The author of this article is written by @Min Sijia
Movies can explain what can't
Since chasing the first season of "Dark Glory" in December last year, many people should be as eager to wait for the second season as Xiaowan.
Finally, "Dark Glory Season 2" was launched last Friday, and the long-standing revenge drama of Wen Dongen finally entered the climax stage of the three-act drama.
Now the Douban score of the first season has risen to 8.9, and the opening score of the second season has soared to 9.4 (currently 9.3), which can completely rank among the first echelon of high-reputation Korean dramas.
This cannot but be said to be pushed up by the long-accumulated public empathy, and after seeing Wen Dongen's revenge successfully carried out, the audience finally got an emotional flood.
The common emotions in this are composed of many issues in "Dark Glory", such as school bullying, such as class gap, such as the plundering of the poor by the rich, and such as women suffering domestic violence but are difficult to get out.
In order to maximize the "emotional effect", "Dark Glory" split this revenge drama into two seasons.
In the eight episodes of the first season, apart from Son Mingwu's mysterious death, it is difficult for Wen Dongen to say what substantial revenge he really did.
She works as a teacher at the school of the daughter of bully Park Yeon-jin, and makes Yeon-jin's husband Ha Do-young interested in her by playing chess;
found out that Park Yeon-jin's daughter is actually the child of Park Yeon-jin and Jeon Jae-joon, and got some clues about the death of the alumnus Yoon So-hee... All of the above are just step-by-step steps on the road to revenge, and have not yet achieved any practical goals.
So at the end of the first season, the creators also successfully hung the audience's appetite, saving the most exciting and cathartic part of the entire revenge for the second season.
This is also the key reason for the high rating of the second season, and almost all the problems that the protagonists want to solve are concentrated in these eight episodes -
How exactly will Moon's plan for revenge be carried out; How can "Aunt Assistant" Kang Xiannan protect her young daughter while killing her abusive husband;
"Knight" generally participates in Wen Dongen's revenge plan, how to deal with the old shadow of his father's death.
The combination of various contradictions makes the second season of "Dark Glory" not only a collection of revenge dramas, but also a process of reconciliation between the protagonists and themselves, the past, and the world.
In this setting, the first season has actually become the foreshadowing of the second season in the play, and we can see that many of the buttons buried in the first season are untied one by one in the second season.
For example, the green high heels have always been considered by everyone to be the key to Sun Mingwu's death, and finally echoed in the truth;
Another example is the problem of Jeon Jae-joon's eyes, which was discovered by Wen Dongen as a key clue, and also played a role again in the end.
On the one hand, we can see these echoes as screenwriting skills, on the other hand, it can also make us, as bystanders, feel a certain fateful existence.
Just like "Squid Game", which showed the game of human nature and became popular all over the world before, the focus on violence and evil is also one of the main reasons why "Dark Glory" quickly gained attention.
The scene in the first season where the heated curling iron is directly pressed onto Wen Dongen's arm (there is a realistic prototype), and to this day, people can still feel the pain that can cross the screen.
This is not just a dramatic power, but a physiological response, and the core of what the show "Dark Glory" wants to get to the heart of - real, pure evil.
Compared to the previous season, the second season of "Dark Glory" is not so much about revenge as about "pure evil" and "pure love".
The former, of course, refers to the small group of bullies and their families, while the latter is more reflected in the protagonist group and the love between Wen Dongen and Zhou Ruzheng.
Some love comes from the concern of strangers, and on the night that Wen Dongen tried to commit suicide as a teenager, he saved his aunt, who also wanted to end his life because of the death of his son.
The phrase "the water is too cold, let's wait for spring to die" is the redemption of the desperate to the desperate.
Some love comes from mutual help between women, and the relationship between Wen Dongen and Aunt Assistant Kang Xiannan began with a transaction, but the deeper conclusion is actually the trust between women.
Wen Dongen let Jiang Xiannan learn to take pictures, learn to drive, and gain the freedom to get rid of her abusive husband. The blood that was initially applied to the woman's face, turned into bright lipstick in this season, cannot but be said to be a feminism.
As for "evil", that is the core of the "Dark Glory" series.
In the second season, Moon Dong-eun let everyone know about Park Yeon-jin's past of bullying others.
People talk about and denounce this glamorous and sinister weather anchor on the Internet, which is probably also a "-for-tat" for a tooth belonging to the bottom - Park Yeon-jin physically bullied vulnerable classmates when she was a student; Now it is the cold "digital people" hiding behind the Internet who carry out online violence against her.
But even when Moon Dong-eun had already put Park Yeon-jin on the edge of the cliff and gave her one last chance, Park Yeon-jin did not show even the slightest hint of fear, remorse or guilt.
She didn't even see half a soft thing on her, some just continued to attack with sharp teeth and claws, and the self-righteous set of "fallacies".
Another extreme evil is also reflected in Wen Dongen's mother. In this season, in order to fight back Moon Dong-eun's revenge, Park Yeon-jin finds Dong-eun's alcoholic mother.
Normal people may still have a trace of imagination, this woman who once took the initiative to let Wen Dongen drop out of school, squandered the settlement money, and pushed her daughter into the abyss with her own hands, will show a little motherhood and personal understanding of her daughter's experience many years later.
But it didn't.
The scene between Wen Dongen and his mother is probably the most painful part of the entire Dark Glory season two, and it ruthlessly tells us that motherhood is not natural, and that some true aspects of human nature are far more cruel than kinship/blood.
This is also telling the audience that blood as a bond, which we especially East Asian families have long understood as a fate, a bond, an intimate force, can actually go to the other end.
It can be the first, the most hidden, and the most murderous perpetrator, just because it carries the name "family affection".
There is also the shadow of Zhou Ruzheng's old days as a line of echo, the prisoner who killed his father, and also represents an "indiscriminate evil".
In short, "Dark Glory", which touches on these parts, will remind people of the "unprovoked evil" that is often focused on in Japanese social mystery novels.
This may also be the core reference of the title of "Dark Glory".
After all, don't Wen Dongen, who embarked on the road of revenge, also represent a "righteous evil"?