The Buzz: ‘Hellbound’ A Creative Concept with Superfluous Writing
A great premise does not always make for a great story. Hellbound is a show that is both hard and boring to watch at times. While the action scenes are well edited and the CGI is exceptionally well done, this cannot hold up to flat characters with no real character development. The series' writing basks in its own intelligence on philosophical concepts such as free will, human suffering, the psychology of cults and the existence of God. The show suffers by trying too hard to be smart and violent instead of focusing on narrative, character development and story beats.
The new Netflix series Hellbound (original title Jiok) is a South Korean Drama/Horror/Fantasy series that is 6 episodes long with an average running time of 50 minutes per episode. The story is about the strange appearance of ‘Angels’, large supernatural creatures that brutally murder individuals who have been visited by God and told the exact date and time that they will be killed and sent to Hell. The series focuses on how the people of South Korea react to these murders and how they begin to follow a cult that believes these deaths happen because of human sin. The series is based off of a webtoon of the same name that was written and directed by Sang-ho Yeon. The Netflix release was also written and directed by Yeon, with writing help from Kyu-Seok Choi. Yeon is most widely known for his action/zombie film Train to Busan which is filled with non-stop action as people try to escape zombies while on a high-speed train traveling from Seoul to Busan. His past skill as a director translates directly into his new series.
In Hellbound, the action scenes where these ‘Angels’ brutally murder people and send them to hell are well shot, with the CGI looking otherworldly and downright terrifying. The strength of these supernatural characters is clearly shown in how they toss human beings against walls like rag dolls as the camera follows the action to show the brutality and strength of these creatures. Also, character fight scenes are well choreographed, shot and edited extremely well to clearly show what is going on during these scenes. The action and CGI stand where the writing falls.
The series is broken into an awkward two parts that do little for character development and feel forced to elongate the overall series. In the first three episodes, the series follows Jin Kyeong-hoon (Ik-joon Yang) a detective who is trying to uncover information about Jeong Jin-soon (Yoo Ah-in), a cult leader of a new religion known as, ‘The New Truth’. This cult focuses on human sin and punishment from these supernatural ‘Angel’ creatures. In episodes four through six, the series jumps five years later when the cult is well established in South Korea and follows a television producer Bae Young-jae (Jeong Min Park) who just had a newborn baby and does not agree with ‘The New Truth’s’ beliefs and ethics. During this jump in time some returning characters have just devolved into more extreme versions of their original characters. The show also wastes time on getting to know side characters who are set to be executed by the supernatural beings. The side characters are often set up with the same premise. A character gets a “decree” that they will die in X amount of days, the show takes time to get to know them, then they are killed. This character exposition is used for a specific reason that weighs the entire show down; to bring up theological and philosophical ideas.
The CGI and action are a major pull for the series, but it barely happens during the show. What happens most is philosophical/theological conversations and topics. This can be seen as the writing trying to be smart or interesting, but, whether directly or indirectly, it just gets in the way throughout the series. Some of these topics include free will, the existence of God, what constitutes sin, should humans be punished more harshly for doing something wrong, etc. This information is doled out to an audience by showing a character distressed or confused by a very big concept and another character comes in and tries to answer that question. Then later on that person who had all of the answers is then questioned and so on and so forth. It is simply a long theological and philosophical think tank for ideas. If the show had been more focused on maybe three to four big ideas, it probably would not have been so bloated with monologues and discussions which happen to only focus on extremely sad and depressing topics.
While the show tries to be smart, it decides to be as dark and depressing as possible with its ideas. Whenever the existence of free will or the existence of God is brought up in a theological way, usually scholars bring up examples of human suffering to back up the idea that if there was a God, why is there so much suffering? This then gets explained in two different ways (which in this review are oversimplified). One being that human suffering happens because God is testing you, and the other being that there is no God, so suffering is inherent in the human experience. The series only uses human suffering to back up its ideological arguments. This gets to a certain point where the show is neither entertaining or horrifying, just emotionally exhausting to watch.
Great CGI, an intriguing concept and well shot action sequences cannot save a show with rambling philosophical concepts and flat characters constantly surrounded by human suffering. It isn't until the final episode that the writing finds some light in the human experience and there is a break from total human suffering. This happens far too late in the series because the human condition is not just about suffering, there is good and bad. If the show actually showed that, it would have been more well-rounded, realistic and most of all, actually intellectually stimulating to watch. Life does have very big theological and philosophical questions that should be discussed, but they need to include how complex life is, not just one side. With more thought, this could have been a great show with a cool concept, instead of the total dud that it is.