I am yet to watch Ep 4, but so far enjoying this! It's fast paced. And it does feel like a game with 12 lives. All the cameo's are super exciting and Jang Seung-jo was so good in the gangster role, I want a spin off.
Even though you know death is around the corner, there are times when it feels sudden and unexpected.

I too feel that there is something more here that our protagonist has to figure out in order to escape this viscious cycle alive.

I wish this were a single drop, because it works much better that way.

I really liked. I didn't really know what to expect as I avoided trailers, but it is certainly interesting. And they certainly manage to make us root for each life. I am looking forward to see how this will play out.

Thanks for the weecap @lovepark this sounds like a great adaption; keeping the essence and adding in appropriate changes. It seems to be confirmed that it would have been better to drop it all at once as it is a complete story or the usual two episodes a week rather than this half and half approach.

Not my genre, but couldn't pass up anything with my favorite Yoo In Soo who played the bully and once again proves that he is one of the most versatile young actors out there.

Also fun to see another favorite Kim Mi Kyung (yi-jae's mother).

It's very fast paced, too much for me. I was just waiting for his death to happen, not really caring for the characters...

I just know that I need Jang Seung-jo in an action Kdrama now, with the same haircut and jacket!

I loved loved it up until making Park Tae Woo the big bad. SIGH, now I just like it. All the actors did a really good job, it was really great to watch. Park So Dam is clearly having a blast and I'm happy for her. I look forward to the remaining 4 episodes.

My biggest gripe and this is with kdramas generally is the need to make the big bad psychotic or have crazy eyes. You can make a terrible person who is perfectly sane and just an awful human. The occasions when that has been done has always made for a better drama, but this is the 2nd time Kim Ji Hoon has played a character like this, and it isn't that good just crazy. Lol. Rant over

Though my first thought was that Death sure had a lot of time on her hands, playing a lengthy game with one suicide victim, this was an intriguing concept, so I will definitely try to see part 2.

But I agree with @mayhemf this would have been much better dropped as a single set of episodes. I doubt my wife and I would have binged the whole thing at once, but watching continuously over several nights would have been more satisfying--the break after 4 felt pretty arbitrary. Plus, I'm never sure what will be happening in month--for all I know I could be playing death's game myself, and never find out what happened to Seo In-gook!

A random observation and a question:

The toughest acting job in these episodes was Park So-Dam's. From time to time the camera really zeroed in on her (admittedly beautiful) features, and she had to keep a perpetually blank and cold face while saying some pretty dumb lines. Death isn't too eloquent in this one.
AND
When did the vision of hell with black cgi generated body like forms scrambling over each other to grab a new condemned soul first appear in kdramas? I saw this type CGI imagery first in World War Z, a pretty bad zombie move with Brad Pitt doing some zombie acting himself, but I first saw it as hell in the Uncanny Counter. But it must have appeared prior to that series. Maybe in a korean movie?

Ahhhhh saving this for the new year! I still have 3 shows that I want to finish this year LOL

Wow, I didn't know what to expect going in.
Some parts can be brutal to watch but overall it is a fast paced show which sucks you in the deeper you go.
The break is unfortunate as it wrecks the momentum and my need to find out how everyone is interconnected. This may backfire on them. The biggest selling point has to be all the cameos, it has been a joy to watch the different actors.

scares him into thinking that the boy he killed is haunting him.

Which is sorta, kinda, almost true.

Meanwhile...

It's sometimes fun to think about who else could play a certain role in a kdrama -- and who couldn't no matter how talented they are. Let's just say I can't imagine Kim So-hyun playing Death. But Yu-na with a backscratcher instead of a gun. Yes, I could see that.

I don't know how to formulate my thoughts. I knew this was an interesting idea and I'm glad that the execution is what I thought it would be.

I had a feeling the company exec was the big bad or may be it's better say that he was involved in all the misfortunes (except the teens).

As someone who is scared of flying, that first death (or is it a second death?) was extremely horrifying to me. The sky diver who went without a parachute was just... I have no words. That must be so traumatizing to witness but then it also shows the morbid fascination of people because they tuned in because of the possibility of the stunt going wrong and then how many people viewed a video of someone's graphic death.

