4007 words later

HUNDRED MILLION STARS FINAL REVIEW

A couple of notes first of all.
1) I haven’t seen the Japanese version, I do not know the source material or much of what happens in it or how. So this review is purely based off my watching experience of this show and version.
2) Obviously, this is my opinion. And it’s a very harsh one at that. I’m not entirely convinced it is worthy of such a harsh analysis but I gave it one anyway.

Things I did like: Ziggy, the cat, Yu Ri, the dialogue, acting, directing and story potential of the first 7 episodes.
Things I didn’t like: Everything else…

MOO YOUNG
Moo Young, Moo Young. What to do.
This is how I saw his character. And I’m pretty sure I’m one of the only ones who feels this way. But that’s fine.

What frustrated me about Moo Young was that his character was never full realised. In fact, none of them were, no character in this show was full realised and fleshed out, and no character had an observable and consistent motivation. Which is extremely frustrating to watch..
But Moo Young’s is perhaps the greatest tragedy because he was by far the most interesting character initially.
And not only was he not fully realised, but his development was almost entirely lacking and his arc made little sense.
Don’t @me with your theories;. Let me explain my POV.

Moo Young from episode one through seven was manipulative, arrogant, super smart, apathetic, unpredictable, anti social and impulsive. The way I personally perceived the information that I was given was that Moo Young was probably sociopathic, and liked to play games with people, probably out of boredom or an inability to feel much, and that he didn’t make lasting deep relationships with many people, and that he knew much much more than everyone else on screen for a reason.
However he was also portrayed as being kind to animals, and we were shown that he helped Yu Ri when she tried to commit suicide, which definitely made is seem like we were supposed to like him just a little bit, enough to be conflicted, and that later this contrast would be necessary.
(Unfortunately I think they dragged some of the mystery and intrigue on for too long, and there was almost too much push and pull with the will he won’t he is he isn’t. It started out as fun and exciting and then it started to drag because episode 9 came around and we still didn’t know anything, and we still were only ever seeing Moo Young through other people’s perspectives. I would like to say it was intentional, but even if it was, it became a severe downfall later because the outcome did not equate to how much was originally shrouded in mystery)
But anyway, the way I saw that he was portrayed during all this, was that he had this edge, this volatility, this mystery to him, that implied layers and complexity and a backstory and a good plot. That is what I was shown in the first half of this show.

Moo Young from episodes 10-15 however… was not this person. Moo Young from episodes ten through to fifteen… barely did anything. He reacted to Jin Kang’s attention like a good boy, and he went to his hometown as the plot required, he apparently, fell in love and was trying to be a good person. But the edge, and the smirk, and the underlying danger and intrigue I got from him at the start, was gone. He no longer seemed like the world was his playground and he no longer seemed like the main character (in fact he had far less screen time in these episodes). He was just there. And he would’ve been almost boring, if it weren’t for Seo In Guk’s acting.
On top of that he made choices and did things that ultimately felt less smart to the cool and calculative game player of the beginning.

And then for the Moo Young of the last hour and a bit, we went back almost entirely to the Moo Young of the first half. Except this time it felt out. It wasn’t surprising, it just felt forced. Because the Moo Young in the middle felt so washed out to me, trying to bring back his edge in the last episode and explain his edge in a fifteen minute voiceover at the very end of the show I felt was a huge disservice to his character and the beginning of the show.
The beginning of the show had lines like “I wanted to see what would move a rich girls heart”, “Murderers say it feels like being a god” and more.
It hinted at this potential depth to Moo Young’s character that I never felt was reached. We never really delved into why he didn’t see something things as bad, or why he felt nothing when SA died… we can make up reasons sure, from our own experiences or the shoehorned last minute reasoning the show gave us (along with a campy cult-my father killed yours- backstory), but many shows have delved into all of this before and this one barely scratched the surface. And it could’ve. It started out with the guts and the directing and the implication that it wa going to make its lead almost villain like. But it didn’t, not even when Moo Young killed Se Ran. Sure that was a start. But that was as start too late, near the end of the show and because of an incest fake out at that, and not because of a true development of the darker Moo Young I saw at the beginning.

