3 Reasons Why You Need To Watch “Alice”

When you hear the name ‘Alice’, what comes in your mind? Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland or the Godfather of Shock Rock Alice Cooper? Well, when I heard that SBS is going to release a sci-fi kdrama ‘Alice’, my first thought was about something about Korean take on Alice in Wonderland. But it proved me wrong with its intricate yet riveting plot.

“Alice,” starring Kim Hee Sun and Joo Won, is a time-travelling tale that remains grounded in human relationships. In the year 2050, people figure out how to time travel and thus take advantage of it to go back in time for various personal reasons. 

To avoid giving too much away before the spoiler break, just know that this is one atypical K-drama. This is something you should be watching it if you love great acting and a rich storyline.

Korean actor Joo Won has rejected 49 scripts and chose this project as his comeback kdrama after 3 years, which makes it more worthwhile.

This is one of that unusual science-fiction kdrama that make me create theories. Plus it’s so well-produced and has such great CGI effects. It’s as though you’re watching a big-budget movie. In addition to that, the amazing acting, the thrilling action, and the plot that promises not to be too cut-and-dried.

Here are 3 reasons you should check out “Alice” and decide for yourself if it’s worth your time or not:

Might contain spoilers

A gripping storyline that will awe you

Alice promised kdrama fans that it will serve the best sci-fi kdrama of the year 2020, and it stuck to its promise. The story starts off with Yoon Tae Yi (Kim Hee Sun) and Yoo Min Hyuk (Kwak Si Yang) travelling from 2050 back to 1992. They time travelled solely to get their hands on “The Book of Prophecy,” a book that supposedly predicts a sad ending to time travel. 

However, Tae Yi soon finds out she is pregnant and decides to stay in 1992 to deliver her child. In order to do so, she goes into hiding and stays in 1992. She changes her name to Park Sun Young and eventually gives birth to a beautiful son named Park Jin Gyeom, whose mental health suffers due to radiation exposure. Fast forward to the year 2010, and a mysterious person murders Sun Young.

10 years after her death, her son Jin Gyeom is on a mission to find who is responsible for his mother’s death. But while searching, he runs into Yoon Tae Yi, a physics professor who looks exactly like this mother. Being a sci-fi kdrama, Alice didn’t fail to deliver scientific nuances throughout the episodes. The complex physics theory intertwining with bone-chilling thriller, it surely made fans create different theories.

It deserves applause for one other thing which, not wasting too much time on discussing the mechanics of time travel. Unless you are a Physics students, it’s hard to understand the intricacies of how Quantum physics work.

(Read: 15 must-watch Korean drama of 2020 so far)

Top-Notch production that even some high budget kdramas can’t rival

Right off the bat, Alice leaps into a foreign and high-tech world where every frame features an infinite amount of detail. Strengthened by some excellent location choices, the time slip suit offers a true feeling of awe and wonder at all. To top it all off, music and visual effects are outstanding.

Last time I was in awe of such futuristic technology was when I watched another amazing kdrama, Memories of Alhambra. Alice managed to awe the audience with it’s different kind of futuristic weapons that it showed throughout the drama. My favourite one is the bullet which one can’t see through naked eyes. And the other one is definitely the item that de-ages a person in the blink of an eye.

It’s not just these post-production gimmicks that make a great ride, either. The action scenes themselves are pretty cool, too, and the actors do a fantastic job of pulling them off.

A+ Casts that won’t disappoint you

As cool as the production is, it is still incomplete without good actors driving the storyline and delivering kickass acting. Alice director Baek Soo Chan garnered some high-profile versatile actor for the project.

Joo Won chose this project as his comeback drama after his military release. Moreover, he came back to show he’s not here to play.

He makes Jin Gyeom seem both unfeeling and human at the same time. Always displaying just enough aloofness to suggest his emotional shortcoming, yet never changing to creepy or psychic.

Kim Hee Sun, Kwak Si Yang, Choi Won Young and few other veteran actors joined Joo Won in this project. They pulled their A-game to tackle the high and lows of human greed. Furthermore, this nail-biting kdrama hinted how the future can change if time travel exists in real life.

Are you watching “Alice”? Are you as impressed with the episodes as I am? Which part/scene did you enjoy the most? Let me know in the comments below.

(Read: #Alive Movie Review: Did it manage to to stay alive amidst the pandemic?)

The article is by Sagarika Biswas