Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sweet Home’ On Netflix, Where Residents Of A Grungy Apartment Building Hide From Bloodthirsty Monsters

The structure of Sweet Home, based on a comic of the same name by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, is more or less the same as many of the post-apocalyptic shows we’ve seen in recent years. We’re introduced to a group of disparate personalities, all of whom have their own struggles in their lives, and then the zombies or monsters or whatever mutant life forms threaten the remainder of humanity show up. Then these strangers have to band together and figure out how to survive. So how will this one distinguish itself?

SWEET HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “SEPTEMBER, 2020.” In a snowstorm, military personnel run to a scene where monsters have attacked. One person stumbling out, though, is human. But as the officers shoot, bullets seem to just bounce off him. A voice says “This is a story about us, the ones trying to find a reason to live in a world where this is harder than merely surviving.”

The Gist: August, 2020. Cha Hyun-soo (Song Kang) is moving into the Green Houses, a rundown apartment complex. All he has is a few pieces of clothing and his computer. He’s severely depressed, and barely fazed when a metal shard whizzes past his head, because it got kicked up by the security guard’s weed whacker.

He’s about to jump off the roof, when he sees a beautiful girl practicing ballet nearby; her name is Lee Eun-yoo (Go Min-si), and she’s not as innocent as she looks, as we see when she curses and lights cigarettes with the filters bit off. Hyun-soo has “Suicide” on his phone on August 25th, the same day as a video game preview invite he receives. He walks out of his apartment when he gets a text about a package, and sees a long hand gutting his neighbor’s cat, with a voice saying “I’m hungry!” His neighbor tries to get in, but Hyun-soo asks to see her arms; the bloodthirsty monster leaves and hurls herself at the door of his upstairs neighbor, bassist Yoon Ji-soo (Park Gyu-young).

In another apartment, Pyeon Sang-wook (Lee Jin-wook), eats ramen and watches TV while he more or less tortures a man he has wrapped up in duct tape. Before the monster hurls herself at her door, Ji-soo (Park Gyu-young) and teacher Jung Jae-hun (Kim Nam-hee) awkwardly discuss a neighbor who is still traumatized by her son’s death.

Lee Eun-hyeok (Lee Do-hyun), Eun-yoo’s brother, is about to go to work when he realizes the lights are out. When he gets downstairs, the lobby shopkeepers are agitating for the gate to be open. Eun-hyeok asks a neighbor, firefighter Seo Yi-keyung (Lee Si-young), what exactly is happening, but she doesn’t know.

When cell phones don’t work, she turns to a land line in the guard’s office; when that line says that there is an emergency situation, that arouses her suspicions. They’re confirmed when the people in the lobby see some sort of person-turned-monster, with an elongated body and limbs, shoot out a long tongue and capture one of the people in the lobby. Yi-keyung gets grabbed by the monster, but Eun-hyeok saves her. It’s then they realize that the city has been overrun by monsters of all kinds, all of whom are looking for humans to consume.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Walking Dead, except with monsters.

Our Take: In this iteration of the post-apocalyptic survival series, the people are trapped in the grungy Green Homes, which seems to house people who are running away from something or display some sort of desperation or longing. That will likely play into the plot of the ten episode first season, with people stepping up, others being craven and only out for themselves, and still others going either way depending on the situation. And we’re pretty sure the monsters will pick these people off as the season goes along.

Of course, the other difference here is that, instead of zombies, we have various monsters, who are freakish-looking to say the least. We’re not sure how the population of humans become these monsters. When they’re killed, do they wake up as a version of the monster that killed them? Or do they turn into something else? The question of how these monsters actually infested humanity will probably never be answered, but that’s not as important as the survival story.

Because of the scope of this story, writers Hong So-ri, Kim Hyung-min and Park So-jung had a hard time focusing on what storylines to follow. While Hyun-soo is brooding in his flat, we have Yi-keyung and Eun-hyeok battling the monster in the lobby, who seems to be deterred by simple things like a fire extinguisher and flimsy metal shutters. As the episodes go along, they’ll find who are the best characters to follow.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Hyun-soo looks out the window of his flat and sees the monsters that have overrun the city. Then his nose starts bleeding profusely, one of the first signs of someone who’s infected by whatever this plague is.

Sleeper Star: We only got introduced to Lee Si-young as firefighter Seo Yi-kyeong at the end of the episode, but she’s a main character, and she seems to be one of the toughest people in the building.

