Netflix K-drama The Trunk with Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun Jin Received Mixed Reviews and Reception From Critics and Viewers Alike
So last weekend was the premiere of The Trunk on Netflix, the last big premiere before the behemoth Squid Game 2 arrives end of the month at Christmas time. Starring Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun Jin and adapted from the same name novel, the drama puts powerhouse A-list leads with a much more subdued and slow burn story. The reviews from critics and viewers are decidedly mixed, with some finding it a waste of the star power in a dreary story and dull washed out cinematography and others appreciating the nuanced storytelling at a leisurely pace to unfold. Basically if you like art house flicks and have the patience for the less is said and more is shown through action or inaction works then this will be for otherwise the other side view just finds it boring.
Frankly they should have named the show “the chandelier” rather than the “the trunk” 😂
my thoughts exactly 🤣🤣
They should have called the show “The chandelier” rather than “The trunk” 😂
Haha that makes so much sense.
couldn’t agree more ,hahahaha..
I hated it.
I sat through for 3 episodes.
Then had to fast-forward through the rest to understand what was the big trunk plot
I was so disappointed.
The characters are messed up I understand,but atleast throw in a good storyline or a twist to make us sit through 8 episodes,I think this would have fared well if it was a movie.
What a waste of such great actors.
And the herione,she has lost so much weight it’s disturbing.in the earlier episodes where they show her crouching down her spine is on focus.She looked so better in Another HY,Let’s Eat.
I didn’t like her styling in this drama either. For me personally that hairstyle wasn’t flattering at all.
Agree with this, saw some clips of it and they really could’ve done better
Totally agree ! All her facials were turning me off as well. I really wanted to like it because I love Gong Yoo’s acting but sadly… I couldn’t continue watching…
Really u rather have boring played out movies 😉
I could tell from the trailer it would be a drag and the plot sounded so far fetched to be a great watch, Gong yoo should do something fun or riveting for his next project especially if it is a drama, the theme of the drama seems more suiting for a movie set up instead of an episodic set up. Here we complain at times 16 episodes or more can seem a bit dragging and everyone hems and haws about 12 episodes and how they prefer it and this was just 8 lol. But I’m sure this elevated their opportunities since it was on Netflix.
I also got sceptic feeling from the drama after trailer.
It’s actually can be a case, some Netflix k-dramas would work better as a movies.
I didn’t dislike it, but I wasn’t a fan either. It was shot a bit like an arthouse film but I couldn’t feel much depth in the story.
I tried watching this but my mind is with When the phone rings…too obsessed with it to continue with this one. This married couple was just so boring.
I know right? I have been waiting for forever for Koala to do a piece on ‘When the Phone Rings’ – 4 episodes in and I am completely obsessed! It’s my crack drama! Never have I wanted Netflix to drop all episodes so badly. It occupies my waking thoughts, I have rewatched each episode so many times, so I have no space for other Kdramas right now. Though I may check this drama out when that one ends.
OMG, same. I been rewatching and dissecting episodes 1-4 since it last aired. Its so good and the leads are so beautiful together, the chemistry is just *chef’s kiss. Yoo Yeon-seok and Chae Soo Bin is the couple we never knew we needed!!
+100000%
Addictive indeed!
A delightful addition to the end of year dramas!
At this rate we are going to create a fandom , a lightstick , after the swifties, Army,…why not the Ringtones or Ringers,… why didn’t Netflix drop all the episodes instead of The Trunk which i’ll check later .
And to add fuel to the fire , the drama will not air 14 and 20 december . Even if i’m glad that a Korean won the Nobel Prize .
I am with you! Can’t wait this Friday for When the Phone Rings
Yes!
Last week I kept rewatching it until ep 3 and 4 dropped
This week I am trying Away from eye away from mind technique 🤣🤣🤣
I ma seeing people going crazy about “When the Phone Rings” all over social media. Happy Chae Soo Bin finally picked a successful drama! I have liked her since her supporting role in ‘Moonlight Drawn by Clouds” but she just hasn’t quite managed to get that breakout drama ever since then even though she is a good actress. I think the ratings would be even higher if this wasn’t up against The Fiery Priest 2.
