The Kdrama “Twelve” Episodes 1 And 2 Review- Not As Good As I Had Hoped

Its been a while since I last reviewed a Kdrama mainly because I haven’t found anything that sucked me in but with the premiere of “Twelve,” I honestly thought that was about to change, but maybe, I was being too optimistic.

“Twelve” is the newest KBS drama now competing in the same time slot as the weekend dramas of MBC and SBS, and came on top with 8% for its first episode, a truly impressive feat for a KBS drama. When I heard that I got more excited to watch it.

Its an ensemble cast that includes Ma Dong Seok, one of the biggest actors in Korean cinema in recent history. He’s been mostly working on movies, advancing to Hollywood and its been a while since he last did a drama, so expectations were high on that end. People wanted to know why he picked this drama as his first since 2016.

I was mostly excited for the other cast members and was excited to see Hyung sik take on a villain role. The idea to combine Seo In Guk and Hyung Sik in the same drama is an amazing one, might I add. So imagine my shock when it didn’t quite hit the spot I was expecting.

I have many issues with it, beginning with the introduction method. I knew it was going to be heavy-handed to a degree and a bit on the nose, but I would’ve appreciated a little more work put into it. I know its a lot of ground to cover, a lot of characters and such, but the exposition flows badly for the most part. It does not feel like conversations people have, but rather characters introducing a plot, and not in the best way possible.

The dialogue between so many characters looked like it needed much more work. It felt like an initial draft that needed to be more polished and integrated better. Because of this, I had a somewhat hard time getting into the drama.

That was likely the biggest issue I’ve had with the premiere, but many other things also bothered me, including the excessive PTT. The product placement was so on the nose that it took me out of the story a couple of times. For a drama that is this serious, such a type of product placement honestly has no business being this in your face. It made the drama feel cheap. The zoom-ins on the car models made it feel like they were aiming for it to be a side character, not including all the other instances that made me roll my eyes.

In addition to that, the fight scenes were subpar, to say the least. If you watch enough Korean dramas, you get to see just how insanely talented stunt people are and how there is an art to crafting fight scenes to make them look convincing. “Twelve” doesn’t even try; side characters just duck before punches land, and it feels so fake, which adds to my frustration with it. It was bad enough that I noticed it, and I honestly don’t focus as much on fight scenes, not unless they catch my attention for being insanely good or bad.

I know you’re gonna say, ‘well, they’re angels, they’re stronger,’ but didn’t they mention they don’t have their powers anymore? So they’re just now more or less average humans which adds to the suspense? Regardless, I felt it could’ve been done better.

Now onto the cast.

Ma Dong Seok is…. fine. I’ve seen many of his movies which I’d consider harmless fun for the most part, but I feel he’s more of a typecast that isn’t to my liking. He comes in, shows off his muscles, kicks as-, grunts at side characters, has a surprising heart of gold for his size and build, and walks away.

He’s been this character for as long as I’ve been watching kdramas, which is over 10 years. I know his size and build makes his ability to choose roles somewhat limited, but he’s personally not an actor I’d watch in drama form. I don’t know to what degree he’d hit the required emotional scenes well, which is one of my worries going forward.

The others, so far, are good. Hyung Sik is cute trying to be the villain with his cute eyes, but his smile when he strangled that guy was good. I can’t wait to see what he does with this character.

I know its only the premiere episodes and it might seem like I am doing too much, but I honestly expected this to be so much better.

All of these things I mentioned above really dampened my excitement about next week’s episodes. I will likely still watch because I like almost all the actors playing angel characters, but I expected a much bigger payout for such a large cast and what seems to be an ambitious project, to say the least.

Next week’s episodes could end up changing my mind and could help me immerse myself in the story better. Its honestly something I hope for. If I end up eating my words, so be it. I just hope this project ends up as satisfying as I had imagined when I first heard of it.

So, have you guys seen the drama yet? Thoughts?