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re hoping that the CGI of the monsters gets a little better; we understand showing them shambling around in herky-jerky fashion makes them scarier, but it still sometimes reminds us of stop-action filming rather than CGI.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite its flaws and a premise we’ve seen before, Sweet Home distinguishes itself by its setting and its monsters. We’ll see if the drama between the survivors will keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Sweet Home On Netflix

Sweet Home: 8 Fun Facts About Netflix’s New K-Drama Series

48 SHARES Share Tweet Whatsapp

If you’re a huge fan of horror and slasher TV series, then Netflix’s upcoming original K-drama “Sweet Home” (스위트홈) is definitely recommended to be in your must-watch list!

Based on the popular Naver webtoon of the same name, the 10-episode drama series stars Song Kang (“Love Alarm”), Lee Jin Wook (“Voice” sequels), Lee Si Young (“Liver Or Die”) and also Lee Do Hyun (“18 Again”) taking on the lead roles.

“Sweet Home” tells the story of life-loathing 18-year-old loner named Hyun Soo (played by Song Kang), who just moved into an old apartment complex called Green Home following the tragic death of his family. Feeling hopeless, he decides that the best option to end this is by committing suicide. He sets his plan to end his life at the end of the month and goes to bed – only to wake up in a world full of hopelessness where floating monsters are about to sweep away the entire human race.

To get all of you pumped up for the premier of the action-packed series, we’ve compiled 8 fun facts that fans need to know about the drama “Sweet Home”. Check them out :

Director Lee Eung Bok on the concept of the Green Home in the series

The thrilling series is helmed by Lee Eung Bok, famous for his slew of popular K-dramas including “Descendants Of The Sun”, “Mr. Sunshine” and also “Goblin”. In shedding some light about the concept of the fictional apartment building, he dished, “I tried to represent the stage of ‘monsterisation’ with the lights coming from the outside and the destruction as well as the transformation of the building.”

“The building had a shutter at the entrance at first, later replaced by walls, followed by the collapse and an open space. In the process, I tried to portray different stages of the sense of crisis felt by the residents with the changing lights and barricades,” the renowned director further added.

The visuals of the creatures in “Sweet Home” are done by award-winning American special effects studio Legacy Effects

As stated in the director’s note, Legacy Effects chose to work on “Sweet Home” despite their busy schedule with other Hollywood projects because the monsters that are present in this drama are different from other creatures. In this case, the design of the monsters was created based on the story of the creatures when they were in their human forms.

The cast on what drew them to the horror series

Lead actor Song Kang revealed, “Director Lee contacted me first. As I have been a fan of the original webtoon, I was very much looking forward to seeing the script, and the script was fascinating as well. Reading through the script, I got curious to see how the monsters would be portrayed in the actual world.”

Lee Jin Wook, who starred as Pyeon Sang Wook then shared, “The biggest reason for me was the fact that Director Lee was directing it. After hearing news that ‘Sweet Home’ would be made into a Netflix series by chance, I looked for the original webtoon because the story sounded interesting, and I absolutely enjoyed it. Then, I heard that Director Lee was directing it, which made me want to join this project no matter what, so I expressed my interest very strongly.”

Rising actor Lee Do Hyun, who played the character Lee Eun Hyuk, said, “Since I am a huge fan of the original webtoon, I was very curious to see the script. The webtoon was still on-going at the time, so I wanted to see how the story goes and wondered if the overall storyline would be the same as the webtoon. I was very excited when I received the script. I wanted to participate in the project so bad that I showed my enthusiasm very strongly at the audition as well.”

Last but not least, Lee Si Young (Seo Yi Kyung) commented, “I found the role interesting and fun and was eager to show dynamic action moves. So, I decided to join the project.”

Lee Jin Wook on how the shooting for “Sweet Home” is different from others

Lee Jin Wook commented, “The last time I was witnessing a shooting studio was back when I was a rookie, but I felt that again at the gigantic studio for ‘Sweet Home’, which was of a rare size for a TV series and consisted of spaces that are filled with CG effects.”

“The entire space was built in the studio, and everything was set up perfectly no matter which door you open, and every corner that was captured on camera was filled with details. The behavior and movement of monsters designed by choreographer Kim Seol-jin were also impressive!” the seasoned actor was quoted as saying.

