You know they’re the villain when their hair is too on-fleek Several times the series points to a meritocratic and highly competitive society as the culprit for all of the chaos that unfolds, but towards the end draws the line between how the mothers at SKY Castle and Kim Juyoung respond to the challenges brought by the unforgivable society they live in. SKY Castle did this to great effect, so much so that the presumed antagonist (the college entrance coordinator Kim Juyoung / 입시 코디 김주영) blended into the fabric the story, almost indistinguishable from the other characters in some scenes, especially as she is also a mother. In recent films and TV series antagonists have evolved from clear-cut manifestations of “evil” into children of “social evils” (eg Erik Killmonger from Black Panther, Evelyn from Incredibles 2) with deeper and more nuanced motivations and backstories than just “world domination” or “I’m bad.” Kim JuyoungĪ compelling antagonist makes for a compelling story. Even then, the familiarity was balanced out by surprisingly fresh performances that set SKY Castle apart. The most familiar tropes and themes that laid the groundwork for many Kdramas were blended together in SKY Castle, as though an homage to the genre. You have the stereotypical overbearing mothers, privileged children, and absentee fathers getting their lives overturned by bedridden hospital patients, betrayals, and birth mothers. While it was exciting to see the series unfold episode by episode, I realized after finishing all 20 of them that the show was as drama as a K-drama could get. It had the same effect for me as Baek Z Young’s “Don’t Forget” OST did. “We All Lie” by Ha Jin was not just background music - it carried the emotions and theme (the lyrics say it all) of the series, accentuating each episode’s closing scene, more often than not a plot twist, that made me want to watch the next one.Īside from the closing scenes, this song marked nearly every denouement in the plot, but instead of appearing to be excessive or repetitive, it only resonated the truths that were unraveled each time it was played. The song at the closing credits of every episode did more than I realized for this show. How did this premise win the hearts of Koreans, grabbing up to record-breaking double digit ratings (more than 20% for women in their 20s to 30s according to Gallup Korea)? Based on my binge experience of the series, here are seven things that I think made SKY Castle “올백” (slang for perfect, literally 100/100) on the ratings. But it was precisely because of this contrast between my initial perception of the show and how it turned out that it became one of my favorite shows. When it was released back in November last year, I wasn’t really drawn to the premise of the show (at least, as it was communicated by the synopsis): rich women trying to make their husbands and children more successful. By then the series had ended, so I was able to binge all 20 episodes - which made for a very exhilarating experience (as I’ll explain below). It all comes together with purpose.JTBC’s “SKY Castle” is one of the those dramas I watched only after finding out how popular it had become, thanks to the memes that variety and talk shows use and the guestings they had of the actors from the series. You don't even need a background for it to appreciate how beautiful it is. It's one of those dramas that the director should receive high praise as everything, from the cam tricks, set design, to sequences. more like her image?) was I couldn't help but notice the lack of those things. Because of how similar her role (to be clear, I don't mean same character. But the way I see it is while she did great in acting in both, a lot of what gives the drama and her character depth was how she was portrayed by the camera and what information the director choose to show. Recently watched Mine which has Kim Seohyung as one of the leads too and she draws a lot of similarities to SC in terms of what she is offering as a whole to the drama. It's not just in a "oooh drama!" or cheap clickbait montage. When I watched the show I don't remember another one that ends with a cliffhanger every single time. Enough to keep us in the loop but also wanting more. I think the charm is very much a credit to the director who crafted every episode meticulously. I happen to watch it pretty early on with no expectations which means the ending totally caught me off guard and the interest starts.
Honestly I could see myself not being totally impressed by ep1 as a kind of anti hype to all that. A lot of skepticism is thrown around after because it got so popular. The reason why the first episode works well for people is that kdramas had never shown that beginning to end contrast.
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