(8) MY NAME (NETFLIX 2021)

Funnily enough, I happened upon this Korean action thriller drama not through another Korean entry in this top ten at about the same time (my very next entry in fact), but because of the abject failure of the first season of The Rings of Power.

Not directly, that is, but through some Youtube commentator – that I can’t even remember – pointing to the failure of that series to depict its female lead Galadriel’s quest for revenge, at least plausibly or for any audience engagement in her character, in contrast to this series doing it right.

And My Name does the roaring rampage of revenge right – as well as a female lead that is not as insufferable as Galadriel in the Rings of Power, nor the proverbial “girlboss”. I don’t entirely agree with that term, given that it is too widely used in criticism – although if one character embodied the term, it was Galadriel in The Rings of Power (“both a Mary Sue and a Karen”), succeeding effortlessly and failing upwards.

Contrast the female lead in My Name, Yoon Ji-Woo, bent on avenging her father’s death by proving herself as a member of his criminal gang, who has to fight every step of the way, usually literally and at visceral price or at least high cost (to pretty much everyone involved) – indeed higher than she ever could have known, as is ultimately revealed.

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)