Actor Go Min-si plays Yoo Sung-a in Netflix drama, "The Frog." Courtesy of Netflix

I wanted to like "The Frog." I really did. And, after three episodes, I had great hope for what was unfolding. I was struggling to keep up with the non-chronological narration. I was fascinated by the occasional glimpses of the unconscious. And I was in love with Go Min-si's character: a femme fatale shrouded in mystery and oozing sex appeal. I spoke of my predictions to the people around me. "I think it might be their grief playing out" or, "It might be like Lost and the hotel is a form of purgatory or something."

You also slowly realize that there are two timelines playing out simultaneously. My wife clocked this earlier than me when she walked into the room and noticed the colors of the police officers' uniforms. "Wow. This must be an old drama because those uniforms are a different color." But then these timelines are not etched together well. You don't get a sense of casual interaction between past and future. You don't feel like they bring you to a greater understanding of the whole. Compare this to something like the excellent German drama "Dark" where things go backwards and forwards excellently.

"The Frog" invites supposition and encourages all sorts of hypothesis and theories. It plays with ambiguity, teasing the viewer. Promising to unfold a story that we are perhaps not quite ready for. But by episode seven, I was done with it. Just wanting it to reach its bland and unfulfilling resolution. Eventually, nothing interesting came to pass and you are left with banality and cliche. The one advantage "The Frog" has over things like "Lost" or "Games of Thrones" is that while those things took years and countless hours of watching to disappoint, at only eight episodes, this can satiate your disappointment quickly.

What it isn't

It felt like "The Frog" wanted to be "The Shining." It simply didn't have the courage or the ability to do so. They nearly even repeated the iconic scene with an axe coming through a door in one of the final episodes but obviously realized that would have been too much for people to stomach. Kubrick's masterpiece is an exploration of psychological horror and the gradual unraveling of a character's mind, centered on themes of isolation and the haunting power of the past. It shows disturbing anachronistic visions as the location's malevolent influence drives people into the depths of madness.

And this is how "The Frog" starts. We get shocking violent images. Heads explode. Weapons are driven into skulls. The specter of death is everywhere. People are isolated in the countryside and the hotel itself plays a major role as a character. You wonder for a second if this is like Scorsese's "Shutter Island." Is Go's character actually real? Or maybe a ghost? A psychological projection? Is Kim Yoon-seok's character going crazy? Is he traumatized by the death of his wife?

None of that turns out to be true. Every psychological explanation you search for comes to a dead end. Or it ends in a flat two-dimensional caricature. A rich girl with daddy issues who is spoiled. A cop who doesn't care about the rules and pushes back against her corrupt boss. And the dead child? What about the child they kill in one of the early episodes? Then was that also a fantasy?

No, that turned out to be real. A young child is killed. A beautiful kid. And despite this being one of the darkest plot points you can imagine, there's no weight to it. There's no exploration of grief or trauma. It's almost as if the drama is scared to explore that because if they did it would require explanation, reaction, and, most of all, powerful acting.

"The Frog" looks great and promises so much, particularly with its aesthetic and vibe. It looks like a high-end cosmetic advert the whole time. But there's a distressing lack of depth. Almost as if every generalization you could want to make about mainstream Korean culture has been realized right here.

The characters

Go Min-si's character is one of the sexiest things you will see on screen this year. She chews the scenery with her eyes, hair tosses, and pouts. Much of her time in front of the camera feels like an Insta reel or TikTok. It's designed to mesmerize you. And it works. The weird thing is, no-one says anything about it. Here's this drop-dead gorgeous woman, wearing a bikini, flirting around a single middle-aged man, all by themselves in the countryside…and nothing. There's not even a hint towards attraction or her powers of seduction. It's almost like the drama is forbidding you to comment on her eroticism. If you do, you're probably a sexist.

Go's acting is ultimately flat and lacks depth. There's nothing beyond the eyes. And that's probably not her fault considering her character too is empty. We get 10 minutes showing how her dad, of course a billionaire conglomerate owner like all bad guys are in these kinds of Korean dramas, loves her husband more than his own daughter. He treats her badly. Unbelievably coldly. And so that's why she kills children and other people. Her dad doesn't love her. That's it. Rich people are bad. Uncaring. Associated with sex and vice. Poor people are good. Virtuous. Honest.

At least Bong Joon-ho has had the courage to say not all rich people are bad and not all poor people are good. He had a more Marxist approach to class-based morality and class consciousness. He realized that our economic situations create different people. Are we good because we are rich or are we rich because we are good? He always played with this. Moreover, he has made locations powerful characters in his own movie. One can only imagine the presence of the "Parasite" house was discussed when putting this one together. But ultimately "The Frog" is Disney level morality dressed up in miniskirts and trying to be sexy for Netflix. It's a Tarantino soundtrack (something else it plays with) without the dialogue, wit, or tension.

Even the end felt like the Cinderella mood of something like "Winter Sonata." The aesthetic being scarfs, polo jumpers, and long hair. The vibe being snowy cabins in the wood. That the dead wife returns for some final scenes is just more evidence of how much courage these writers lacked. The final hint there might be more to come with the phone call, an awful attempt at being edgy (or, at the very least, earn more money with an undeserved second series).

Serial Killers

The story of Koh Yuh-jeong shocked Korea four years ago when it was revealed a woman was convicted of killing her former husband, dismembering his body and dumping it into the sea. She was cleared of another murder charge for allegedly suffocating her 4-year-old stepson, due to lack of evidence. What is justice when you are faced with such a situation? What are we expected to do? How do we treat these people?

This is probably what the director was asking us to consider. That they make Kim Yoon-seok's character become visibly like a serial killer by putting on a baseball cap and acting dark, intent on enacting revenge to save his daughter, is far too obvious. There's no subtext or subtlety. Again, compare this with the breathtaking "Memories of Murder" or "I Saw the Devil" and you're left wondering what could have been.

The drama is playing at real life. And maybe that's where it got scared about being genuinely edgy. We've already seen how popular Korean culture avoids doing anything that might frustrate the mainstream public. Despite all its early promise, "Exhuma" quickly became one-sided anti-Japanese drivel and "12.12: The Day" showed us instantly recognizable Korean historical figures but then changed their names slightly because…reasons.

If drama comes on Netflix and gets low score

There are some people around me who did like it. They felt like it was a reflection of modern Korean society. This is the danger with which they live. A killer in every possible room.

I wanted to like The Frog. And it wanted people to like it in return. Its inclusion of Korean proverbs and philosophical koans in each episode flirted with depth. But it missed the mark because it lacked restraint. It tried to be everything and ended forgettable because it couldn't deliver on its promises, it didn't know what it was, and there was little story beyond "Crazy rich people do bad things – be careful of them. Especially the women."

David A. Tizzard has a doctorate in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the "Korea Deconstructed" podcast, which can be found online. He can be reached at datizzard@swu.ac.kr.