Death’s Game review

Death’s Game is only eight episodes long (though it was unnecessarily broken up into two parts). Due to how short the drama is, which is half the size of a regular KDrama, Death’s Game was forced to be very economical and efficient in its storytelling, and it did so by structuring the tale fascinatingly.

The story

Choi Yi Jae failed at a grand opportunity to start his life on the right foot and ended up jobless without a house to live in. Feeling like an absolute failure, he jumps off a building.

But this offends Death greatly. She is so angry at Yi Jae that she punishes him by making him live the lives of several people who are about to die.

Ironically, as Choi Yi Jae dies over and over again, he becomes desperate to avoid dying. In the course of his many lives, he discovers the impact his death has left on his loved ones and how life is worth living after all.

Thoughts about the drama

Some dramas try to be too many things at the same time. Death’s Game does this, except that it somehow manages this very well.

Show is a romantic comedy, a serial killer drama, a revenge melodrama, a murder mystery and a redemption tale. Yet it all doesn’t seem too much! Kudos to the writer, you need to write more scripts!

This is all down to the way the story is structured. Our hero has to live the lives of people he “takes over”, so we have the chance to see him in all kinds of roles. However, the way the show is set up, you don’t get the usual face swap with the main actor playing these roles. Different actors play the Yi Jae in a new body, which leads us to experience another rare treat: You get to see many, many good KDrama actors playing out-of-the-box roles.

Some of my favourite “lives” include the celebrity artist who has a very dark side and the cowardly detective. Yi Jae inherits memories and skills each time he gets “reincarnated”, so he uses them to pursue the truth to a mystery that ties all these lives together.

I watched this drama after the death of Lee Sun-kyun, so Death’s Game really impacted me differently.

The primary message of the show is this: Suicide is bad. And while I think it is very touching to show the after-effects of suicide on loved ones, I can’t help but think this is an overly simplified way of looking at suicide.

And Show seems to hit us over the head with this message: Don’t kill yourself because your loved ones will suffer.

But in truth, suicide is a very complex matter and at times I quietly wondered if Show was the burden of “doing the right thing” on people who are already at their limits that they’re considering death instead of living …

No easy answers, that’s for sure.

Final rating: 8

A unique drama with excellent storytelling with a deep message about the heavy topic of suicide.