TV Reviews: W (2016)

W (2016) produced by Chorokbaem Media

The very popular webtoon (a digital comic designed for reading on smartphones) "W" tells the story of Kang Cheol (Lee Jong-Suk). He is an Olympic competitor in pistol shooting who comes home from a meet to discover his family shot to death. Suspicion falls on him but he is not convicted. He creates a TV program called "W" which is intended to investigate what happened to his family (and discover the real murderer) but also documents other real crimes. The webtoon focuses on Kang Cheol's search for the killer and the killer's attempts to kill Kang Cheol. But that plot is only half the show.

In the real world, the writer of "W," Oh Sung-Moo (Eui-sung Kim) is tired of the very popular comic and has decided to kill off Kang Cheol to make an ending. The plan goes awry when his daughter Oh Yeon-joo (Han Hyo-joo) is sucked into the comic. She's a medical intern so she saves the handsome Kang Cheol and starts to fall in love with him. This plot twist shows up in the webtoon, surprising both readers and the writer. The writer keeps failing to kill off the main character, causing him some angst. Kang Cheol and Oh Yeon-joo start falling in love though she is sucked back to the real world at the end of each issue. She is not really in control of when she comes and goes, making things more dramatic. The killer becomes interested in killing her, though his interest shifts when he discovers that he's a faceless character in a comic with no real motivation other than making the hero's life miserable. Just when the romantic part of the plot is resolved, the killer creates lots of complications both in the comic world and out in the real world.

The premise is a lot of fun, a typical fantasy for fiction fans. Who wouldn't be intrigued at the chance to live in an imagined world or to meet a favorite character? The logic of how the two worlds interact gets more complicated and convoluted as the story goes on. At some point, it felt as if things were changing or added just to make some new drama to fill out the sixteen-episode season. It would have been better if they'd tightened it up to ten or twelve episodes, but still it's a fun premise and otherwise well executed (good acting, charming characters, good visual effects).

Recommended.

As I write this (December 2021), the show is only available in America through Viki.