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아이리스 / IRIS - KBS2


Synopsis
Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo are best friends who were brought into a top secret organization known as NSS by analyst Choi Seung Hee and Park Sang Hyun. Hyun Joon and Sa Woo both fall in love with Seung Hee when she first profiles them. Their lives are changed forever when Hyun Joon is given a solo mission in Hungary. Hyun Joon later tries to find out who set him up and to figure out what IRIS is and wants.
CAST:
Lee Byung Hun
as Kim Hyun Joon
Kim Tae Hee
as Choi Seung Hee
Jung Joon Ho
as Jin Sa Woo
Kim Seung Woo
as Park Chul Young
Kim So Yeon
as Kim Sun Hwa
T.O.P
as Vick
Hyun Jyu Ni as Yang Mi Jung (NSS staff, best Korean hacker)

Ok yes I know that this was released in 2009. Yes I know that everyone sang it's praises as being totally, fabulously, awesomeness wrapped up in a tight little 60 min or so package. But honestly I never watched it. The main subject just never really seem to grab my attention. I was worried that I would get bored by it and truthfully sometimes there more hype there is about something, the worse it is.

So with that being said I will share with you what I thought. First in some sense I was right. I thought there were some parts that just seemed to drag on for me. Conspiracy....blah...blah... conspiracy....love story....conspiracy..betrayal.....blah blah. Pretty much like that. Sometimes I think that because of certain reasons drama series seem to be way too long. And the vice versa is true, sometimes it should be longer. In this case I think that it was a tad too long. A lot of what transpires in the middle could have been condensed instead of dragging out the story line. (Case in point they basically took all the episodes and made a 2 hour movie for the Japanese release and it still made sense.)

The story is about a two men and one women who work for an intelligence agency. Basically Kim Hyun Joon doesn't remember much about his childhood and comes to find out that the missing pieces have to do with a much bigger conspiracy involving both North and South Korea and in some ways the world, codenamed Iris. He becomes a part of NSS as well as his friend Jin Sa Woo. But the path of the NSS takes them down two entirely separate paths testing their friendship and their beliefs in the people they work for. Now throw in a mutual love interest Choi Seung Hee who is their immediate boss, and you have a story line.The love story of course takes a back seat to the conspiracy as it should, but still is an important part of the story.

Now if you heard about this series you heard that Big Bang's current hottie member T.O.P. played a role in this story. T.O.P. plays the assassin Vick. (I'll admit it was this that finally convinced me to watch this series.) While his role isn't a big one, let me just say that he does excellent with what he's given. He was a believable cold-hearted killer who did so not for the pleasure, money or because he liked it, he killed just because he could and he was told to to obtain whatever was needed at the time. He has no remorse or feelings about it one way or another. He was raised and trained to be a killer and simply that's what he was. (I have to say he did shock me with the last person he killed though, I kinda thought he wasn't acting with her.) BUT if you are going to try to watch this just for Vick aka T.O.P. don't. He has maybe 45 mins total (maybe a little more) of screen total in the whole series and is only in a handful of episodes. You will be disappointed and I wouldn't recommend you watch for that reason solely.

I have to say that when Vick was on screen the action was more lively and I found myself rooting for the bad guy. (Twisted I know.) I think that if he would have been an more active antagonist in the story, it would have added a lot. I'm not just saying this because I'm a fangirl of T.O.P. but rather the story needed an active agonist to spice things up, as it was the antagonist was group and always hidden in the background cutting any action that could have taken place in half.

All in all as a fan of shoot 'em, blow 'em up movies this series fell a little flat. Despite the high budget and exotic locations, it seemed to drag in most portions. Literally only paying half-hearted attention to some things in the middle I still knew what was going on as it was rehashed over and over. I think that less episodes and more money spent on action sequences to keep it exciting would have helped. I wouldn't watch it again, but I don't regret watching it.
~Onyx

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