Throw in some film noir embroidery, in the person of a laconic private eye (Park Hee-soon) who also helps Koh out, and you have got a genre stew. Brain to Dr Frankenstein, at the high end, and the mid-1980s helmets-and-electrodes thrillers Brainstorm and Dreamscape, at the lower end. The fate of his son is wrapped up with a conspiracy involving this technology, and there is a hubris-of-science theme that ties Dr. In outline, it is a straightforward mystery, as brain scientist Sewon Koh (Lee Sun-kyun) searches for the son he thought he buried but who may be alive he is helped by a police officer, Lt Choi (Seo Ji-hye), who is initially skeptical but comes around to his side.īut it is also a science-fiction story: Koh has developed a process for “syncing brain waves,” allowing him to tap into the memories of the recently dead.

Brain, his first TV series, blends formats he has worked in before.

Kim has been a genre-hopper in his career, and the six-episode Dr. Brain, he is operating in a calmer, subtler mode reminiscent of his best work, the polished horror film A Tale of Two Sisters. Quiet and unsensational are not qualities always associated with Kim, who was happy to engage in excesses of gore or hyperbolic action in movies like I Saw the Devil and The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Maybe someone at Apple woke up and said, “Hey, we’ve got one of those, too!”Īnd the one they have is, in its relatively quiet and only slightly sensational way, better. Brain, created by Kim Jee-woon, is the first original series from that country on the service.īut it is hard not to suspect another culprit: Netflix’s Squid Game, and the sudden avalanche of attention it has brought to South Korean television drama. That seeming lack of planning could be a result of Apple focusing its attention on the release of the show in South Korea Dr. The ritual press day with cast and crew, just announced Tuesday, is taking place a week after the premiere. The debut of the show on Thursday was announced less than two weeks ago, and even then, there was confusion about the actual date it would premiere in the US. Brain has not received the launch that you might expect for a miniseries made by a significant South Korean filmmaker, one that is an important building block in Apple TV+’s attempt to upgrade its international content.

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