Ahhhhh! So glad I’m not alone. It’s toooo gooooddd.
This is a crack drama after a long time… I have even started reading the novel translation while waiting for next episode 😆
May I know where you read the novel translation?
I am addicted to this drama too. Gave it try since I read so many mentions on X and noticed it garnered up to 300+ comments for each episodes at Dramabeans.
So far, it’s worthy.
I watched 2 episodes, not sure if I will continue. My problem is that so far I don’t like any of the characters, I don’t care what happens to them.
I actually enjoyed it. He is such a good actor!
I loved it too. I think it was a really good drama.
I am watching it for Gong Yoo, but damn it’s not easy 😅 I keep dozing off or realizing I’ve been on the phone for half the episode which never happens (mostly because I don’t persist as hard as I am with this one…)
This drama tried too many things at the same time. But the main theme with the couple healing each other was really good. The couple worked very well. The actors were great (even if I didn’t understand SHJ’s haircut…)
So the other drama “When the phone rings”,it boring
IT IS NOT BORING!! ITS SO GOOD!
When The Phone Ringa is far from boring. I’m always at the edge of my seat watching each episode
It’s not an easy or comfortable watch, but I liked it. But it’s not a drama I would rewatch
Another miss from Seo Hyun Jin I guess. I don’t like writers previous work so I have feeling I won’t like this too.
I totally agree
Both actors are portraying the characters very well. They are suffering from past trauma and they handle the emotional acts so good. SHJ looks skinny in this series but what you expect from someone who has gone thru trauma for years and still look happy and fit.
I really enjoyed the drama. It took me less than 24hrs to finish it. It’s slow paced and I loved the way all the characters are portrayed. I’ve only watched Goblin and train to busan so this showed me a different side of Gong you. I’ve loved all of SHJ dramas that I’ve watched so far. Another Oh HY,Temperature of love, doctor romantic 1… so nice. This is a different character than I’ve seen her play. I really enjoyed this drama.
I see myself also falling for the ex wife’s contract husband. I’d like to see more of his work too.
I enjoyed it too. Loved both leads performances. Truly different roles for both actors. The plot definitely could’ve been stronger though. Typical drama love songs playing during their intimate conversations and the done to death ‘we met as little kids so it’s fate’ trope were the main drawbacks for me. It pulled me out of the original tone of the drama.
As far as dramas go, it’s the best pairing I’ve seen for Gong Yoo since Coffee Prince. Still upset over the waste of his pairing with Lee Min Jung in Big. Those two would have been on fire together with a better drama. Gong Yoo just has a natural sensuality to him and Trunk let him go there as a romantic lead. You see it more in some of his films, but he completely has it with that Squid Game character of his too.
I still don’t think he’s been paired with his match in that department as far as characters go, even though his chemistry with Yoon Eun Hye was off the charts. I’d love a reunion with those two with her playing an ultra feminine role this time around. Lee Ki Woo is in this drama and funny enough one of the people I think Gong Yoo would be amazing with in a romantic onscreen pairing is Lee Chung Ah. She just smolders and I never would’ve thought she’d wind up playing so many femme fatales after seeing her for the first time playing the role she did in Flower Boy Raymun Shop. One pairing I can’t believe hasn’t happened yet is Gong Yoo with Jun Ji Hyun. Even though they’d be amazing in a rom com, I rather see them in a makjang free melo drama with a passionate romance. But a melo followed up with a rom com would be even better. Lee El is another actress I think he’d be great with. She has great range. Just look at her in Goblin, Matrimonial Chaos, and then My Liberation Notes.
I kept wondering why she looked that skinny but I guess it was for the role. The drama was a job well done in my opinion.
she has been skinny well before this role, needs to gain 20lbs, in a scene where she was bent over all her vertabrae were bulging out, quite creepy looking
Fast forwarded; confirmed happy ending; then enjoyed watching.
