|
 Prison Playbook (슬기로운 감빵생활) is a comedy-drama about life in Korean prison, available on Netflix. Official synopsis posted:With his major league baseball debut right around the corner, a star pitcher lands in prison and must learn to navigate his new world.  Kim Je-hyeok Dimwitted but good-natured star baseball player. In the Detention Centre Cellmates: Kim Sung-cheol AKA Jailbird: Repeat offender and Je-hyeok's first friend in prison. . Professor Myung: Con artist and jailhouse veteran. Gal Dae-bong AKA Seagull: Buffoonish but dangerous gangster. Crony: As it says on the tin. Gramps: Old man at the bottom of the cell’s hierarchy. Other prisoners: Soji: Trustee who hands out food. Staff: Lee Joon-Ho: Young correctional officer and fan of Kim Je-Hyeok. Really his best friend and team-mate from high school. Chief Jo Ji-Ho: Corrupt veteran guard. In the Penitentiary (spoilers: Kim Je-hyeok goes to a penitentiary) Cellmates: Kim Min-chul: Gangster whose long since lost his edge. Kang Chul-doo AKA Kaist: Engineer who’s not nearly as clever as he thinks. Lee Joo-hyung AKA Jean Valjean: Two-bit thief who treats Min-chul like a father. Go Park-sa AKA Doctor Go: Naively rules-obsessed white collar criminal constantly filing complaints and petitions. Yoo Han-yang AKA Weirdo: Drug addict who appears to be mentally a child. Yoo Jeong-woo: Military officer convicted for killing a subordinate. Other prisoners: Han-Jong: Loudmouthed trustee. Yeom Sang-jae: Trustee leader of the prison workshop. Staff Warden: Vain and obsessed with publicity. Captain Na: The prison's strict second-in-command. Lieutenant Paeng: Brusque but flexible officer. Lieutenant Lee: Corrupt guard in charge of the prison woodshop. Outside Kim Ji-Ho: Je-hyeok’s somewhat abrasive ex-girlfriend. Kim Je-hee: Je-hyeok’s younger sister. Lee Joon-dol: Joon-ho’s younger brother and Je-hyeok’s number one fan. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Mar 10, 2019 |
#
?
Mar 10, 2019 23:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 20:51 |
|
|
Why watch this thing? Well, it struck me as one of the best tv series that I've ever seen. 1. The direction and writing stay at a consistently high level. if you're tired of shows that start strong with their pilots and then deflate, Prison Playbook is a welcome change. It finishes as strong as it started, and the last episode is probably the only weak one. 2. It's sixteen movie-length episodes, but hardly any of it feels unnecessary. Netflix shows tend to feel way too stretched out, but hardly a minute seems wasted in Prison Playbook. Maybe the prison setting helps naturalize any possible tedium. The only thing that might feel a bit long is the military subplot. 3. The "exoticism" of the setting, which allows it to avoid cliches you'd expect from American television. Of course it's the only K-drama I've ever seen, so it might the most cliche-ridden thing imaginable if you're into them. The organization of Korean prison is the most immediately interesting thing. Korean prisoners are assigned into groups of about half a dozen who share cells and spend most of their time together. This means the characters are never alone, so there's a diverse cross-cut of society that interacts, clashes, and grows together very naturally. As a whole the show appears to be a critique of the overbearing, paternalistic, and two-faced nature of Korean society, but you can't always tell what's supposed to be social criticism and what's just an honest depiction of Korean social life that just seems outrageous to a Westerner. 4. Despite it's length and scope, the show's ambitions are refreshingly modest. One problem with American television is that it always needs to escalate with bigger twists, bigger jokes, bigger set-pieces, and bigger shockers. Prison Playbook never escalates. It simply lets the viewer soak in and enjoy the stories of its various characters. This also ends up making the show feel more honest and realistic. The show's climax is not a great confrontation or showdown. It's Kim Je-hyeok's quiet monologue to another prisoner about how sometimes effort is just not enough. 5. The creators are willing to go with whatever tone they want and drat the whiplash. You never really know what to expect from the next scene, whether it's broad wacky comedy, tense intrigue, melodrama, social satire, slice of life, cheesy music-video romance, or plain tragedy. This is tempered by the show's modesty and realism. When people start screaming in tears, it's over something that generally would send people into hysterics, even if it can come off as strained on television. I'm not the type to get too invested in fiction, but there's one character whose story arc sneaks up on you. People will find the show hit-and-miss with its emotional "payoffs", but the ending to that arc is so monstrously unfair that it was the first time I ever wanted to throw my remote at the television. You'll know it when it happens. 6. Kim Je-hyeok is a bro and a testament to how an essentially normal person can make for a fascinating character. Sometimes a personality you think would be painfully straight-forward turns out to be the least predictable of all. He’s also probably the best written dumb person on television. This is because the show has the time and right pacing to make him appear slow-witted instead of having him constantly say something silly. The result is that he comes off as an honestly stupid and vacuous person, which makes his shows of cunning surprising every time. There are some flaws of course: - It's too black and white. You'd think the show would do more to explore moral dilemmas and shades of gray, but you get to know the good guys and bad guys pretty quickly. Even the crime that lands Kim Je-hyeok's crime is basically painted in the most positive light possible. On the other hand the good guys and bad guys always appear realistically good or bad, never flawless martyrs or ridiculous stage villains. If somebody's evil, it's because they're unrepentant criminals and corrupt bureaucrats. Chief Jo Ji-Ho and Lieutenant Lee are the best examples: they're just petty assholes trying to squeeze some money out of their jobs in prison, but you understand pretty well how someone with authority can screw people over if they really put their mind to it. - Kim Je-hyeok ends up gaining a ridiculous amount of privileges for a prisoner (culminating in just asking for and getting a goddamn private cell-phone), which undermines the premise. They don't do anything with it until the very last episode. - Korean society is very conservative and thus the show only heavily implies that two men kiss. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Mar 10, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2019 23:23
|
|