- Title: Pandora: Beneath the Paradise – Episode 1
- IMDb: link
I’m not exactly what I expected from the first episode of South Korean drama Pandora: Beneath the Paradise about a young woman remembering a forgotten past as an assassin but I certainly didn’t expect it to be such a soap opera. The story teases us with the forgotten memories of Hong Tae-ra (Ji-Ah Lee) which return in short flashes after a pair of emotional episodes, but the main story focuses on the inner working of the family she has married into including political and professional aspirations, who is sleeping with who, a jezebel causing chaos for questionable plot purposes, and a virtual reality breakthrough involving the murder of a monkey.
With so much happening, and getting into the emotional battlefield of so many different characters, we don’t spend nearly enough time on the main thread of the story. The result is a well-produced but somewhat narratively sloppy soap opera you wouldn’t be surprised to see sandwiched between Days of Our Lives and General Hospital. Even Tae-ra’s flashbacks seem a bit goofy as is the story hinging on an exceptionally well-timed package being sent to her sister-in-law providing shocking information to start the ball rolling in her investigation.