The Frog Netflix Review: For Its Particular Mix of Drama and Mystery
Cast: Yoon Kyesang, Go Min-si, Lee Jeong-eun, Kim Yoon-seok, Park Ji-hwan, Park Chan-yeol, Roh Yoon-seo
Director: Mo Wan-il
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Frog is a Korean series Original Netflix, with 8 episodes, thriller. In the summer of a peaceful deep forest resort, a mysterious woman stays and causes chaos in the lives of the owner and the people around her. A question, always the same, opens each of the eight episodes of The Frog, the South Korean thriller series available for streaming on Netflix. That question, said each time in voiceover by a different protagonist, comes from the theory of Berkeley, a philosopher who wanted to question the principles of science and matter: for him, objects existed only if perceived. It is on the subtle lines of this theory that this new story moves, which travels on surprisingly intertwined narrative lines that work with profound suggestions, both visual and sound.
The Frog Netflix Review: The Story Plot
Created by Mo Wan-il and Son Ho-young without a source text, the Netflix series follows two timelines that intersect as the episodes progress. It’s summer and a mysterious woman arrives with a child at a vacation home surrounded by greenery with a swimming pool: the owner, a widower with a daughter who lives in the city of Seoul, does not yet know that this arrival will change his life forever. Meanwhile, in a hotel overlooking the lake, a man sees a mysterious man arrive just for one night, while his wife and son help him manage the business. The structure ends up at the center of the news due to a tragic event that occurs there. There is not only their story but also an additional narrative line: that of a particularly intuitive police officer. Her investigations could bring new elements to a case from many years ago and bring unspeakable secrets to light. Even the spatial plans become characters and an integral part of the story, so much so that they become confused just like the chronological ones, before you can begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The editing is one of the elements that stand out in the staging of the series, contributing to increasing the tension.
A Korean thriller series told from a new perspective through a murder scene that is a tourist accommodation, which has an impact on the owner of the accommodation and the family life that breaks down in many directions. The main characters in the story are told simultaneously, starting with Jeon Yeon-ha (played by Kim Yun-Seok), a retired man who chooses a peaceful life and runs a quiet accommodation. But a mysterious woman (played by Go Min-Si) comes to stay with a boy before she checks out quietly with a puzzle in his mind, which makes him have to keep this secret until the next year when she returns, before continuously disturbing his life. Meanwhile, on the other side, the story tells about the family of Koo Ki-ho (played by Yoon Kye-Sang), who also owns an accommodation before encountering a serial killer who chooses to cut up the body here until it becomes famous news, damaging the reputation of the accommodation. And his family has to suffer endlessly from this matter. A female police officer (played by Lee Jung-Eun) who is obsessed with murder cases is involved in both stories again.
The Frog Netflix Review and Analysis
There is a bit of Psycho and a bit of The Shining, and therefore Hitchcock and Kubrick, with a pinch of David Lynch and his Twin Peaks in The Frog and this forest that seems to contain all the secrets of the world, in its rustling and noises, among its centuries-old branches and its very green leaves wet with dew. It rains very often in the most gripping sequences, as in all self-respecting thrillers. The locations are breathtaking, and the direction exploits them not only with drones and shots from above but above all when the camera immerses itself in them, amid danger, or in the large spaces of the hotel rooms, in which each shot seems to have been studied at a table thanks to the work of Mo Wan-il. Photography and light are also used to increase the tension as much as possible during the viewing, as is the soundtrack, which offers a strident musical theme that serves to anticipate the arrival of something terrible before it even happens when the scene seems calm and serene.
We won’t reveal anything else about the narrative developments because we don’t want to ruin the surprise and let you discover as much as possible by yourself but we can tell you that you will certainly be surprised especially for the new mix of drama and thriller that does not focus only on the second element. The key is not the crime itself but the psychology behind it and above all the consequences of a trauma that can manifest itself in people and their families, often destroying them into a thousand pieces from the inside, like a parasite or a cancer that cannot be eradicated. The Frog takes its time to tell its two stories, it is in no hurry to get to the point. The endings of the episodes contain cliffhangers that make you want to see the next one, often monographic with the point of view and voiceover of one of the characters involved, but they do so without stepping on the accelerator once they get to the heart of the matter.
