[REVIEW] Seven Days

Seven Days (South Korea, 2007)

Title: 세븐 데이즈
Also known as: 7 Days
Genre: Crime, thriller
Release Date: November 14th, 2007

Ji Yeon is a sucessful lawyer and single mother to a seven-year-old girl. On her daughter's field day, she competes with other parents in a running race and almost comes in the first place. However, nowhere could she find the girl who's been watching and rooting for her mother to win. Later that day, she receives a phone call from an anonymous man, who tells her he has her daughter in custody and proposes a deal. To see her daughter alive, Ji Yeon needs to prove a convicted murderer not guilty on his second trial, only within a week. Source: MDL

Overall Score: 4/10
Character Development: 3/10
Plot Development: 3/10
Acting: 6/10
Soundtrack: 6/10




I started this drama thinking it would be something like God's Gift - 14 Days because on MDL's recommendation page, someone wrote that "if you liked God's Gift, you'll like this movie too". So I was like, heck, I'll give this a try. I was very exicted to start it, I usually enjoy thrillers A LOT but this....this movie was a complete disaster!
Anyways, I decided to make a quick review just to let out my frustration and also to warn you guys what you should not spend your 2 hours on, if you happen to come across this movie. I know some people tend to check out movies like these just because reviewers say they are bad, so, if you're one of those people, sure go ahead. Perhaps this will be your cup of tea, but it certainly wasn't mine. And I have good arguments as to why.

The plot:
First of all, the story had a lot of potential. It's, like stated above in the synopsis, about a single mother and successful lawyer Ji Yeon and her struggle against time to save her daughther who got kidnapped. Pretty similar to God's Gift right? yeah, it had a very similar feel, however while God's Gift - 14 Days, is in my opinion a masterpiece, this one....not so much. It had every potential to be a masterpiece, but for some odd reason, the scriptwriters decided that it would be more fun to not just focus on the main plot "mother struggles to save her daughter" but also throw in some flashbacks and weird messy sideplot scenes where we're following different people and just weird bullshit that somehow is loosely tied to Ji Yeon and her case....I still don't know what the heck I watched to be honest with you. The plot was extremely jumpy and confusing. The camera was shaky 70% of the time, especially during action scenes, the movie was 2 hours long which is too long for a plot that already became confusing and messy after the first 30 minutes. It was just a complete disaster you guys X_x.

The characters:
I did like the main girl, Ji Yeon, I could connect to her and her pain but i still found her character lacking in many ways (just like the rest of the drama) because depsite the fact that the movie was 2 hours too long, we, or at least I, didn't get the hang of her personality as much as I'd hoped. As for the rest of the cast, nope. Didn't feel a thing for them to be honest. Her friend, the male lead, I still don't know what his role was supposed to be. The moral support? The sidekick? A small comic relief? I didn't feel any of that. He was just...there. It's not the actor's fault though, I think the acting was probably the best part of the drama, along with the OST, which was your typical suspensful adrenaline-rising action music.

Conclusion:
I did like the fact that the culprit wanted Ji Yeon to prove a convicted murder innocent, that was a quite interesting and in my opinion unique plottwist. But while the plot could've focused more on that, it decided to branch out and do random time skips here and there, jumping back and forth from present to our time and to random scenarios. Like that one scene where Ji Yeon when to work and told her daughther to stay at home and be nice, and then in the next second, Ji Yeon sat beside her daugther and watcher her eat. Obviously, since she was wearing different clothes, one of the Ji Yeon's is a memory from the past while the other one is the present time Ji Yeon who remembers the scene, but it was so messily done that I found myself rewatching that scene to see if I've missed anything. Usually in dramas when they put flashbacks into the plot all of a sudden they blurr the scenes or make them black-and white to kind of show that "this is a flashback". This movie made no effort whatsoever to help you figure out what is present time and a flashback <_< ugh...makes me so angry Dx.

As for a final verdict, well, what I want to say, short and simply is: if you loved God's Gift - 14 days and want to check out another thriller with a similar theme, this is sadly not the one. You could still check it out I guess, but I think you'll have to be drunk to enjoy it

Also, if you know a wizard or happen to have a time machine or time-turner, please contact me, I'll be forever grateful. I want my 2 hours of my life back. Gaaaaah damn you movie D'x