Teureongkeu

Trunk is a story that doesn't have much to do with the highlighted, painted so misteriously trunk but it's basically a "manual" for couples to make their lives as miserable as possible. These people really love to torture themselves unnecessarily.

A couple can't use the most effective method called "communicating", instead resort to bizzare ways to test how much they still love each other by the service of a shady matchmaking company. And a matchmaking company that is surprised the couples they match may actually fall for one another and breach a contract? Who knew?

Throw in a psycho with not so clear relation to the protagonists but somehow knows everyone and dips his nose into everyone's business very conveniently.

Not sure about the story but 6 stars for hiring the still fresh in memory Squid Game recruiter Gong Yoo and some good acting by him given the nonsense he has to work with. The main beatch totally gets on people's nerves, she did well.

Seo Hyun Jin isn't ready to be a serious mean girl yet. Visuals are good, ending just meh. Again, happy ending could be us but let's wait until second chance encounter to be together because we haven't depressed ourselves enough.

I usually vote a series down for one of three reasons: 1) the ending isn't convincing and satisfying 2) the plot isn't logical and believable 3) one of the main characters is evil or just plain annoying andI lose all interest in him or her. The majority of K-dramas, lately, have fallen into one of these categories.

This time it's door no. 2.

I guess THE TRUNK works as a sophisticated, understated thriller, but I couldn't warm to the FL, played by Seo Hyun-Jin. She's an enigma, wrapped in a mystery - a reserved, cryptic presence, who seldom smiles and never laughs. Mistress of the blank stare, she gives herself away by small gestures, or the way her face freezes, mask-like, when she's guarded or frightened. Han Jeong-won, played by Gong Yoo, is like a needy puppy, blurting out his thoughts and emotions from time to time.

The details are what makes this series remarkable-the haunting, beauty of Han Jeong-won's opulent, but glacial, residence, the unusual score, and the terse, nuanced dialogues that insinuate more than they elucidate.

If you have the patience to unwrap each exquisitely conceived puzzle piece, you'll eventually suss out the situation. But by episode 3, I realized that I just didn't care. Why? Because the premise is so ridiculous. While the characters are well-delineated, the plot is contrived and unconvincing-especially the ending.

I liked the kind of harsh aesthetics of this show and the cold characters, as it depicts the trauma of the protagonists very well. For me, the chemistry between the lead couple worked and the slow building mystery as well. I would have liked to know more about the marriage agency and how it works, as it is an important plot device but not explained very well.

Unfortunately, after a capturing beginning, the mystery plot is resolved in a boring and lazy way. The build-up to the Whodunnit and the ending in general is very weak and unsatisfying. More focus on the plot to complement the great visuals better would have helped a lot.

Suspense dramas are not my favorite but I watched this one because it was also tagged as being a romance drama. It didn't really hit the mark for either genre for me. I thought the editing was rather poor. The first episode does not provide a very good foundation for what is going on an it took the next couple episodes for me to really get the gist of things. Also, while the flashbacks usually indicated how far back in time they were going, the flash forwards were generally not tagged and you had to glean from the context that the scene was happening in the future.

I also found the ending to be very unsatisfying...both the ending of the romance thread as well as the suspense thread...for the latter, some of the earlier flash-forward scenes provides misleading information about the fate of the villain that was intended to point you in the wrong direction as to who ultimately deals with the villain. That is just lazy/sloppy writing.

But on the bright side, I thought the acting was great. Seo Hyeon-jin and Jung Yun-Ha completely sold the animosity toward one another that their characters felt. And Gong Yoo brought to life how broken and submissive Han Jeong-won started and then how he was slowly rebuilt with the help of No In-ja.

Overall, I am glad I watched it but was also very glad it was only 8 episodes.

The storyline was interesting, kept me binge watching the whole series in 2 days.

However, the main actress had a pokerface throughout the whole series. I think, I only saw her making a facial expression 3 times, in the whole 8 episodes. I get she had to be stoic and serious but d*mn..... I feel like anyone could've played that role. I mean, you'd just have to stand there with no expression on your face.

The other actors were amazing though. The main actor did a wonderful job.

It's got a lot of twists and turns, and it keeps you on your toes, but the main actress lack of, well... acting, just threw me off.