This show throws everything it can at the viewer to hold their interest, and for the most part it works. I was able to see a bit of South Korea, which I am near totally unfamiliar with, and felt like I was experiencing the country, at least in a very small measure, through the (superficial? Forced?) childlike personal interactions of the two men who are the center of the show's focus. The personalities and how they bounce off each other have energy enough, but in case the viewer wouldn't quite be sold on how exciting every second of every day is with those two, the production staff constantly bombards their audience with reinforcing animations and text. Keep in mind, when I say constantly I mean that I didn't have to wait more than five seconds before another brightly colored and vibrating headline filled the screen. While I enjoy digesting entertainment from other cultures, most of which I can't understand the languages of and so I need the subtitles, the amount of things competing for my attention made me have to rewind constantly just so I could read the text of the conversations.
This is where I started to think maybe this style of presentation is a cultural thing and maybe I need to have greater exposure to South Korean culture to appreciate the way the material was being conveyed to me. As I am right now, however, it felt like an onslaught of sounds and imagery who's sole intent was to dazzle. I hate using the word dazzle because it feels like something a crappy magician from the 1920s would say, but I hope it allowed me to accurately convey the idea of "you know it's exciting because of all the flailing about!"
I know that if I wanted serious insight into South Korean life I should have looked elsewhere, but in the end, I was grateful for getting to learn something about the people who made The Hungry and the Hairy, even if it likely wasn't what they may have intended.
Short feels:
Hour-long live action Saturday morning kids show intro sequence.
The seizure sisters.
Adobe After Effects: Which effect haven't we tried yet?
Ecstatic to be on Netflix and we won't let you forget it.
Makes me wish I had a more tolerant palette.