Most South Korean productions try to combine several genres at once. In the case of The legacy from Netflix, the mix is also a way of telling an intriguing story that becomes increasingly sinister. Yoon Seo-ha (Kim Hyun-joo from the popular Hellbound), tries to keep his life afloat among all kinds of small daily misfortunes. She has a job that she hates and in which, every day, she feels belittled and her marriage is about to collapse.
Then, the unthinkable happens. A relative who had not heard anything left him a cemetery that passed from generation to generation into his hands. It is also a portion of territory that brings with it its own problems. What the young woman does not suspect is that the unique property also brings with it a series of terrible events and a macabre history.
Not only because of the obvious (it is a cemetery that preserves the bodies of hundreds of people), but because, suddenly, the heiress will have to deal with a series of violent deaths that occur around her. Is there a criminal behind everything or a dark event?
Thus begins what gradually becomes an atypical story that combines mystery, supernatural suspense and drama, to tell a dangerous enigma. But specifically, he is interested in making it not very easy to discover what is hidden beneath its most peculiar points. There are five reasons that make this experiment one of the productions worth watching on Netflix, despite its flaws.
Good and evil as objective
The plot attempts to include the idea of predestined evil. The first chapter strives to show that what happens with Yoo Seo-ha is mysterious, but, at the same time, the last point in a series of inevitable events.
Which is to say that the cemetery — which is presented as a rarity in an industrialized world — is something more than a place. At the same time, it is a combination of magical elements that the character will have to deal with.
Terror topics in a criminal case
From the evidence of a part of his family that he does not know, to the possibility that in addition to the cash legacy, he also has a magical sentence on his hands. The legacy uses the possibility of a circumstance that escapes any simple explanation to advance the plot.
What connects with the idea that the inherited cemetery is more than a property, a dangerous place that carries with it its own risk. The series does not show a specific tone or explanation. A plot trick that works as long as the story doesn’t need to take a defined direction.
The mystery that becomes more complex
Creator and director Yeon Sang-ho (who became known worldwide for Train To Busan and Hellbound), he strives so that, on this occasion, his story is ambiguous. So there is no way to know, in principle, whether the cemetery is a supernatural mystery or a criminal one. Time and time again, the script, also by the director, drops clues that could be interpreted and change the story. Either because the young heiress must deal with pressure from lawyers with a shady past or with the story of a series of crimes that point to her new possession. The truth is that the series tries, as much as possible, to interest by giving an answer to its own questions.
But eventually he has to give them, which makes the tension and atmosphere become something else entirely. Little by little, the supernatural event surrounding the cemetery becomes a subplot in itself. That, while the plot insists that Yoo Seo-ha’s unknown relatives have several — illegal — secrets to tell. Gradually, the mix becomes more ambitious. Much more so, when the script shows the heiress’s legal battle with his brother and his work problems, which are getting worse. As a whole, the script uses the supernatural to explore the human spirit.
An unpredictable series
The legacy leaves behind what seemed the promise of an enigma based on traditional South Korean legends. Its first three chapters have enough skill to sustain the tension of a terrifying story that combines the paranormal with the daily mishaps of its protagonist.
By the final episodes, the search for an answer to what the cemetery really is becomes much more than a story with detective overtones. Which allows you to be more solid and direct. When the paranormal evil makes its definitive arrival, the brutal behavior of the characters that surround the protagonist is as violent as the phenomenon in question.
An unusual thriller
Between murders, an obvious culprit – or what seems like it – and in the end, the presence of elements of occultism and shamanism, The Legacy is an experiment that does not always go well. When it does, offers an interesting story about blurred lines that blend into a macabre setting.
But when not, it’s a chaotic plot, full of ideas that are never developed. With an interesting visual section and a gothic touch that provides a particular beauty to a purely Korean environment, some scenes are a waste of resources. What becomes more noticeable in its sixth chapter, rushed, half-sketched and in the end, so forced that it seems only to be a set of hazy answers. Your biggest problem.