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Pierce Conran

2/5 stars
Lead cast: Woo Do-hwan, Lee Yoo-mi, Oh Jung-se, Kim Hae-sook
Woo Do-hwan (Bloodhounds) and Lee Yoo-mi (Squid Game, All of Us Are Dead) team up for a head-scratching road trip as former lovers in the zany and cloying Netflix Original drama series Mr. Plankton, directed by Hong Jong-chan (Juvenile Justice) and scripted by Jo Yong (It’s Okay to Not Be Okay).
Supercilious male leads are not just common in Korean dramas, they are the characters around which whole series are built. Handsome and cunning, they excel at whatever job they do – and they know it.


They grin and strut their way through these stories. However, their outward arrogance is a shield. The female lead usually bounces off of this shield in a meet-cute where they get on each others’ nerves. The shield also serves to mask the lead’s pain and vulnerability, which usually stems from an unresolved family trauma.
Hae-jo (played by Woo) is just such as character. He runs an errands company that provides an array of services to all sorts of clients.
Those clients include a loan shark who hires him to kidnap her on the day of her wedding to a flashy gangster. Hae-jo crashes the outdoor wedding on a motorbike; the bride, not knowing what the unpredictable Hae-jo would do, is just as surprised as her guests.
We know that Hae-jo is unpredictable because the show tells us he is. Hae-jo’s business partner, who is in awe of him, explains that he does not need a plan because he is so unpredictable.

To quote the sycophantic sidekick: “He takes life one day at a time just for fun. You can never stop a guy like that.”
Except there is something that can stop a guy like that – death. Hae-jo has been experiencing strange dizzy spells. One such attack occurs as he makes his getaway from the wedding and crashes in the countryside.
Hae-jo is diagnosed with a rare vascular malformation and is given three months to live – a prognosis he does not share with anyone else. He takes the bad news with an air of equanimity.
All he can do is laugh, since the disease is genetic – the joke being that this is the only thing he has received from the family that abandoned him.

Also receiving bad news at the same hospital is Jo Jae-mi (Lee). She has been diagnosed with premature menopause, which shatters her dream of being a mother.
It also adds a serious wrinkle to her coming marriage to Eo-heung (Oh Jung-se), the eldest child of the staunchly conservative Beom Ho-ja (Kim Hae-sook).
Eo-heung must carry on the bloodline and the reason that Ho-ja has approved of his union, despite disapproving of the bride, is that Jae-mi has been pretending to be pregnant.
The wedding day arrives but, once again, the bride does not make it to the altar. Hae-jo, who is Jae-mi’s ex-boyfriend, found out about her condition at the hospital and decided to kidnap her as well.

Hae-jo is looking for his birth father and wants Jae-mi along for the ride, even though she wants no part of it.
As the pair traipse across the Korean countryside in search of Hae-jo’s father, several people attempt to track them down, including the gangster whose bride he previously kidnapped, and a desperate Eo-heung.
There is plenty of comedy and action sprinkled along this road, and many turning points for the characters as they hurtle towards an uncertain climax, but what Mr. Plankton lacks, among other things, is a clear starting point.
Hae-jo and Jae-mi (whose name means “fun” in Korean) rehash many archetypes of K-drama leads, but instead of grounding them in behaviour and actions we can understand, the show expects us to take them for granted.

A scene that appears to be a flashback of Hae-jo being abandoned by his family on the beach is featured early in the show. Without going into spoilers, beware of this and other emotionally sensitive moments which, for one reason or another, do not quite ring true by the end of the series.
Furthermore, the leads are unable to find a way to make sparks fly between their characters. Woo is too aloof, while Lee struggles to sync with the rest of the cast, dancing to a different tune.
The show’s confusing title is meant to allude to the fact that everyone – even small organisms like plankton – has value in the world.
However, to cherry-pick a quote from director Hong during a recent press conference to launch the series, we feel that “it is actually hard to pinpoint a single message that the drama aims to convey”.
Mr. Plankton is streaming on Netflix.


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Lee You-mi (left) as Jae-mi and Woo Do-hwan as Hae-jo in a still from Mr. Plankton. Photo: Netflix

Lee You-mi (left) as Jae-mi and Woo Do-hwan as Hae-jo in a still from Mr. Plankton, a confusing Netflix K-drama that lacks chemistry between the leads. Photo: Netflix

Woo Do-hwan as lead male character Hae-jo in a still from Mr. Plankton. Photo: Netflix

Lee Yoo-mi (left) as main female character Jae-mi and Kim Hae-sook as Ho-ja in a still from Mr. Plankton. Photo: Netflix

Oh Jung-se (left) as Eo-heung and Lee Yoo-mi as his intended bride Jae-mi in a still from Mr. Plankton. Photo: Netflix

11 of the best new K-dramas to watch in November 2024, from Gangnam B-Side to Mr Plankton

Lee You-mi (left) and Woo Do-hwan in a still from Mr Plankton, one of our top Korean drama picks for November 2024. Photo: Jiyeon Kim/Netflix

Yoo Yeon-seok (left) and Chae Soo-bin in a still from When the Phone Rings.

Kim So-yeon as adult-toys seller Han Jung-sook in a still from A Virtuous Business. The convention-challenging K-drama is shaping up to be an enjoyable trailblazer story. 

Kim (left) as Han Jung-sook and Yeon-woo-jin as brooding out-of-town detective Kim Do-hyeon in a still from A Virtuous Business.

Kim (right) as Han Jung-sook with her colleagues, struggling mother Seo Young-bok (Kim Sun-young), frustrated housewife Oh Geum-hui (Kim Sung-ryung) and perky hairdresser Lee Ju-ri ( Lee Se-hee), in a still from A Virtuous Business.

Kim Sung-ryung as Jung-sook’s colleague Oh Geum-hui, in a still from A Virtuous Business.

Yeon as Do-hyeon and Kim So-yeon as Jung-sook, in a still from A Virtuous Business.

Park Shin-hye in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Park Shin-hye as Bit-na, a possessed judge, a still from The Judge from Hell. Despite the Korean actresses spirited performance, the legal K-drama sputters towards an anticlimactic end. 

Kim Young-jae as doe-eyed detective Han Da-on in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Lee Kyu-han as construction firm executive Jung Tae-gyu in a still from The Judge from Hell.

Kim Young-jae as Han Da-on in a still from The Judge from Hell.

8 of the best new K-dramas to watch in October 2024 including Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born

Kim Tae-ri in a still from Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, one of eight new Korean dramas coming to our screens in October 2024. Photo: Disney+

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A confusing start to this Korean series and a lack of chemistry between the leads makes Mr. Plankton on Netflix a far from riveting watch


A confusing start to this Korean series and a lack of chemistry between the leads makes Mr. Plankton on Netflix a far from riveting watch.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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Review | Netflix K-drama Mr. Plankton review: Woo Do-hwan, Lee Yoo-mi in disjointed road trip drama

A confusing start to this Korean series and a lack of chemistry between the leads makes Mr. Plankton on Netflix a far from riveting watch