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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Black Knight" Episode 1

Since its premiere on Netflix on May 12th, "Black Knight" has emerged as a fairly typical K-Drama success for the platform, the second most popular show worldwide according to FlixPatrol. The post-apocalyptic action show with Kim Woo-bin in the leading role as legendary delivery man 5-8 is the number one drama in Hong Kong, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. But is it any good?

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Well, before giving the simple answer to that question, I should stress that as of the first episode anyway it's a bit surprising just how little Kim Woo-bin is actually in the show. He is, for all practical intents and purposes, a background character with no real personality to speak of. 5-8 is just a moderately popular and highly competent celebrity...delivery driver. We're told more than shown just how important delivery drivers are in this setting, so there's no real sense of stakes.

Sa-wol (played by Kang You-seok) is our actual perspective character. The fact that he spends most of his time running around getting into trouble makes the world of "Black Knight" seem oddly carefree. A lot of the time, especially at home with his sister Seul-ah (played by Roh Yoon-seo), "Black Knight" feels a lot like a situation comedy. Establishing scenes of military checkpoints and corporate menaces are underwhelming in impact compared to these moments.

In broader terms it's also often quite difficult to guess at what "Black Knight" is even trying to say. The whole notion of QR codes as a form of personal tattoo is treated as if the idea were inherently dystopian, yet the characters themselves are so unconcerned on the subject that I likewise felt very nonplussed. A lot of the story in "Black Knight" suffers from this problem. When the show's own characters don't seem to care that the world has basically ended, I'm not really sure why I'm supposed to either.

To date the only character with a very strong opinion about anything is Sa-wol's determination to be a 5-8 fanboy, and to a lesser extent Seul-ah's very practical, domestic attitudes. Which again, isn't a good thing for a post-apocalyptic action show, since the cumulative effect is that "Black Knight" is being cute when it's trying to be serious, or at least intense. The extremely gimmicky cliffhanger also left me in a fairly pessimistic mood, and I'm skeptical this will lead to any new story hooks any more interesting than boring old revenge.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Black Knight" is directed by Cho Ui-seok, written by Cho Ui-seok, and features Kim Woo-bin, Esom, Song Seung-heon, Kang You-seok, Lee E-dam, Lee Soon-won. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2023/05/12, Fri on Netflix.

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