Thank you for this 🤣 I checked out the first episode and was thinking to skip the rest but now maybe I’ll continue for love of Gong Yoo
Loved it! Yes.,it’s slow paced, but isn’t that how psychological drama’s supposed to be ? The characters, the atmosphere, they have to draw you into their world slowly. I think the series was quite well done.gong yoo. Gong yoo, Seo Hyun-jin really did a beautiful,job portraying their roles making them believable. The break away star here Jung yun- ha who plays Gong Yoo’s character manipulative bitch of an ex wife who can’t seem to stop exploiting Gong Yoo’s psychological trauma even after forcing him into a contractual marriage. The TRUNK is a tool used by the writers to represent all the emotional traumas the 3 main character went and iis going through.
I watched because of the actors and was intrigued by the plot. Subtle, interesting and I liked that at the end of it all it has a good ending. Most of the episodes felt heavy buts that’s the plot. I liked it. The darkness of it all, and the positive vibe it gave in the end.
I loved it!
I’ve loved Gong Yoo since the 2007 Coffee Prince.
That started my K movies “addiction!”😂
The Trunk for me is one of the best shows on Netflix now. Although it has an indefinite ending, the story itself is nice. Not a typical romance story. And for the title “The Trunk” is appropriate if you notice the secrets, pain feelings and regrets of the leading ladies are all inside the Trunk.
Finally someone that really understood what they watched. I loved every bit of the drama.
I have mixed feeling twds the drama. Not hating it but not liking it either.
I also can say I feel rather confused by the drama surrounding the trunk. Supposedly the items inside are those of her involvement in so many contract marriages, but then there’s a scene which revealed the content to be baby items. Idk if I missed out anything or that I fell asleep till I missed it out. I also don know if the ex-fiancee actually been staying there all along or he just came back.
Anyway, I don’t feel the chemistry between Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun Jin. They acted the best that they could though I hate the way Korean actresses portrayed emptiness. It’s always the same way of portraying it. Straight face, straight body posture, straight walk, talk like robot.
And I just can’t understand the feature of explicit sex scene like was it even needed. So unnecessary and guess that’s why I fell out of love with K-drama these days. Too much nudity and sex.
And am I the only one who finds that actress who portrayed the ex-wife seems to resemble Song Hye Kyo a lot?
@Alexa…the trunk that was recovered by the police is the trunk belonging to Gong Yoo’s ex wife not his current wife. That’s why the stalker freaked out cause she couldn’t opened the trunk. The ex wife got the same trunk as Seo Hyun Jin’s character after seeing the way Gong Yoo looked at SHJ while they were all at the luggage store. It was a flashback sequence. The ex wife put the clothes of the baby that they lost in that trunk and never opened it again till it was recovered by the police.
Personally, the sex scenes in this show are not gratuitous to me. They show the twisted relationship and feelings the ex wife has towards Gong Yoo cause she literally get turned on after toying with his emotions.
Agreed with you on the lack of chemistry between Gong Yoo and SHJ tho. I was so looking forward to their repressed yearnings at each other but it was rather dull and muted.
Thanks for the explanation.
Like I said, I don’t hate the drama that I could pull through all 8 episodes but the slow pace and dull plot probably made me lost focus along the way till i missed out the scene. Thanks again.
I can understand that she derived excitement from getting to manipulate his emotions but I still find explicit sex scene like that just too excessive. Somethinh to suggest that will do without showing her naked and engaged in sex.
Maybe I am rather traditional and one of the few reasons I was drawn to k-dramas bk then is that they don offer what western dramas/movies do, the nudity and sex, and still can sell exciting stories.
This is actually an art house masterpiece. It is beautifully written, filmed, and acted. It is well craftes and shows a deep level understanding of brokenness. It is slow burn but deals with trauma and it’s far reaching effects. I like the way it ended as well, with a glimmer of hope for the future, but without just making it a happy ending which would be too cliché and undermine the point of the show entirely. I also thought it was very clever to call it the trunk, given the ending reveal. Those who don’t like it don’t understand great storytelling and acting and are too used to US TV.
