We get a tinge of darkness, mystery, and creepiness in these new posters for OCN’s new thriller Rescue Me—although not nearly as creepy as the last batch of teasers, which are admittedly hard to outdo on the creep factor. But this drama has a very compelling angle in its cult storyline, as it tells of a young woman who finds herself trapped in a religious cult and begging for rescue, and the group of young men who happen to hear her cry for help and get involved.
Those young men will be led by Taecyeon (Bring It On, Ghost), pictured in the above poster leaning on his motorcycle, while his buddies will be played by (going clockwise from Taec) Woo Do-hwan (The Man Living in Our House), Ha Hwe-jung, and Lee David (Bring It On, Ghost). The copy on their poster reads, “Hot-blooded country boys, saving the cult world.”
The second poster features the central characters on the cult side, headed by silver-haired Jo Sung-ha as the charismatic leader. (The hair strikes me as a little odd in that poster, or maybe it’s the Muppet eyebrows, but I’m appeased by the teaser clips we’ve seen so far, in which he looks more mysterious and less cheesy.) He’s flanked by his devoted lackeys, with Jo Jae-yoon (Defendant) skulking to his right and Park Ji-young (The Liar and His Lover) looking faithful and proud on his left. Their poster tells us, from our leader’s perspective, “I will make sure you are saved.”
Below that we have the victims of the cult, with Seo Ye-ji (Hwarang) standing apart from her family, who get sucked into its clutches while she remains wary (though no less ensnared). Yoon Yoo-sun (Shopping King Louis) plays her feeble mother, Jang Hae-kyun (Ruler–Master of the Mask) plays the father who failed in business, and Jang Yoo-sang (The Magician) plays her twin brother. I can see why they’d cling to the cult as their hope for improving their lives even just a tiny bit, and why their daughter feels a sense of responsibility to care for them. Seo Ye-ji is the voice of their poster, which reads, “It is hell here… Rescue my family.”
Below that, we have a couple more teasers (bearing the same taglines as above), one that features the young band of rescuers with Seo Ye-ji, and the other that pictures the full cast in front of the cult compound, with leader Jo Sung-ha’s hand resting unsettlingly on Seo Yi-ji’s thigh. Gack.
I expect Rescue Me to be a bit dark and disturbing, but because the core conflict is so primal and urgent (save these people from hell! And not in a religious sense), I’m hoping for pounding thrills and a driving sense of immediacy and danger. I like that the four young men are described as country bumpkins, because that gives them a feeling of being simple folks who may have crude methods, which gives them an underdog vibe. And Taecyeon as a hot-blooded bumpkin with a sense of honor? I didn’t buy him for a second as a brainiac model student in Bring It On, Ghost, but THIS I can go for.
Rescue Me will be a Saturday-Sunday show on OCN premiering on August 5.
