Persona

Overall, Persona is an interesting and well-done miniseries that mostly succeeds in exploring its themes.

The miniseries explores what it means to love or care deeply for someone, across the span of four episodes. Each episode is stylistically distinct and unique due to the artistic freedom the four directors were given.

Although the same actress plays the main role in all four episodes, she convincingly portrays four very different characters and aspects of love. This serves as a pleasant thematic connection across all four episodes.

The shortcomings of this project lie in the overall varied quality. Episode 2 and 3 are undoubtedly the strongest. Maybe it was just me but episode 2 reminded me of Under the Skin (2013). Episode 1 fell short due to its bad pacing and jarring use of English, while episode 4 never got interesting, mostly because of its dull script.

Despite this, it is well worth a watch.

PERSONA (2019) was a well made Korean anthology of stories, but due to the one episode length span of each story there is only so much that can be conveyed in terms of character development and depth, and only so much that can take place, per story, so they don't really hit too deep not as other Korean dramas might. However, they were still well made and acted, visually stunning and intriguing. In my opinion the writing struggled in these episodes, but still does give the viewer pause to think.

Worth the watch mainly for the quality of the production and the acting by Eun-Ji Lee (IU) and Doona Bae, as well as the capable directing and visual effects.

Episode Rating: LOVE SET [5/10] COLLECTOR [7/10] KISS BURN [8/10] WALKING AT NIGHT [8/10]

Persona pleasantly surprised me. I didn't expect this mini-series to be so interesting, unique and of high quality!

Each episode had its own unique story, the common factor being the persona. (IU) She appears in each episode as the central point of the storyline. What I noticed was that she was always in control, assertive and had a dominant character in each persona.

The acting wasn't anything special. I could rate it average.

What really stood out to me was the montage, light and sound editing. In those aspects, the episodes were put together almost perfectly, my favourite being the fourth and final one.

Though such short storylines could be a bother to some, it didn't stop the mini-series from being very artistic and well put together. The editing made a great impact on me and each storyline left me wondering afterwards. Not because of a cliffhanger, but because I wanted to know more about the persona.

Overall, this is worth a 10 to me. Considering shows like these are gems in the Korean tv show industry.

Maybe I just don't like these kinds of dramas. It felt weird and crazy and appears to be a black satire. I also feel that the acting of IU are all the same for the four dramas. It has four different stories but it has the same delivery of strong but soft spoken-stoic face acting.

Have no idea what this series was about. Four unrelated short stories. I was surprised IU would stared in it. And that was the reason I watched.

Still don't see the point of this.