Les Silences de la forêt

This could have been a great miniseries. At its core, it's a good idea, but the creators dragged it out, added a bunch of silly and simplistic scenes, and ended up ruining the show's potential for high praise and ratings. The main character, who could solve all his problems with just a couple of straightforward answers but doesn't, completely frayed my nerves. By the fifth episode, I was already fast-forwarding just to see how it all ends.

I'd also like to add that the person who decided to make the main characters chew so loudly every time they eat, and to include noodle-slurping in almost every other scene, deserves a special place in hell.

Plot

A man's life unravels when a mysterious woman arrives at his motel one summer, forcing him to grasp tightly to what he cherishes most.

Cast

Everyone is great but Kim Yoon-seok and Go Min-si deliver standout performances.

Verdict

I'll be honest I'm at the stage now where I see a South Korean movie or tv show and I don't hesitate, they've been consistently knocking it out the park lately. Seeing The Frog released and seeing it be a limited series so no risk of a premature cancellation I leapt in excited but did it live up to my high Korean expectations? Not really, no.

You see The Frog tells quite the captivating tale and delivers fantastic performances but it's an extremely slow burn that suffers with one major glaring flaw. That the leading mans behavior is so illogical, so baffling, so unbelievable that it irreparably damages the whole thing. I spent each episode scratching my head, struggling to empathize with this gentleman as what he was doing was counter productive, he was bringing it all on himself stage after stage after stage and at no point did he do any of the things that could have brought his woes to an immediate halt.

Top that off with the analogies, the reason it's called The Frog is explained and touched upon lightly and it's positively awful. And don't even get me started with the line that the narrator opens with in every single episode, what was that all about? No I get it don't get me wrong, but it's such a wafer this metaphor it simply didn't work.

The Frog has its strengths and is worth a watch, but you must suspend a lot of disbelief and forgive it for some truly baffling writing decisions.

Rants

No spoilers here but really? Really!? How did he let it get to that stage. I can think off many ways to have cut that down straight out of the gate, I mean okay that wouldn't have allowed the show to happen but still! How weak do you need to be to allow people to behave like that with you? How far would you allow it to go? It baffles me. It's like bullying, I've never understood it on either side. I don't get the mentality of the bully and why they think their behavior is acceptable and I don't understand why the victim allows it. I just, don't get any of it.

The Good

Kim Yoon-seok and Go Min-si are excellent Some decent moments Slow burns well for the most part Great cinematography

The Bad

The writing is often deeply confusing Unbelievable in places The slow burn fumbles in places.

The suspense isn't created by deduction and missing pieces, but the fact you have no idea when the characters will make dumb decisions. This is one of those movie that try to be "artistic" and "philosophical" but failed because it lacks logic and depth. It try to make sense of things with superficial memory and trauma: some very cliche background stories without much resolutions. Though not all scenes and arcs are terribly made, a few are enough to ruin the entire plot. Also I'm sick of having cheap boring psychopathic villains, who had no depth and kill for fun. It's just lazy writing with zero effort. If you're looking for suspense and thriller, Signal and Voice are both much better than this, though they also suffer from boring villains.

After bing-watching the whole series today... It is true, it is slow paced (at least the first 3 episodes) However I find that necessary to build the tension, exactly the way it does.

Go Minsi's acting is formidable, which by the way, it is not a surprise. Her voice, visuals, acting skills... She nailed the role.

The series is really well written and you can feel the heavy atmosphere, I ran out of air a few times while watching it. It feels like a live action of a Stephen King's book. Everything is on point: from the actors and actresses to the story, from the photograpy to the music.

Give it a try, you won't regret it!

Watched this series on Netflix, just amazing story narrative. Go Min-si acting is outstanding and I think she deserves an award. All 8 episodes have gripping narration & story. Nice thing that this series is available in English. Direction, cinematography & background music are pretty good and well done. Go for it, it's worth it. I hope there will be season 2. All the characters acted well and in some episodes you are so engaged into the story that you will think of when the killer will be caught. In some scenes it looks cruel but that how you get so engaged into the story. Very well done by Director. Congratulations to the whole team.