The Tyrant

Wow, what can you say about Park's new show! The pacing, acting, script and plot were all TOP NOTCH in the first 3 episodes.

The main heroine plays it cool: fits the role well. The govt baddies all seem 3 dimensional, and also including the Black ops team. The only criticism is Paul, whose English is kinda bad and unbelievable. His Korean acting is a lot better. All other supporting characters have a great script to work with!

Usually for many K dramas, lines are repeated, actors OVER act, and the action is slower paced. Not with Tyrant... layers & layers of tough-as-nail characters that play their roles superbly. Nothing is predictable until we hit the last episode. Some lazy script writing complemented by a vial/virus as black as... Venom from Spiderman comics/movies! A bit disappointed but still a thumbs up.

Korean Short Drama '' The Tyrant '' is a mini-series that serves as a side story to the movie ' The Witch ' and it unfolds into its universe.

The drama is indeed short, but it manages to handle its story nicely and it progresses smoothly.

Even though there were plenty of bloody scenes, the drama somehow didn't feel that disturbing, but everything fitted well with the atmosphere, the story, and the fighting scenes.

Still, another episode would have allowed the story to breathe and not feel that tight and compact. Or maybe they shouldn't have included that many characters.

Finally, the performances were all great by every actor and actress in the cast.

So, overall, seven out of ten.

For some who may not be aware, this series was created by the same director who brought you the Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion (an excellent movie) and the Witch Part II (a terrible movie). All three share the same premise and can be viewed as different parts of a same franchise. This third offering in this franchise lands somewhere between the first and second movies, closer to the first movie I suppose. If you are a fan of this franchise or just the first movie, the chances are pretty good you will like this 4-episode series. However, I do want to warn you that you have to pay real close attention to understand who's working with who and what factions are fighting against each other. As mentioned in another review, the lighting is inexplicably poor. I can go on and pick out couple of other annoying points.

However, the fact of the matter is the series is very compact (total running time of maybe less than 2 hrs) and is quite entertaining.

The long-expected "The Tyrant" doesn't disappoint! Still, there is a small fly in the ointment!

Director Park is juggling too many balls for the first three episodes. He makes it slightly difficult for the viewer to trace them, especially in the dimly lit scenes. So when he catches them all successfully in episode 4, the viewer is already a bit tired. Just as the capsule is missing, something is missing in the storyline to rivet you wholeheartedly to the screen. I have high respect for Director Park. Yet I think he starts telling the story as if he has all the time in this world, while towards the end, he rushes to bring all the loose ends together. Perhaps because of his vast vision? He takes joy in crafting films that reflect his personal vision, paying little heed to traditional storytelling or pursuing commercial success. He offers his perspective and style, leaving it to you to accept or reject. Much like a true modern artist, he indulges in his individual style and preferences. So it takes time to like it or lump it.

However, he has the knack of selecting a brilliant cast, which makes up for the high mortality rate in this movie/drama.

Of course, Kim Seon Ho as the calm reserved and charismatic Director Choe makes the most of it as usual!

Don't waste your time.

It has no plot whatsoever.

A lot of people are constantly killing each other over some bio-virus in very stupid action scenes that get boring and repetitive over time.

Though during the first episodes you don't even know who belongs to which faction and why they are doing what they are doing - but who cares?

Certainly not the "director" of that desaster nor the "screenwriter" - if you can even call them that.

When they shoot at each other, the winners always hit their targets in one shot from a hundred meters away, while their victims always run right into the line of fire without ducking, taking cover or even aiming at their targets.

But even when one side is only armed with some knives and the others with machine guns, the guys with the knives somehow win.

Then there is an old assassin who, despite his old age, beats up twenty youngsters.

He also manages to shoot through thick wooden doors with a handgun with a silencer (!) and hit his target right in the head without even being able to see it before.

Oh, yes and he also has his magic shotgun (with a silencer no less) he shoots people in the head without any misses from long distances.

Okay, it may help that his targets just stand there, don't take cover and do not manage to hit him once with their long range rifles and machine guns.

That way he manages to kill about 30 heavily armed, trained assassins at the end of the fourth episode.

And then, there is the crazy assassin girl.

She is just skin and bones but manages to take out groups of trained and armed assassins just with a little knife.

She also shoots people without ever missing from hundreds of meters away, just with some short range handguns and while walking towards them.

Okay, it also helps that these guys never think to duck or to shoot back.

There are also many scenes where she manages to sneak up on people on empty, football stadium sized grassfields, without them noticing it.

Or she just appears out of nowhere in some empty rooms.

Though she is that super-assassin at one time she gets stabbed and shot multiple times and then thrown down to certain death from a bridge.

But what do you know - she survives all of that somehow fresh and peachy! (Facepalm!)

How does that little girl manage to do all that, you may ask (apart from a really bad script and directing)?

Well her qualification is that "she is the daughter of an assassin" Ohhhh...facepalm!

The whole plotless show is just an endless repetition of tedious, boring and ridiculous fight scenes and shootouts.

Also, there isn't one interesting person you'd root for - they are all crazy and weird, but not in an entertaining Quentin-Tarantino- way, but more in a really obnoxious, annoying straight-to-streaming-services C-movie way.

When you have no good story to tell, just let people fight and shoot at each other, over and over and over again.

The worst K-show I have seen in a long time.