STORIES with protagonists who have enhanced healing powers (Wolverine, Blade of the Immortal) that let them survive superhuman levels of abuse are not new nor are stories with main characters who are plagued with psychic visions of murders (Malignant, Medium) that turn out to be really happening. Disney+ Hotstar’s latest K-drama Connect takes things a step further and combines the two.
The six-part first season has Snowdrop’s Jung Hae-in, Go Kyung-pyo, Kim Hye-jun as the leads and is directed by none other than the Japanese maestro Takashi Miike.
Connect starts off with aspiring singer Dong-soo kidnapped by a gang of organ sellers, drugged and tossed on a slab for ‘processing’.
What the viewer is treated to next is a tense, stomach-churning, education in Miike’s perverse style as the gang’s surgeon gleefully extracts Dong-soo’s eyes.
During the process, Dong-soo’s healing abilities (which is reminiscent of Blade of the Immortal’s Manji’s bloodworms) kick in causing Dong-soo to wake up mid-surgery much to his and the surgeon’s horror. Dong-soo manages to retrieve one of his eyes, but in the chaos leaves one behind which is eventually transplanted into Go Kyung-pyo’s serial killer, Jin-seop who has a penchant for turning regular Seoul citizens into corpse art.
This incident ‘connects’ our hero and the villain of the story as they begin a cat-and-mouse game to outmanoeuvre each other through the use and manipulation of their shared visions.
And that’s just the first ten minutes of Connect!
Along the way, we are introduced to Kim Hye-jun’s character, Yi-rang, a mysterious woman who knows about Dong-soo and his superhuman abilities. Far from the usual complimentary eye candy, Yi-rang is sassy, street-smart and in true fairy godmother fashion – shows up to save our hapless Dong-soo in his time of need, which in itself is a full-time job considering the amount of trouble he gets into. The boy would be hard-pressed to win a fight against Jiminy Cricket!
When asked by theSun’s LYFE what inspiration he took from the webtoon when portraying Dong-soo, Jung Hae-in revealed that he could not stop reading once he got started.
“It was so engrossing but rather than say the webtoon inspired how I played the character, I had a lot of discussions with the director before and during the filming to bring the character to life,” he said.
Part serial killer detective drama, part supernatural horror, part psychological thriller, the genre mashup will have you desperate to find out what happens next.
Miike’s adaptation of Shin Dae-sung’s immensely popular webtoon by the same name is fast-paced, visually stunning and pretty hard to resist. The director skillfully reigns in the madness during the more quiet and introspective moments of the story before going full-on gonzo for the action scenes.
As a thriller, Connect delivers and is most definitely worth a watch for mature audiences who aren’t squeamish. Just don’t try to eat your meals while watching the series.
Connect is streaming now on Disney+ Hotstar.
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Jung Hae-in, Go Kyung-pyo, Kim Hye-jun, Kim Roe-ha
E-VALUE : 8
ACTING : 8
PLOT : 7