Initially I thought that perhaps the change in his character in episode 10 was on purpose to fool me. That it was supposed to be that Moo Young DIDN’T actually know everything, and that the story wasn’t as complex as it was telling you it was and that he simply changed because of Jin Kang.
However this is off to me.
1- Why would you throw away that fantastic character a) for the sake of a love line and b) for THAT ending? Moo Young as a sociopath- like him or hate him – was compelling and interesting.
You don’t have to like him (or how he handles relationships), but these kinds of characters, when handled right make for fantastic character writing and conflict and subsequently fantastic viewing (if you can tolerate that kind of thing).
For me, I actually shipped MY and Jk initially because he was volatile and because he had shown himself to be not healthy for the women in his life. I was interested because he was toxic and because women became obsessed with him. I was interested, not because I am a sadist or a masochist or something else that is worse, but because to me watching Jin Kang fall for someone who has the ability to murder someone and not feel anything, and her struggling with that, with loving someone like that would’ve been fantastic to see on screen.
To see MY who has never been in love before perhaps fall in love with this different woman (if she were more interesting and if he had a good reason to) but not be able to change his nature and to be toxic for both of them and to see them destroy each other and the tragedy and angst that would come out of THAT was what I was looking forward to. And perhaps you can argue that is what we got (except for how they died).
But when they started dating officially… I felt nothing. I no longer felt the chemistry between the two actors, and that’s saying something because Ziggy could flirt with a rock. It’s like they had the intention to write the show I just summarized, but didn’t have the ability to carry it out. When they started dating instead it became an attempt at a redemption story, but, and maybe I just have high standards for redemptions stories, but I didn’t feel like I was watching a redemption arc. I felt like I was watching a rom com shoe horned into a melo, and then the last episode tried explaining everything and failed. We didn’t get the development of his redemption, we didn’t actually SEE him trying to be a “better” person, we just, actually we just saw his semi reintegration into society when before he had been an outcast of sorts. We didn’t see him change his ways from before. He just didn’t do anything for four episodes. That’s not the same thing as fighting his manipulative nature, and presenting the argument of why he was like that at all
2- To lead the audience in a certain direction only for the truth to be something entirely different is called bait and switching, and is hack writing and cheating. Don’t falsify the information we are given just to justify a certain twist later. I don’t believe he was written like that just because he was in love or that he was actually just bluffing all that time. If he was then I needed to see more of it, and to see it properly developed over time and I didn’t. Episode 10 came around and it was like a switch had been turned on his character. He was saved by one thing and one thing only for me at that point, and that was Seo In Guk’s acting, that he certainly excelled at even with a weak script. He alone made me feel like I was still watching Moo Young.

Honestly I would’ve prefered him to be a mastermind and or be playing some grand impulsive game of life and death with everyone. That would’ve made the death and tragedy more likely and understandable in the end, and this darkness that was promised more likely to well… actually ever show up.

To be honest I think the whole show started to go downhill after episode 9 or 10. The directing style got more generic, there were more flashbacks, that got tackier and choppier, and the dialogue no longer seemed like a conversation was being held via inference. Of course I think an entire show made the way the first 6 episodes was would be kind of weird, but it would be new and interesting and probably would’ve kept me hooked, and it would’ve been interesting to see them try and develop this show through unconventional means rather than falling back on old tired concepts, and doing them poorly at that. But like I said, I think this show was too smart too soon, and tried too hard at the beginning before fizzling out tragicomically.

JIN KANG
Unfortunately, I never really warmed up to her. Ever. Upon further reflection I have decided this is partly because I don’t seem to like or connect to Jung So Min as an actress. She’s not bad, she had some brilliant moments in this show, especially her crying and breakdown scenes, I just have found her acting in the two things I’ve seen her in much the same and hard to connect to. So that much is mainly personal preference.
However she also had to work with a particularly bland and uninteresting character. Perhaps some people warmed up to Jin Kang, but at the halfway point I was still questioning whether or not I liked her or not, and then when we got to episode 10 the writing did a backslide and I never liked her after that.
I just found her very boring as a character. It was never shown why she in particular was so special and particular to Moo Young, and honestly having them not be siblings and be childhood lovers and friends instead was a cop out in this case, and was detrimental to her development. Childhood friends reunited as lovers later in life is a very common theme in kdramas so it’s not like this is a new concept to write, and yet somehow this show managed to write what I think is the weakest childhood link romance I have ever seen. Because by the time we found out the entire truth, the impact was lost. We spent so long building up the mystery and unknownness, and then the incest tease, that by the time we had the reveal and they also found out who they were to each other, there wasn’t anything to build that relationship on in a believable way. They tried to make up for it prior with MY saying he felt the need to impress her, and JK saying she related to him because he was also an orphan, but I never really felt convinced by that nor did do I have a reason for why he opened up to her in the very beginning. Even though he supposedly loved her and knew her all those years, I just got more and more detached from their relationship as time went on.

