The Penthouse: War in Life (TV-Series Review)

All I’m going to say is this... I was in a movie slump, more like a k-drama slump, and was desperately searching for the perfect series that would take me out of it. Needless to say that this was THAT series on so many levels. I don’t know where to start, but I’m going to try to start somehow, and I’d need all of you to walk with me through this.

The Penthouse: War in Life (2020)

So, this series has three seasons. Three whole seasons with twenty one, fourteen and I think, thirteen episodes respectively, bringing it to a total of about forty eight episodes.

For the regular k-drama lover who is used to sixteen episodes, this may be quite upsetting and a discouragement from seeing the series, but I can assure you that once you start, you’ll be gripped so fearlessly that you wouldn’t know when you get to the end.

So, The Penthouse begins with Oh Yun-Hui, who is a former opera singer and because of her daughter’s (Bae Ro-Na) fierce desire to become an opera singer, has to go great lengths to make that dream come true.

On the journey to making the talented Bae Ro-Na an opera singer, Oh Yun-Hui encounters enemies from her past and the bane of her very existence. But things only begin to take shape, when the orphan, Min Seol-A comes into the picture.

My Thoughts and Rating

Imagine a two year K-drama slump disappearing in the blink of an eye because of one series. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I started watching this series. I only know that someone recommended it to me, and I reluctantly downloaded one episode just to prove to this person that there was nothing to the drama, but when I tell you that I was hooked from the first episode, I’m not kidding.

The Penthouse is a thriller and suspense series that embodies that genre in every way. If you’re the regular k-drama watcher who looks forward to romance and some scintillating melodrama, you may end up being disappointed, because I saw many things, but true, feet-kicking romance is not one of them, but not to worry because the storyline keeps you hooked enough to not miss romance too much, even if you’re so inclined.

Now that we’ve gotten the beyond compelling storyline out of the way, let’s just get down to the most important parts of this series for me which are the acting and the cast. If the director’s aim was to make each of the characters extremely unlikeable, he succeeded, because when I say I hated every single character, I mean it. Not even one of them was likeable.

Just putting it out there, even though I know I shouldn’t be revealing spoilers, Bae Ro-Na is such an unlikeable character. I feel she’s an ungrateful and spoilt brat whose tantrums and ill-treatment of her mother caused a lot of the evil that happened, in my opinion.

And for those who may have seen the series, that person you think was nice and should be likeable to me, still wasn’t. Maybe the director was trying to portray the flawed nature of man and how no one can be perfect, but I think even that failed, because surely there are some people who are still good somewhat, albeit flawed.

But when it comes to the acting, the cast over delivered. They’re such superb actors, every one of them, they know how to elicit tears from their eyes at will, and portray such raw emotion. Stellar actors, I tell you. Special shout out the characters that played Cheon Seo-Jin and Joo Seok-gyeong. A-list women, I tell you.

The plot is generally very unrealistic, especially because it showcases bullying, bribery, murder and corruption in its rawest forms. Like, surely people can’t be that unapologetically evil? Anyway, it’s still a good enough movie production and I enjoyed every moment of it, when I was not losing mind with how annoying it was.

I don’t want to say anymore, but just know that this is a beautiful movie with plot twists you won’t see coming and turns that will have you clutching the edge of your seat. A horrible ending in my opinion, and not a good way to finish a movie after three whole season, but we can’t have everything, can we? A clean 8.5/10 from me. You shouldn’t snooze on this.

Jhymi🖤

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_{Images from IMDB.}