I'm not sure what the teen life was supposed to show him. That life is unfair? That there's no one of beating a bully? That even when you win, you lose?
I really don't know how he was supposed to avoid death during that life. Was he supposed to transfer? Is it that easy to transfer?

I get the suicide = bad message but I always feel a little weird when it's just chalked up to a selfish decision. It may be selfish but it's also extremely personal and when you're in that headspace of complete hopelessness and abject pain & sadness, you're not thinking about other people and why would you?

I had to fast forward over the child abuse life so I don't even know if it was mentioned why they even had and kept the child rather than turn it over to an orphanage or something. People will say "there's never an excuse for violence" but "parents" like these are a VERY valid excuse. It's good that I fast forwarded over their scenes because I don't even remember the actors and I feel like I wouldn't even wanna see them in other works if I remembered them; like an *INSTANT* turnoff. (I've had that experience a few times lately)

Bleak as hell. Was baby murder necessary?! The things I watch for you, See In-gook!

This drama feels almost more like a cool concept for a drama than a fully fleshed-out story. Might be the pacing, which at only 8 episodes felt slow in terms of story and character development. It was like episode one happened, and then I spent two episodes waiting for everything that came in episode four. It also might be the dialogue, which felt a little weak to me. Very Moving-esque in that regard.

I will still tune in for the second half to see how it ends, but I will be girding myself for a horribly tragic ending and have a fluffy rom-com queued up for after, lol.

Nah, where's my full Jang Seung-jo as an Assassin drama, come on.

I'm glad the recap mentioned dark humor because I certainly chuckled a couple of times such as after the fixer's death when he returned to limbo cursing the woman who betrayed him.

The story is nothing new and I was expecting more wry humour, but the SIG, PSD and cameo actors are making the drama work.

The social message in the drama is also repeatitive because it has been done before in another dramas.

Also, the drama could have removed the baby abuse as it was excessive and uncomfortable to watch. People who are not ready to have kids should not have them at all and government should think twice before enticing people with "birth incentives" to counter low birth rates.

I am continuing this just to see the closure for the protagonist.

I cried when he was talking to the girlfriend and it was shown how she was never ashamed or embarrassed by him. I think he also apologized to her.

Sidenote: I guess again it's a cultural thing but I can't stand how invasive people are, especially work colleagues. Not only did they dismiss her saying she had a boyfriend but then they say she's probably just into superficial looks and says she should be into someone like her coworker. Then asked the coworker if he was interested in dating her as if her opinion barely even mattered as long as he deigned her to be worthy of his interest. Like seriously wtf?

How long were they dating that he didn't know she had a brother? I don't know how dating goes or develops but isn't learning about whether your girlfriend has siblings, early stages stuff?
(then again I didn't know my half sister has stepsiblings until this year so what do I know

It goes directly in my top list. Not the kind of thing that happen often.
The drama is made like a movie. Fast paced. I liked all, and my favorite episode, for once, is the slower one: Episode 4 is so high on emotions.

On a morally-ethical level, I wonder how right it is to punish some suicidal guy. Dude worked on a part time jobs for seven years and was job-hunting throughout that time. He has suffered enough.

Plus, "Suicide is selfish" is one of those mantras that didn't age well. However, saying that it is wrong is also belittling what the loved ones of the dead people are going through.

I was not sure about this one, but now I'm hooked! I laughed and cried. Can't wait for part 2.
I think Korea should have more dramas like this, because of high rate of suicide in there.

I had just studied the webtoon version of this drama, and very curious about the huge star cast and their performances. When i started watching it, they had made some changes from webtoon but it was so fast paced drama that in a blink you will miss a scene as of my experience i was so eager to our FL( go young jo) , kim ji hoon and oh jung se , lee do hyun , ryeoun , i only started this drama to watch my favorite cameos in it.

Whoa.
I just finished ep4, and whoa. This is fast paced and they did not put all the budget in the casting for the action scene are grandiose. But the next life is already playing, with more at stake and more emotions.