On top of that Jin Kang did some really strange things. Like never once in thirty years had she asked her brother why they went to a temple on the first of November?
I also found her extremely patronising when she and Moo Young were officially dating and all happy like. She reminded me of how Seung Ah acted at the beginning.
And then she goes and holds a gun to her head at the end. Which was straight up manipulative.
But she kept being described by other characters as kind and able to cry at and for anything and anyone. But she also kept leading Cho Rong on and on even though she knew she didn’t like him early on.
I just felt like her character was over all weak, underdeveloped (a common theme), and vaguely inconsistent. Not so much as to get whiplash, but enough that when you look back at it you don’t really know what she did or why. Any conflict there was from her at the end was also forced due to the tacky plot.

After half way, she was just there for me and nothing more. I guess she just wasn’t a character for me.

JIN GOOK
So… you start off being wary of this guy who seems shady af and for good reason. He reminds you of the past for some reason, and you go around believing he is the burnt child of your past despite not trying to find out any evidence for it. Except then… when you find out he helped cover up a murder, and has very little emotional reaction to thing, you keep calling him a not human, and hating him for no reason, and then when you sister falls in love with him you get mad for no apparent reason because you think he’s the boy from the past EXCEPT THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO HATE HIM IF HE’S THE BOY FROM THE PAST BECAUSE HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING instead you try and set it up like it’s an incest storyline completely misleading the audience on purpose, and stabbing the guy FOR NO REASON only for it later to be revealed that you felt guilty and sorry for the boy and say that stabbing him was wrong and that they’re not actually siblings at all… in which case. Why did you hate him ever, and why did you stab him and why couldn’t JK date him? Because he was initially written as sociopathic? That I would understand but that volatility of MY was ignored for 6 episodes and then suddenly bought back and not developed and it was not made clear enough ON SCREEN that that was why you didn’t like him… but it’s okay because you hugged it out at the end and for some reason he trusted you at the end anyway even though you killed his father and his mother was in a cult and his father killed your adoptive sisters parents…
Like I’m sorry but none of that makes sense and none of that is justifiable, it’s just stupid.
It’s incoherent character writing, and very inconsistent and when the character holes are brought up in the show itself, they’re just brushed away as if JG stabbing wasn’t like an important thing at all? So what was it then? A plot filler? He doesn’t even answer JK properly he just says he was wrong and scared. I’m sorry, what. No, that was just some cop out to try and cover up that a) you initially wrote JG as MY’s nemesis because of moral ambiguity and then changed it to b) that he hated him because he was incestuos when in actual fact it was c) that MY was a symbolic representation of JG guilt from his past mistakes.
PICK A PLOT POINT PEOPLE. Gosh.
There’s nothing else to say here. He was just stupid and I miss Cho Rong.

TAK
You did nothing but serve to send the bait and switch incest rolling and you are pathetic. Oh and you were there for all the plot holes that the incest subplot caused. Congratulations.

YU RI
Creepy, messed up, brilliant, seemed the only one who knew MY well but we never really learnt why. Honestly a shame she was limited to the first half.

DR JANG
A wishy washy pathetic excuse and attempt at this show being all psych-y and interesting that honestly just falls flat and sounds stupid and not profound most of the time. Why all of our characters would go to you at all is beyond me. Oh but I don’t want you to know your past because it’s DARK. This whole time people kept going on and on about this show being too dark for a kdrama uhm no no it’s not? The only thing that would’ve been was the incest and double suicide route but I will talk about down bellow why that would’ve been stupid anyway. And they didn’t even do that.
Cults? Been done before.
Parents of child are killed by other parents of other child? Also been done before.
Children brought up in a bad environment because of psychopaths- also been done before. And all have been done better.

