Streaming platform Netflix continues to pace out its produced K-drama drops, the schedule it basically one drama a month, with Squid Game in September creating the biggest K-drama buzz of all time with the worldwide audiences followed by a good reception for My Name in October. November was this past Friday’s release of Hellbound (To Hell), the supernatural and religious horror drama adapted from the dark webtoon and starring Yoo Ah In, Kim Hyun Joo, Park Jung Min, and Won Jin Ah. The series premiered to #1 on Netflix worldwide top viewing shows so clearly the K-drama surge continues, and Squid Game remained firmly on that list in #2 and the lovely The King’s Affection was in the 9th spot. As for reviews of Hellbound, the US critics and viewers love it, it’s got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and the reviews are on the positive side for the interesting story, creepy premise, and religious fanaticism critique. But Asian viewers skew more middle of the less, not a lot of criticism that the drama is bad but more how dark, violent, and all action no character development was in there.
i loved it, cant wait for season 2
The story is interesting but the ending left me a bit dissatisfied…the whole idea was really cool until that ending, wish they put more thought into why everything was happening and I didn’t want that ending to be part of the reasoning.
Dropped everything else for this. I’m only a few episodes in and trying to pace myself. Hellbound so far feels like the most ‘philosophical’ of the Netflix releases. YAI is perfectly cast, but the streamer is giving me a headache.
I liked it more than any of the other Netflix originals. It was loaded with social commentary and I found the parallels to current times very unsettling.
I’m amused at how how much screen time YAI actually got versus how much promotion he did.
Nice cherry picking of date to provide a top 10 for, when Hometown Cha Cha Cha has been in the top 10 for weeks now (not a single date only).
LOL.
The first two episodes were quite riveting and YAI gave me the creeps here. I am glad that he continues to avoid being trapped in a certain role image and always impresses with his acting.
Unfortunately, after episode three I got a little bored and it’s evident why. The ending at least gave me a bit hope though. Just curious if there is going to be a continuation.
Struggled to finish it tbh the direction’s disjointed and the pacing was really really slow most of the time. I liked Won Jinah’s performance though but that’s it…
I was ready to watch it when I read that the first 3 episodes were good and not the rest… So now, I think I will wait for a Kdramas desert to watch it.
I’m in the mixed reviews crowd as well. The first three episodes were fantastic. But the last three felt disconnected from the story with a whole bunch of new characters and caricatures I didn’t care about.
The ending was eye-rollingly cliche. Had to jump over a few plot holes, the monsters weren’t as vicious in the later episodes and I would have liked to see Lee Re and her detective dad dealing with the consequences of their choices.
But I enjoyed the exploration of religious fanaticism. That was so realistic it was chilling. Funny enough, watching the pink wig freak and arrowheads in action reminded me of 1) rabid celeb-worshipping stans who attack anyone who doesn’t worship their fave like they do and 2) witch-hunting netizens eager to cancel.
Shout-out to Yoo Ah In. Jin Ah did good, too.
Overall, I’d give it a 6/10.
The streamer is funnily enough, my favorite of all the characters so far. I’m alternating between laughing at the sheer batsh1t craziness of his rants, and wincing at the headache his shouting is giving me.
HA! He pulled some good laughs out of me. That scene where he’s actually OUTRAGED at the detective’s AUDACITY to shoot one of the monsters in defense of the condemned mum just had me rolling like, “Dude!” LOL.
Fortunately Netflix now publishes viewing numbers in the form of total hours of viewing (top10.netflix.com). So we will be able to see precisely how beloved Hellbound is next week.
Not surprisingly, by far the most watched kdramas on Netflix the last 6 months have been Squid Game and My Name, followed by Hometown CCC.
I never thought the day would come were my older brother would text me out of the blue to recommend a kdrama for ME to watch but here we are.
I’m with the mixed review crowd. I like the first 3 eps despite it being quite violent and gory but the transition from ep3 and ep4 left me confused. the ending is even more so (that is some magical baby right there folks). I was hoping for more insight about the decree and demonstrations (punishment) mechanism but I get a lot of religious fanaticism and herd mentality. and the way the detective and his daughter arc just disappeared, I want to know what happened next.
I’m more impressed with the show than I thought I’d be when first hearing about it. It explores more than one deep question at a time and forces the viewer to continually think about where they’d find themselves in such a world (resisting commentary about our current world), ie who are the real monsters?