[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Frog" Episode 1

Ahead of its release, "The Frog" wasn't very well-marketed, at least in the United States. Although having seen the first episode my main impression of "The Frog" is that this is a show that would be hard to market under any circumstances. The viewer doesn't learn what the main concept is until the end. Up until then, they're just watching a vaguely eerie story about Yeong-hwa (played by Kim Yun-seok) running a vacation rental way out in the countryside.

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Granted, "The Frog" opens with an apparent murder, but when or why this murder happened relative to anything else we see is left quite vague. And the premise explaining cliffhanger just begs further questions along these lines, since apparently there's a serial killer involved. Yeah, I've thought it over, and this doesn't seem like much of a spoiler to me. If anything, it's more like a warning that "The Frog" is going to get grotesque.

Whether it's good grotesque or bad grotesque I'm...honestly not sure. "The Frog" is the follow-up to "The World of the Married" by director Mo Wan-il, and while "The World of the Married" is one of the best all time performers in South Korean television drama history, it's also a work of anger, passion, and general stupidity. The story is very deliberately straightforward, and this works to spotlight the emotional reactions and overreactions of the characters.

"The Frog" is a mystery by contrast, and we're never entirely sure what any given character is thinking or even what the mystery is actually supposed to be. The presence of a serial killer at the forested vacation rental is ominous mainly because it's not obviously relevant to anything else that's happening. Indeed, if anything, it undercuts the mystery of Seong-ah (played by Go Min-si), a mysterious guest at the vacation rental.

I'm not a fan of serial killer stories in general, so it's possible I'm being a little pessimistic here. But "The Frog" has a lot of time jumps which aren't always clearly telegraphed, and this kind of editing strikes me as a symptom of a script being too complicated for its own good. And once again, I remain troubled by the fact that this show seems to be keeping its premise itself a secret. Despite all its best efforts to be mysterious, I'm not especially curious as to where "The Frog" is going with any of this.

Written by William Schwartz

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"The Frog" is directed by Mo Wan-il, written by Son Ho-young-I, and features Kim Yun-seok, Yoon Kye-sang, Go Min-si, Lee Jung-eun, Kim Sung-ryung, Roh Yoon-seo. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2024/08/23, Fri on Netflix.