time and on
with the story with patience, no rush. For some, it might feel dragged, but
it actually compensate the sense of logic behind the story. Confession means to tell you all the
secrets in order and in time, thus the best way to experience the show is NOT
binge-watching. The way Confession
takes its time to finish an episode makes you full—like you are eating healthy
food, so there’s no rush for the next episode. Many dramas are just like
dessert; ice cream, pudding, brownies, all sweet food—they taste good, but make
you want more and an episode would not satisfy you. Confession gives you exactly what you need in an episode for you to
come back tomorrow (or later) for the next episode: again, no rush.
Casting and Acting
 |
| (Shin Hyun-bin as Ha Yoo-ri) |
I have no problem with the casting choices. Well, it
might look a little bit illogical to have such a young and charismatic main
character who is able to solve a complicated problem. But as we know, as a
crime drama, it is what it is—and to criticize it for being what it is means
criticizing the genre as a whole because, hey, even Conan and Kindaichi are
young and charismatic detectives. When it comes to the matter of genre, it is
logical according to its genre. Lee
Jun-Ho as the main character is able to show the complexity of a devastated
young soul—he is cold at times, but cheerful at other moments. Choi Do-Hyun can
act aggressive but suddenly becomes fragile and shows his vulnerability,
automatically makes us care about him. I do not have major complains about
other characters, and let us end this point there.
Music
The story and pacing, the tone and cast, all are
state-of-the-art decisions. The problem, however, started to occur in the
matter of music. There are just not enough variations. Now I know in a more
serious program it is the standard to use simple and rather monotonous jingle
like the one in Predator or Terminator. However, those are 2
hours-films and we can still tolerate the same tone being played over and over,
while Confession spans 16 episodes
and using a very limited number of music sheets makes the musical experience
sound uninspiring and rather bland. I rarely have problems with music in moving
pictures, but Confession is seriously
lacking in music because the story is already complicated and rather heavy, we
do not need the extra work of listening to the uninspiring tone over and over
again in every heart-pounding event which, of course, happens a lot throughout
the show.
Product Placement
 |
| (copyright Chevrolet) |
My biggest negative criticism (beyond the scope of
narrative quality) to Meteor Garden
2018 is the product placement. We should understand that a product placement is
good for business, but we should not make it too obvious. Confession is endorsed by Samsung, but it does a good job in
integrating the product to the show. It is perhaps because Samsung phones are
so ubiquitous in recent years that we simply see one as a normal sight. When it
comes to another company, however, the product placement is a complete mess:
Chevrolet. Unlike Samsung phone, Chevrolet is not a ubiquitous car—certainly not
as ubiquitous as Japanese and Korean cars. Seeing Chevrolet everywhere could
potentially distract a viewer. The placement of Chevrolet cars also damages the
sense of reality in Confession. Unlike
Samsung phone that seems to be used by nearly everybody regardless of their
financial status, billionaires rarely use a Chevrolet big sedan. What I am
trying to say is that it is okay to have Chevrolet, but when it comes to the billionaire
antagonists, they should at least use a Mercedes or a more seamless Chevrolet
sedan. This might seem minuscule, but what the character is driving defines, in
some ways, the personality or characteristics of the character.
A personal overview
This drama is beyond my expectation. It is a decent
drama that I would probably give an 8/10 score for now (a mere estimation, because
I have not integrate the scoring system with this drama just yet). I am
grateful to the way it tells the story—that it takes time without teasing me
too much while keeping me interested in the show. I certainly did not expect to
be this entertained. It is a decent
drama that I hope can be a perfect gateway for those who are tired of endless
seasons in TV shows and endless remakes-reboot-sequels in Film Industry. This
certainly belongs to the list as one of my favourite TV Shows. I reviewed,
quite extensively, three Meteor Gardens
and a White Snake Drama, and I appreciate
all of them—but none are actually made into my personal favourite or rank as
high as Confession. There are many
reasons why I ended up loving Confession,
maybe it is because I have not seen enough Korean Drama, maybe it is because I
was in the right mood, or whatever. And yet, it is highly possible that I like
it simply because it is a decent drama with a decent story to begin with.
Coda
There is one thing that can be quite annoying about
the final episode. It does conclude the entire show decently and it is rather
satisfying, but the very last frame might be a little bit annoying because it
can be seen as a signal for a sequel: Season
2. Now I have had enough with endless sequels and I certainly do not wish
it to have a sequel. Can’t we just end a story when it is supposed to end?
Confession delivers a decent narrative packed in 16 episodes and that’s about
it. The case should be put to rest, that’s the goal of the entire show set in
the very beginning of the story and it should be the final destination. If they
ever consider a sequel, then it should be for the main character to face a
completely different enemy. Still, I wish it to be a standalone drama. It is
perfect as it is alone.
***
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