director Yeon Sang-ho and directed by Min Hong-nam, the South Korean drama is an atmospheric, paranoia-inducing thriller in its first three episodes that evokes the creeping, ambiguous dread of K-horror. <\/span><\/p>\nBut in search of a twist, and powered by an insensitive misrepresentation of mental illness, it delivers a second half that lacks punch, cohesion and pushes an ending it doesn\u2019t at any point earn.<\/span><\/p>\nThe series begins with Yoon Seo-ha (Kim Hyun-joo) swiping through photographs of her husband leaving a motel with another woman when she receives a call from the police notifying her that an uncle she\u2019s never had any kind of relationship with has died. Little goes right for Seo-ha as she navigates an exploitative job and unsatisfying marriage, yet despite their estrangement, her uncle has left her a valuable tract of burial land.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s not a piece of land of that we see physically much of, but as her uncle\u2019s death turns into a murder investigation, it becomes central to the swirling agendas that filter through <\/span>The Bequeathed\u2019s<\/span> bloated six-episode run.<\/span><\/p>\nA curiously festive mood settles on Seo-ha\u2019s uncle\u2019s funeral, until it\u2019s interrupted by a shambling, slack-jawed figure with a vacant look and jittery manner. He introduces himself as Yeo-ha\u2019s half-brother, Kim Young-ho (Ryu Kyung-soo) before grabbing her and screaming that he has just as much right to the family burial ground as she does.<\/span><\/p>\nHad <\/span>The Bequeathed <\/span>kept its focus around the initial death and fashioned a gloomy thriller about a suspicious death linked to a development project, it might have made for an interesting story, especially as Min Hong-nam\u2019s direction is an expert lesson in pacing and creating a brooding tension. Yet, as the bodies pile up around Seo-ha and Young-ho is repeatedly cast as the culprit while also portrayed as troubled and mentally ill, <\/span>The Bequeathed<\/span> sags under the weight of its numerous clich\u00e9s and stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n Jeong Se Hyeon\/Netflix \u00a9 2024<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n Most of the clich\u00e9s in Yeon\u2019s script are handled ably by Min, but once Young-ho starts stalking his sister, smearing her door with chicken blood and chasing her down in the street, the series peddles the same tired and harmful tropes about mental illness and violence that we\u2019ve seen all-too frequently in film and TV.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s hard to pin down exactly what Young-ho\u2019s depiction is supposed to portray. Ryu\u2019s performance is ambiguous and often melodramatic, while Yeon\u2019s script is so slipshod that most elements of the story lack definition. Given Young-ho appears to suffer some form of auditory hallucinations, the best guess is that Yeon has tried to resurrect some clich\u00e9d version of schizophrenia.<\/span><\/p> It\u2019s a characterisation that sits uncomfortably with the realities of mental illness and disability, especially as Yeon\u2019s script falls apart in later episodes and increasingly relies on making Young-ho appear increasingly erratic and violent to distract from the clumsiness of the series\u2019s second half.<\/span><\/p>\nDisability is rarely depicted with sincerity \u2013 misrepresented, instead, for the sake of drama, with little to no regard of its effect on the disabled community. South Korea, in particular, has recently started to reckon with the concept more regularly. In some cases, that\u2019s done with sensitivity, such as how mental illness is explored in <\/span>Daily Dose of Sunshine<\/span>. At other times, it\u2019s portrayed with a reprehensible lack of regard for the subject, as in <\/span>The Good Bad Mother <\/span>and <\/span>Extraordinary Attorney Woo<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\nWhere <\/span>The Bequeathed <\/span>sits on that scale, however, is uncertain.<\/span><\/p> <\/video> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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