5 reincarnations, but only 2 "big names" remaining on the list. More cross-over of the lifes ?
What with the evil chaebol, is this really such an imponderable of kdramas?

Was I the only one to think it bloody (in both senses) funny, rather than 'bleak' ?

It deals with serious themes, but had me laughing out loud several times.

So if I understand the plot correctly, the male lead commits the great crime of suicide and, to teach him a lesson, Death decides to force him to live endless examples of life being short and pointless. Great lesson, Death! That'll bring the suicide rate down!

There is nothing - and I do not say this lightly - NOTHING worse out of Korea than dramas with the great social message that suicide is bad and you should not do it. Like, wow, revelation, show! Suicide is bad. Don't do it. That'll stop people from doing it. Societies that tell people that suicide is bad because you'll be punished in some karmic or cosmic afterlife way always have higher suicide rates than countries that say, "hey, we know people are killing themselves for actual reasons and we're going to address those reasons". But that's conservatism for you. Who needs to understand and help people who are struggling when you can just threaten them with hellfire? Because that alway works. It's marginally better than Tomorrow, which literally told people it was UNPATRIOTIC to kill themselves, like somebody who has lost all hope for the future cares about the philosophy of nationhood.

The biggest question for this drama is why the acting is so so amazing and everything else is SO BAD. I can't think of a single other drama where one thing is truly extraordinary and literally everything else is so terrible it's actually at some points funny.

Are the actors' families being held hostage somewhere? Do we need to rescue them? Blink twice if you need help, Ziggy! Blink twice!

If nothing else, this drama was a giant and elaborate suicide prevention campaign that was tastefully done.

With suicide as its premise, I was worried they would opt for either a dramatically tragic or a more cavalier approach. But they actually did a great job in portraying Yi-jae's struggle in life as a one-among-many realities of life in South Korea with its high societal pressure. The way life kept throwing these little curveballs (but all at the same time, or just right at the worst moment possible) made his decision to commit suicide understandable, even when I disagree with it. But then right when I thought I understood what was going on, the drama reminded us of the many different perspectives that we missed as we looked at the world solely through Yi-jae's eyes.

I like the careful balance between showing us that sometimes the system was so broken that it was no wonder some people were driven towards suicide (it was strongly reiterated in the bullied high-schooler Hyuk-soo's story), but it also showed us that everyone has their own struggle and that life isn't an olympiade in "who got the worst chance at life" (the contrasting end for many of the lives Yi-jae got to experience showcased this perfectly--be it a chaebol who died in freak 'accident', a hardened young man killed by the only person they trusted, or a helpless baby born to abusive parents). There's also a balance between acknowledging that the harsh reality made people only take care of their own individual needs, and showing that as human beings we probably should re-learn about sympathy and empathy in a world that seemed to get even more cruelly selfish. How recognizing small happiness and contentment that was going on in your life and be grateful for it might be the key to a fulfilling life.

I appreciated the drama's careful built-up towards (what I thought as) its ultimate message as we zip through 7 lives in less than 4 hours. How it slowly but surely showcased suicide as a desperate measure taken by people who were hanging by a thread, while highlighting that it was also a selfish non-solution to all those they left behind. Yi-jae's forced rememberance of his own mother he left behind started with the high-schooler Hyuk-soo who was a son of a loving single mother, much like Yi-jae's own story. The reality of his selfish decision to end his life without thinking of what grief it brought his own family was hammered in through inmate Tae-sang's conversation with his mother, and the cruel end of that life. All those realization was then brought to a head in the 7th life as model Gun-woo, where Yi-jae got to re-insert himself in his girlfriend's life and witnessed firsthand the revolving what-if questions that plagued both her and Yi-jae's mother. And the realization that he was responsible for that (more so because it was a death he 'chose' for himself instead of an unavoidable fate) was hard to swallow.

I'm excited to know how the drama would...

"Oh the things I watch for Seo In-Guk," ;-) I'm watching this for all the stars, too many to name.

The fast-paced action makes the show more watchable since the subject is so dark, then the show became emotionally intense. I'm ready for the next half of the show.