The Lie We Lived In (Korean Series)

This Korean BL thriller runs eight episodes, each clocking in around twenty to twenty five minutes, and it's going for that mix of high stakes crime drama with a dangerous kind of romantic pull running underneath it. Looks like it was made on a pretty tight budget, most of the action stays confined to a single apartment, and honestly I found the whole thing kind of flat, the story and how it was directed just didn't really grab me. There was definitely potential buried in here, but the way it actually got executed left a lot to be desired if you ask me.

Three guys anchor this whole thing. There's a professional assassin who gets sent out to kill someone, but once he's got the guy captured, his boss changes the plan and tells him to keep the target alive so they can hunt down a phone that's supposedly got some kind of video evidence on it. Conveniently there's a basement in the house, so the assassin just locks the guy up in a cage down there. Then out of nowhere a cop shows up, a friend of the captive who's just come back into town after being away for years and had already arranged to crash at his place. The cop assumes the assassin is actually the guy's older brother, who he thinks has been studying abroad, and decides to just hang around and wait it out, even though his friend's not answering any texts. The assassin's boss then tells him to just get rid of both of them, but for some reason he can't bring himself to do it, and it turns out that's because he's starting to catch feelings for the cop. A couple days go by, and during some small talk with another cop he works with, he learns that the guy's older brother actually died a month back. The cop's also carrying his own baggage, his dad died in some mysterious accident years ago that never got properly explained. Anyway, while this attraction between the assassin and the cop keeps building, the cop eventually discovers his friend locked away in the basement, manages to free him, and turns the tables by locking up the assassin instead. From there it turns into this ongoing back and forth game between them, until the truth finally starts coming out. Bit by bit, secrets get uncovered showing that the original captive guy was actually there the night the cop's father was killed, and that the assassin, the cop, the boss, and the cop's colleague are all tangled up together and somehow responsible for that death.

The show kicks off with this noir thriller vibe, just filtered through pretty low budget production and given a BL spin on top of it. Right from the jump it leans hard into that tension between an assassin and a cop being drawn to each other despite everything going on around them. Their bond forms surprisingly fast, but underneath all the danger and lies there's this shared sense of loneliness that actually makes it kind of understandable why they end up gravitating toward each other. By the time the lies between them start falling apart, things have gotten way more personal than either of them signed up for. There's no shortage of twists, every episode's throwing something new at you. Even so, I honestly couldn't tell you why this show just didn't hold my attention the way it should have. I'll admit I didn't see it coming that the original kidnapped guy would end up being the actual villain, so credit where it's due, the show's got plenty of twists loaded up. But for me a lot of it came across as kind of juvenile, not something that felt like it was being taken seriously, whether that's the kidnapping setup, the assassin, the cop, or the romance itself. Honestly it played out more like a high school drama than something meant to be gripping. Even the romance moves way too fast to really feel believable. It's not just that they fall for each other quickly, it's that they're doing it in the middle of an actual hostage situation where lives are on the line, which makes the pace of their relationship pretty hard to buy into. The last few episodes turn into a bit of a tangled mess, though they do at least wrap up the mystery behind what happened all those years back. Overall I'd call this a decent swing at something with a fresh concept, but the execution just doesn't hold up its end. (5/10)