Song Kang and Lee Si Young on the process of preparing themselves for their roles

Song Kang had to shed the image of his character in his previous drama, “Love Alarm”, with his new role in this drama. According to him, “Since ‘Sweet Home’ is my first genre series, I found everything so new and fun. I started learning and practising basic action moves whenever I had time two months before the shooting began.”

Lee Si Young chimed in, saying, “The character that I portray, Yi Kyung, is a former firefighter who shows a strong survival instinct against monsters. Because she is a former special forces soldier, I began practicing action moves with a martial arts action director six months before the shooting started.”

She then added, “I had to do a lot of weight training to build some muscles, because there were action scenes which required me to show off my body. I became a lot stronger than I expected, and that helped me a lot in doing those scenes.”

Lee Do Hyun and Lee Si Young on interacting with the “monsters” in the series

The young actor remarked, “I was totally amazed when I visited the set for the first time. All of the monsters left a lasting impression on me, because I have never seen anything like that before. The lotus root monster was the first and also the most memorable monster I saw. It was amazing how the actor who played the monster performed so well despite not being able to see his surroundings very well. Also, the bloodsucking monster was so real that I thought to myself, ‘That cannot be human!’

Lee Si Young concurred that shooting with the monster was “refreshing and difficult at the same time”. According to her, “Because monsters are several times stronger and more destructive than humans, the reaction required in action scenes was completely different. I practiced a lot on those points, and it felt different because it was not something I have tried before. I think I learned a lot during the shooting of ‘Sweet Home’.”

Lee Si Young on some memorable moments during production

“Out of all the best moments, I would have to say working with the director is the most memorable one for me,” the 38-year-old actress shared during the chat. Why the director you asked? She explained, “Just looking at him as well as his facial expressions helped me get back to my strict diet plan.”

She further added, “It was very scary whenever he smiled and said ‘Everything’s okay’ and also ‘You can do whatever that you want’, because I think that I was really daunted by his charisma. In this case, I believe that his charisma was what really guided me throughout my diet plan.”

A different look into humanity

Lee Eun Bok told the press, “I wanted to convey the message on how to live like a human. Because of the interesting setting where people’s desires turn them into monsters, I was able to portray those desires owned by each individual to extremes. Villains or bad people might want to live forever as monsters, but I believe most ordinary people would want to ‘be human’ when they are breathing their last breath. Such elements can be found throughout the series and will move the audience’s heart.”

Watch the trailer here:

Mark your calendar, K-drama junkies! “Sweet Home” will be available for streaming starting from 18th December (Saturday) onwards.

Images courtesy of Netflix.

The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in December

Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for December.

DECEMBER 4

‘Mank’

When the director Orson Welles hired Herman J. Mankiewicz to write the script for his masterful 1941 debut feature film “Citizen Kane,” the Hollywood veteran saw an opportunity to turn his life experiences — including his personal relationships with powerful bullies like the publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst and the movie studio boss Louis B. Mayer — into an enduring piece of cinema. Gary Oldman plays Mankiewicz in director David Fincher’s “Mank,” a look back at the tumultuousness of American politics and show business, in the years in and around World War II. Shot in softly expressionistic black-and-white, this movie is a lovely but sly consideration of how artists try to shape their times by documenting them as bluntly as possible.

‘Selena: The Series’

Based on the short life and phenomenal career of the Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla, “Selena: The Series” goes into granular detail on how her father and manager Abraham (Ricardo Chavira) spent years booking her into low-rent fairs and house parties, trying to find the right showcase for her obvious talent. Christian Serratos plays the adult Selena, who eventually broke through to a big Spanish-speaking American audience, but then had to deal with the sometimes confining expectations of her fans and family. Equally honest and inspiring — and, refreshingly, suitable for all ages — this biographical drama is about the hard work and thought that goes into creating a superstar.

DECEMBER 11

‘The Prom’

Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells play faltering Broadway actors looking for a profile-boosting cause in the satirical comedy “The Prom,” adapted by the producer-director Ryan Murphy from a Tony-nominated musical. The impressive newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman plays Emma, an Indiana teen who inadvertently gets her high school prom canceled by the local authorities when she announces her intention to attend with her girlfriend. This tuneful and upbeat film mocks the pretensions and the misconceptions of both New York lefties and social conservatives as they each stake out their positions, irrespective of what the kids want.

回到上一頁