Welcome to Kdrama and Ramen

A young man strikes out on his own and takes a job in Seoul, hoping to write his first novel in his spare time.  But money is tight and the only housing he can afford is a run-down goshiwon in a redevelopment area named Eden.  The house is full of strangely uncomfortable characters, with the exception of one nice, normal guy who immediately befriends the writer.  But the longer he stays, the more scary the behaviors of his neighbors become, and even his one friend begins to seem more creepy than he had first assumed.  He begins to admit that hell isn’t so much a place, but people.  Now all he wants is to get out of Eden alive and never see any of them again. But his new “friend” has other plans.  

Lee Dong Wook as  Seo Moon Jo

Seo Moon Jo is a dentist by day.  But when he goes home at night, he is the leader of a scary group of cannibalistic psychopaths that live together at a goshiwon.  Moon Jo gets pleasure from torturing his victims with dental tools. Eom Bok Soon ran the orphanage where Moon Jo lived as a young boy and she taught him how to kill.  Now she is a kind of mother figure to him and the twins she raised.  When Moon Jo first meets Jong Woo, he sees a chance to turn him into the same kind of evil psychopath he is.  He will use every trick he can to bring out the violent personality he sees just under Jong Woo’s surface.  

Seo Moon Jo had a rough start in life.  After meeting the manipulative Eom Bok Soon, he was involved in a fire apparently set by Bok Soon that he says left scars on his arms.  He doesn’t seem to have any true emotional attachments, since he even ends up ordering the murder of Bok Soon at the end of the drama.  But for now, he seems very enamored with Jong Woo.  Lee Dong Wook is chilling in this role as the cool and slightly unhinged killer, and I loved it.  That evil smile is the stuff nightmares are truly made of!  It was nice to see him break away from the handsome hero role and dig into some deeper, darker emotions.

Ahn Eun Jin as So Jung Hwa

So Jung Hwa is a naive, rookie police officer.  The odd happenings in and around Eden immediately set off red flags for her, but no one at her precinct is willing to listen to her suspicions.  Her bright, optimistic attitude, even in the face of being underestimated and overlooked, is the perfect foil to Jong Woo’s dark, increasing resentment.  

♥ Camera Angles

The dark cintematography in this drama was perfect for creating a world of shadows and fear.  It all felt claustrophobic and suffocating.  The use of unusual camera angles helped to heighten that feeling.  Things like spinning 360 degrees and shooting from above gave the audience interesting perspectives that felt unsettling.

 ♥ Mind Games

In the same way that Moon Jo manipulates and plays with Jong Woo’s mind, the writers purposely confuse and mislead us.  Not all clues are really clues, as is the case with the charger that makes us wonder if Seok Yoon is really in on it all.  Or the fact that it’s hard to tell which scenes are Jong Woo’s imagination and which are real.  The attack of Byong Min at the office starts like many of his other hallucinations before we find out this one is actually happening.  And then there is the huge overlying question, is this all just a novel he is writing in his mind.  The writers keep us constantly off-balance in clever and unusual ways that I found so interesting.

Plot Holes

This is a drama where every detail seems carefully thought out and subtle, but there were a few things surrounding the secondary characters that pushed the bounds of reality for me.  The idea that Bok Soon had got away with killing 2 husbands and burning down an orphanage without anyone blinking an eye seemed a bit much.  Especially when a rookie police officer zeroes in on those details immediately.  Also, several victims seemed to disappear without any explanation.  What happened to our cute rapper boy, or the weird church lady?  How did Jong Woo not even notice that one of the twins had disappeared?  And how does a detective go missing in broad daylight without someone asking questions?    

“Meat”

As if we didn’t already understand that these people are absolute psychos, they had to throw in the whole cannibalism element.  Watching them snack on “human” flesh and lick their fingers was enough to turn my stomach.  It definitely carries the message that these are not your run-of-the-mill serial killers, but I’m not sure it was necessary.

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Oh, the ending.  I’m not even sure I’m qualified to break this one down.  Let’s just start with the things we actually know.  At least most of the original residents of Eden are dead.  After Moon Jo tells Jong Woo that he can live if he kills everyone else, we see Jong Woo kill Bok Soon, Nam Bok, and the remaining twin.  We also see a fight scene between Moon Jo and Jong Woo that may or may not have ended in Moon Jo’s death.   More on that later… Strangely, Hee Joong, the gangster makes it out alive.  And so does Ji Eun and our brave detective, and Jung Hwa.  The whereabouts of Seok Yoon and Chang Hyun are never verified.  And Jung Woo is in the hospital recovering from injuries that have been ruled as self-defense. Jung Hwa comes to visit him and asks what really happened.  It’s obvious she has her doubts that Moon Jo actually killed them all.  The jingle of Jong Woo’s tooth bracelet suddenly triggers her memories of Nam Bok’s death, which she heard but couldn’t see.    After she leaves, Jong Woo looks up from his laptop as Moon Jo’s face appears over his own.  So, let me keep this short.  There are really 3 possible endings with slight variations.  The first, and probably weakest, in regard to proof, is that it’s all just a story and Moon Jo helped Jong Woo “write the ending”.  Second, is that now that everyone is dead, including Moon Jo, Moon Jo lives on in Jong Woo’s mind as his evil alter ego.  And third, Moon Jo isn’t actually dead.  We don’t actually see Jong Woo kill him.  Maybe he lives on to team up with Jong Woo for future killing sprees.  Whichever you chose, it’s clear that Jong Woo is no longer the innocent victim he once was, and his evil side has been awakened.  Personally, I think it makes sense that Moon Jo is only a nightmare living in Jong Woo and Jung Hwa’s mind.  Which ending do you believe?