I agree with you 100% I have seen a lot of comments and I have come to the conclusion that people don’t understand story lines. The Trunk is a master piece. I like the way tge characters were built up to tell the story, I watched the drama in a day without having to fast-forward it.
I agree. The drama was a beautiful work of art.
It’s a thriller and I like thrillers, so I liked it. I do have a question though, those that finished it, please indulge me. You know the psychopath, the one that was admitted to a mental institution and later released, the trunk he brought to the FL to open up, wasn’t hers right? That was why she wasn’t able to open it, right? It wasn’t because he had tried breaking it like she had said, it just wasn’t her trunk correct? If it wasn’t her trunk, then the one she sold at the endd of episode 8 for a measley sum was the actual trunk? And really what was the whole big deal about the trunk, even if the one the psycho thought was hers was actually hers, what he was looking for was her contract with ML right? Neither of the trunk seemed to hold much relevance to me, so I wondered what all the fuss was about, or did i miss something? Also am I the only one who thinks they were at least 3 lunatics in this series? I mean the first wife is a certified maniac, isn’t she? Also I couldn’t place her fake husband, didn’t know if to like him or not, that’s not true, I didn’t like him😂😂. I liked the drama, I did think the nudity was very uncalled for, it’s possible to have a sex scene without such nudity and especially since it’s a kdrama, but what to expect when Netflix have their prints all over a drama.
I am a Gong Yoo fan and i like thriller.. i think inside the trunk was the contract and anything related to it. I like the ending, they were starting over,
Hi, I’m a gong yoo fan too 🤗. I’m probably just itching to talk about the series. I didn’t really understand why she was so scared when the psychopath young man told her he had taken the trunk and was attempting to open it. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, he’d actually open it, find the contract and publish it? I mean it’ll be a case of your word against mine, he just left a mental asylum seconds ago and he is obsessed with the FL, she even reported him (although it’s so sad that the police couldn’t do anything about a stalker until the person being stalked actually died or worse. It was kind of the same thing with that one storyline in the judge from hell, when she was living a miserable life because her ex was stalking her and the police seemed so helpless, only her death could untie their hands apparently. A very big lapse in the law apparently and I feel as if dramas lately have been trying to point this out). So who would take him seriously if gong yoo (who is rich and has a good career) comes out and says the news is fake and he’s actually normally married. It just seemed like such a trifle matter to be so scared. Also there has to be a reason why she sold her trunk at the end of the day for peanuts right? Remember when she told gong yoo that she would have sold the previous chandelier for 3000 won, and he said it cost at least 30 million and she said she wouldn’t have sold it so high because she didn’t want it to be remembered as something of value ( a very flawed reasoning by the way😂. If you sell diamonds for a cup of coffee, the worth remains and the buyer is in luck, your personal crisis doesn’t diminish it’s value, but i digress). Anyways, that was a pointer to the last scene wherein she sold her trunk, and my question is, why didn’t she want the trunk to go down as something of value?
@jennilee true netflix is really bringing some sexual scenes to kdrama’s and it’s becoming more of a typical American story with sex ,drugs and alcohol addiction. The chemistry wasn’t there and the truth of the matter is the male character wasn’t all to kind to SHJ at the beginning even though he knew her which was odd. I mean he had a crush on her before but when he meets her again he doesn’t act all kindly towards her and he couldn’t stop clinging to his ex-wife in literal sense even though she purposefully killed their child and he knew . It’s odd dynamic . The drug addiction was another weird plot I didn’t understand and also SHJ feeling sorry for everyone around her was overly portrayed.
Waste of my time that I will never get back.. I am obsessed either “when the phone rings ” ..
The series is very interesting, the actors pulled out the performance brilliantly, the director did a fantastic job, the scenes at the beginning were gloomy I believe to show the mental states of the leads and at the end it was more cheerful and bright which showed they fought off their inner demons. It a series with depth. Good job.
Finally Netflix has the audience talking, brilliant acting with great steamy scenes and background shots!
