Dr. Brain review: a bold, genre-bending thriller on Apple TV Plus

Orchard apple tree's Dr. Brain is a bold, genre-bending thriller

A decent Korean original series debut for the platform, helmed away a cured director

Past Nov 5, 2021, 11:00am EDT

Although Dr. Brain stumbles direct its world-building from time to tim, there is something deeply overvaliant and profoundly ambitious in this first Korean original series on Apple TV Nonnegative. Dr. Brain takes off as a 6-episode thriller starring Lee Sunbathe-kyun (of Parasite fame) as neuroscientist Dr. Koh Se-won. It's an encouraging pop out for the streamer's Korean debut, though the show doesn't quite deliver on the promise of its fascinating premise and excellent cast.

We are first introduced to Dr. Koh every bit a young kid on the autism spectrum, struggling to understand emotions and colligate to others. He is unfortunately labeled as a trouble child in school, which becomes an enormous effect for his single engender. Bringing him to doctors, the (exorbitant) treatments offered Don River't quite a look to work the way she hopes for. Growing up with a tendency to "assume things apart to see what is inside," Dr. Koh dives into brain research, which allows him to study the human bear in mind and get a glance of how others see the macrocosm. Presenting his research and experiments at conferences, he is portrayed as a relatively fortunate scientist — albeit one whose ideas are unsettling to his peers. This insertion then takes a dusky, disconnected turn as Dr. Koh suffers a serial of awful personal tragedies in speedy succession. Increasingly desperate to excavate what happened, he personally tests his research by undergoing "brain syncs" with the dead to prize open their memories for clues.

Dr. Brain is a genre-bending piece of work, dancing between crime thriller, science fiction, and, most touchingly, a family drama. The serial' topper work is in its portrait of grief, sketching Dr. Koh's private moments arsenic ones of anguish and gradual reckoning with his have flaws and missteps. There is a locution in academia that all research is in some part biographer and this rings true for Dr. Koh. His "brain sync" research becomes both a form of bereaved and a typewrite of searching, as helium realizes that in that location is something more dark behind the tragedies.

Lee Sun-kyun delivers an fittingly reserved performance, acquiring the balance wheel just right between playing an aloof neuroscientist and a traumatized, bereaved man seeking answers. His colleague, Dr. Hong Nam-il (Lee Jae-won), blossoms over the series, portraying a deepness of character that far outdoes what the playscript offers him. As police officer Lieutenant Choi, Seo Ji-hye (from the immensely fashionable Crash Landing Happening You) offers a refreshing steadiness passim the series.

There are unshakeable marks of Inception echoing through the six episodes, as characters wander through altered realities and layers of consciousness. Dr. Mind is most provocative when its characters are doubtful whether new citizenry they are seeing are real or figments from a glitchy brain sync. Although the show fumbles direct the details of the brain sync mechanism, the central storey of Dr. Koh's search for truth and redemption is resoundingly coherent. Which makes it complete the more disappointing that the more ideologic explorations in Dr. Brain — on neurodiversity, morality in brain research, and the conception of the self — are half-cooked. Additionally, its discussion of pistillate characters feels disconcertingly underdeveloped. They're often left with unimportant authority, abruptly enter and exit the narrative, and are ultimately relegated as unfastidious footnotes. With its uneven pace complete six episodes, there is a gnawing sense that Dr. Mental capacity could have been really great if its supporting characters and theories were more deep fleshed out.

For example, though it never examines this fully, Dr. Brain hints at some of the most interwoven moral dilemmas in technology that we'Ra really only showtime to truly interrogate. It is staidly distressful to get wind Dr. Koh lurking around the morgue to find a corpse to test out his brain synchronise technology or knock off himself up with a vomit (!!) in the key out of (hopefully) solving a crime. There is a small balance between being a user of technology and being used by technology. Here is where the concept of brain syncs in the testify carries some real-life history parallels. How so much of ourselves do we share via technology — and do we level have control o'er what and how such is divided? What does privacy mean in this digital get on? Can the methods of technological advancement be justified as long as the outcomes are "good"?

These questions are all the more poignant given the fact that the demonstrate is backed aside one of the biggest technology companies in the world. There is perhaps a meta-critique here someplace about the relationship 'tween Apple and its users and whether our lives take up really been made better past its products. Perhaps the conclusion that the show offers us is one of stubborn ambivalence toward technology: Dr. Koh's use of brain sync technology (somewhat ironically) allows him to experience the richness of life, in all of its emotions, joys and sorrows, Thomas More than atomic number 2 ever could without IT. So far, this comes at a cost. He sometimes suffers from an information overload and his personality changes when realness and applied science start to blur.

Seasoned writer-managing director Kim Jee-woon has helmed critically acclaimed Korean classics equal The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) and Korea's first Warner Brothers-funded film The Age of Shadows (2016). On that point are flashes of brilliance throughout the series, especially in its unseamed, well timed enjoyment of flashbacks — a storytelling tool that too ofttimes feels abused present. Connected one level, his sleek transitions between tense and present fittingly capture the unsettled take care of Dr. Koh. Happening another, these shifts in sentence provide an absorbingly suspenseful experience for the viewer, especially in the last few episodes. This works in the show's favor, as Apple TV Plus will drop episodes of Dr. Brain one at a time, weekly through with December 10th.

Based on the touristed Korean webtoon of the same name, Dr. Brain premiered on November 4th, coinciding with Apple TV Positive' launch in the Korean market. Though Dr. Brain might feel the like a slow start for Apple, it is mayhap helpful to remember that not too mindful ago, Netflix debuted its first Peninsula original serial publication Love Alarm to instead disappointing, fewer-than-illustrious reviews. However, the political platform has since developed a productive portfolio of Korean shows winning some critical and transaction applaud, well-nig notably with the breakout success of Squid Gritty. Despite its shortcomings, Dr. Brain offers a promising, hopeful glimpse of Apple TV Plus' vision for its future projects in Korea and a veritable challenge to other streamers in the market.