- Title: Death’s Game – Death
- IMDb: link
The opening episode of Death’s Game introduces us to Choi Yi-jae (Seo In-guk) who commits suicide after years of frustration of not being able to make something of his life. After he dies, he finds himself confronted by Death (Park So-dam) who doesn’t take kindly to his actions or his disparagement of her in his suicide note. As punishment, Death will reincarnate Choi Yi-jae into 12 different lives, all about to die, forcing him to experience death over and over again. However, if in any of these lives he can avoid death he will be allowed to live out that person’s life to a natural end.
Originally created and adapted from the webtoon of the same name, our first episode offers glimpses of Choi Yi-jae’s struggles before his death including an event he believes is responsible for putting him on the wrong course, his suicide, his meetings with Death in Limbo just outside the gates of Hell, and the first two lives he’s given involving a man dying in a plane crash and an extreme sports athlete who is killed by his own stupidity and gravity.
Spending most of the episode in Choi Yi-jae’s original life, the episode sets the stage for his struggles and eventual suicide which he sees as a release from his owner personal hell. The horror series has style, most notably in the look of the Death’s realm and in the glimpses of Hell our immortal shows her victim. You can feel there’s obviously something left unsaid about Death’s torturing and the finality of Choi Yi-jae’s ultimate punishment. The test here is if the series can find ways to make Choi Yi-jae’s remaining 10 lives, and deaths, interesting and distinct enough over the remainder seven episodes of the series.