To me all the s** scenes are useless no find of them at all. And ya story is kind of ok but to me over all it is 2.5 out of 5.
Maybe I’m too uneducated but I loved it , I felt their pain, and the chemistry , I understood the needs of all the characters whether it was for power , or love , or ownership.
Liking some drama has nothing to do with education, lol. Just because some people didn’t like drama you enjoyed to watch it doesn’t make them smarter than you.
It’s an excellent drama. 10/10 and with only 8 episodes it is perfect for binge watchers like me. Acting – superb and expected from the FL and ML. Supporting cast were great as well. No criticism from me. It was a great weekend watch.
The trunk was great! I loved it!
I like the drama series, i even want a season 2 . If it is Gong Yoo, it must be good! Im loving it!
Ooh, I’d love a season 2 too. Just the leads being happy 😊
I loved this series! Suspenseful story and enjoyed the pace. Great writing, scenery and talented actors. The pace was perfect…not always want a storyline to fly by. The two main actors were fantastic. I highly recommend this series.
Also one with those loving the drama The Trunk, despite some imperfections. Did not fast forward at all! Great acting. I even forgot it was Gong Yoo, being caught up in his convincing acting. FL – this was her show, I think. The emotions she displayed were Daebak. Support female lead also good. Cinematography, divine. Was it a lamp that produced the being in water effect to calm oneself. Without it being identified, I felt uplifted and wished I had such room. Music, especially with guitar, on point.
You need certain mood for indie arthouse films. I can be in the mood for that sort of shows for 2-3 hours, but not more than that. Not a fan of GY or SHJ either. OK, I’m gonna check out When the Phone Rings per repeated recommendation from so many fans. I’ve never found Yoo Yeon-seok attractive though. Is he gonna change my perception this time? I’m so much looking forward to it. Don’t disappoint me, YYS! LOL.
3/10. I hope Gong Yoo chooses better projects.Korean dramas nowadays are mediocre/average.
Very boring,lead actress is not at all good looking..she is pale like some patient.i wasted my time watching this series.
I was seeing a lot of comments disliking the drama and I was like sane drama I saw? But then I saw the ones from those that really connected to it and I was like ok, that’s normal. Some love it, some don’t. Absolutely normal. So, here’s my take on this drama. I loved every single bit of it. Every. It’s a masterpiece. Flawed humans, flawed love, obsession, trauma, healing, growth and love once again. I felt everything. The actors did a great job portraying their character. It was such an immersive experience, this one.
It’s actually an excellent drama. I’m only a few episodes in, but the acting, the subtlety of the plot, the little details around controlling and abusive relationships, it’s all so well done, but never overdone. Kudos to both actors for nailing their characters. I can’t wait to finish it.
Its okay. I enjoyed watching it.
I started to watch When the phone rings. Such a refreshing plot! Like many others said, WTPR is very addicting so far. This drama may stand out as my favorite 2024 Kdrama. Hopefully, it will be consistently this good to the end.
I agree with the other positive reviews. I loved the story, the acting, and the visuals (that house!!). I thought it was a cut above a lot of the kdramas I’ve seen.
Those who didn’t appreciate The Trunk probably didn’t like My Liberation Notes either. They made you actually think and in this case,how others infiltrate another’s being with physical and mental fear and doubt. I hated the ex-wife far more for her insidiousness than I did the stalker. There are real people like both the ex and the stalker in this world.
The actors played it nuanced, not overly broad like so many do which made it even more absorbing to watch. I’ll take this kind of KDrama story and acting over the fluff any day. 5/5 stars
I am finding it riveting, tense and glued to the screen. The performances are beautiful. It’s been a binge watching experience
All the above negative comments remind me that viewers like me, who loved the show and appreciate its story, acting and the glimpse in complex-negative emotions connected to love may not even bother to post here. Life and love can be messy, mental health and a judgmental society go hand in hand. Entertainment for most people it is escapism, and these series address issues head on. No escaping reality call it stalking, homophobia, possessiveness, … Loved this show for it’s honesty and great acting.