SE RAN (AND WOO SUNG)
Right back at episode 4-6 I was getting annoyed at the rich powerful people shenanigans because I thought they didn’t actually fit with the tone of show. And then we have to go and drag out the rich powerful people shenanigans the whole way through for two reasons.
1) To be convenient but otherwise unnecessary plot devices.
2) For Se Ran, an otherwise entirely pointless character, to be a psychopath that manipulated our lead for no reason other than her own pleasure so that he could then kill her and die by the hand of her father’s minion and not suicide. That, is the biggest wtf ever and if people say that isn’t a ridiculous story then I don’t know what is.
She was I think supposed to be a juxtaposition for MY but in my opinion MY was only barely developed enough to have that kind of juxtaposition and for it to work well he needed more development, so she was just the aforementioned plot device.

And the incest was a fake out anyway so he killed her for nothing, and then became a murderer for… also nothing. Unless it was to show us that he was capable of it but we all knew that, there are other ways to develop a dark character other than pull us around for 10 episodes, then make him seem stupid, only to try and resolve his manicness in the last fifteen minutes. *slow clap*.

TO INCEST OR NOT TO INCEST THAT IS THE QUESTION (actually I feel like this shouldn’t ever be a question at all but here we are. Lot’s daughters say hi and welcome you to my Comparative Literature Analysis of Incest in Storytelling. I’m joking. Mostly.)

The only thing more unnecessary than an incest plot is a fake incest plot.

The fake incest plot was irrelevant, unnecessary, (honestly @sincerelytod induced amnesia would’ve been better) and it did nothing but make MY believe a psychopath (when he was shown to be smarter than that), become a murderer, split him and JK up for no reason, and had absolutely no payoff other than good acting.
It did NOTHING. It was just another filler and another plot driver and an absolutely terrible one at that, honestly the original Japanese version where they ARE siblings almost would’ve made more sense… Almost but not actually.

I’m going to comment on the incest anyway, as if it had happened, according to this show and not the Japanese. As if Se Ran had been telling the truth. It’s a bit hard because now I know the ending, but anyway.
If it had happened in this show, from episode 14 onwards, then it would’ve made JK and Tak’s characters the biggest flaws.
If MY and JK were siblings, JG not telling JK anything is on no planet the right decision.
JG’s character makes no sense anyway, but if they were siblings and he knew, then he would’ve been the one at fault, because he should’ve told JK prior. If he didn’t know (even though it was implied) then my problem lies within in incest as a storytelling concept itself.
If incest was the whole point of this show, to show the breakdown of psyche of two people who think they love each other but are actually siblings in a dark and angsty backstory… then Why? Why write a show like that at all?
In my personal opinion- in modern storytelling incest pretty much never works as a plot point. It doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t solve anything and only serves for
tragic purposes as far as I can tell, or just plain messed up ness.
The only incest plot I will accept as not being ultimately stupid or unnecessary, is the Children of Hurin by J R. R. Tolkien, and that’s because they were bewitched by a malicious and sadistic wyrm (dragon) who was deliberately trying to harm the Children of Illuvatar at Morgoth’s bidding and it was unavoidable- Nobody knew so nobody could tell them. And they both commit suicide when they find out.

If that is what this show was aiming for; had it kept to the original, a tragic love story of mythological proportions, and no possible end but death, them I think this show did an absolutely terrible job at writing such a tragedy.
If that is what the original is aiming for, well then I can’t comment on it, and perhaps I’d just have to watch it. But at this point I struggle to see how incest could be used well in any modern setting without being stupid or unnecessary (since that’s what your entire plot would be based around, which is insane), and knowing that the Japanese version does include incest, doesn’t make me ever likely to watch it. And to be perfectly honest if had known about the incest before this show started I probably wouldn’t have watched it either (even though they didn’t end up doing it).
I feel like there are better ways to write tragedies that are equally well… tragic without incest.
For the record I think Tolkien is absolutely brilliant at writing tragedy (from the Kinslaying of Alqualonde to the Fall of Gondolin to the demise of Gollum) but alas he’s not here to write any kdramas for me.

Overall I think this show tried too hard, and it was not for me.. It could’ve just been a story about a girl who falls in love with a (probable) murderer, that would’ve been interesting enough, if dark and morbid and twisted. But that’s what this was supposed to be right? Dark and twisted.