Indeed, that plot twist can be predicted a few sequences before, but the direction lingers, stopping on the looks, the close-ups, the details, the medium shots, and the American flats of the protagonists. There is no lack of over-the-top yet sharp characterization of the people involved, starting with the mysterious woman, halfway between the Stranger of the Harlan Coben series and the Villanelle of Killing Eve. There is the attraction for the abyss and for the most brutal crime as well as that for the psychological short circuit that produces it, creates it. “You never become The Frog, the one hit by a carelessly thrown sack,” says at a certain point a character to another, and the international title of the series is The Frog telling almost a fairy-tale parable with an underlying moral: actions always have consequences, even when no one is looking.
The series chooses to tell the story by revealing the whole story a little bit from the beginning before flashing back to the past to show the origin throughout the story. All the characters in the story are related and gradually tie their pasts together. They choose to tell the result of the Kuki-ho case where his family had to break up from being in the news for a murder case that the public was interested in. The media diligently made a scoop on the story of this accommodation. Some criminals tried to make themselves in the news to build their reputation, causing the family’s life to be ruined endlessly. But Jeon Yeon-ha’s is the beginning of the same story. This mysterious woman is the main protagonist who comes in the form of playing psychological warfare with him. In the past, he chose to keep her story quiet because he was afraid of being in the news. But now he has to face blackmail from her instead. And he still thinks of taking this accommodation as his own.
Until it becomes a psychological warfare in which both parties must find a way to solve the game to compete for possession of this accommodation. This part of the story is in the first 5 episodes. It is told as a drama with an impact on life that gradually gets worse. It is not a murder story, but there are often haunting scenes like this. The story is only gloomy and uncomfortable with the actions of the mysterious female character who is unpredictable. And always showing the beautiful sexiness of the actresses, while Jeon Yeon Ha also finds ways to get back at her, equally stinging, becoming a very evenly matched boxer, which is quite fun with this kind of psychological warfare. As for Koo Ki Ho, he takes the audience into sadness, emphasizing and creating a depressing mood of why people who did nothing wrong have to meet this kind of fate, which this impact expands and continues to affect the latter part of the story.
In the second half of episodes 6-8, the story is told by starting with revealing some small twists. There is a change in the direction of the story and the creation of new characters. It is more of a detective and action genre. The police play a bigger role than in the beginning where they almost did not. The story continues to tell the lives of the two couples, but it focuses on increasingly violent crime scenes. This is in line with the Korean style of trying to build up the story from a place in the forest to other places in the city. There is a connection to a famous family of rich people who have the power to control the police. This makes the end of the story seem like a Korean formula that is disappointing. The story still tries to find a way to extend the plot so that the villains can escape continuously until many situations are exaggerated to the point of being unreasonable. Then it ends with just the usual karma.
In addition, the policewoman who was initially portrayed as having great wit, acting as just an observer of the case that happened, without trying to help solve the case and catch the criminal, made her seem like a mysterious character, wondering what kind of person she was. But later on, she became a moral police character, trying to fight against the dark powers in the police force. It means that the personality that was laid out at the beginning of the story has all disappeared, becoming a heroic police officer who only comes to help ordinarily close the case. As for the title, The Frog, it has been mentioned many times that whoever hears that sound, hardly makes anyone think about anything because the story is not based on reality, making it seem like it is just a gimmick that goes along with the story.
This is a Korean thriller series that tells the story of the impact of a murdered accommodation, which has a devastating effect on the lives of the owner’s family and those around them. The first 5 episodes are a fun and stressful psychological warfare drama between the accommodation owner and the psychopathic criminal. It focuses on flashbacks telling the results and beginnings of the two events simultaneously. However, towards the end, the story becomes a typical Korean crime story, trying to extend the villain’s role with many unreasonable events. It ends in a very ordinary way, which is disappointing when compared to the first half, which seems to have better results. However, the best thing that makes the story worth watching is Go Min-Si’s beautiful, evil, psychopathic performance, which she performed very well and was very attractive throughout the whole story.
The Frog Netflix Review: The Last Words
Overall, whether you enjoy The Frog will depend on your personal preferences. If you are a fan of thriller series and are willing to overlook some of its flaws, you may find it to be a worthwhile watch. As written in the review, The Frog stands out among the many Korean genre proposals on Netflix for its particular mix of drama and mystery, focusing above all on the consequences of a crime rather than on the fact itself. It tries to investigate the criminal mentality behind a murder, the spaces between the lines of the case, the gap in the wall of the investigation, and the humanity of the characters involved. Precisely for this reason it might not be appreciated by everyone, but we ask you to try to give it a chance: you might be pleasantly surprised.
