The Player (플레이어) Prospective —Hop on the Joy Ride!
This is the show that I’m looking forward to the most in this current crop of shows. It’s not the best show, but it’s the most fun. It has a lot of elements I enjoy: fast action, smarts, and fighting for justice!
tldr: a fun, quick-paced show about heists, the relationships built, and the justice served along the way!
Premise
The basic premise isn’t particularly original: a team of con artists are enlisted by a prosecutor to bring him evidence that will bring the criminals down…any money they find is theirs 😉. It’s a variant of the heist trope. So, the story itself isn’t what draws you, but what should draw someone is how well it’s executed upon — and this one is pretty well executed on.
It’s got a good cast of characters: the swindler, the muscle, the hacker, and the driver. Character development looks like it could be a strength of this show. Movie versions of heist stories tend to focus more on the innovative methods of the heist, but the mini-series format can focus more on the ‘why do they steal’ story 👍.
Story
Korean shows are generally good about creating good twists, so not too worried about that, but what worries me is how the writer’s going to split the time between character development and action.
In the first 4 (of 14) episodes, it touched on the muscle’s (Do Jin Woong) story a bit. But it wasn’t a full-throated dive into his story, so not sure how they’ll do it, so that’s what worries me a bit. If it just becomes about back stories without heists, it could get boring — or if it’s just heists, it’ll probably be hard to stay innovative with them.
If I were to make a guess, the resolution of each person’s story outside of “the swindler” (Kang Ha Ri) will lead each person to become more personally invested in Kang Ha Ri. And then in the final chapter, we’ll delve into Kang Ha Ri’s story. Something like: he betrays the team to reach his goal, but its only temporary so that in the end, everyone will be made whole.
At this point, beyond the heist premise, you can see that the overarching story here is Kang Ha Ri’s revenge for how unjustly his father was brought down. His father tried to do things by the books, but instead of justice happening, his father was torn down for trying.
Conclusion
At this point, the best part of this show is the fast, but good pace, so kudos to the director! I sincerely doubt that the way the story unfolds will surprise me, but it’s still going to be a fun ride.
I’m sure some romance between Kang Ha Ri & Cha Ah Ryung (Krystal) will unfold (if it does, it will only make this future betrayal that I predict, that much harder for him to do), but the romance doesn’t much interest me.
What I will be interested in is rooting for this team of con artists to swindle the criminals, then to sympathize with their stories, and lastly, just enjoy the journey. Journey > Destination!
I’m not expecting much beyond some good action, some interesting cons, and a nicely wrapped dramatic end that makes you think just a little bit. As long as it checks those boxes for me, this will have been a successful, fun, slightly inconsequential show 😏.
OVERALL: 8.5/10
- STORY: 8.0/10
- DIRECTING: 9.0/10
- LEAD Actors: 8.0/10
- SUPPORTING Cast: 7.5/10
- CINEMATOGRAPHY: 8.5/10
- MUSIC: helps the pacing, so good!
