Gorgeous directing, brilliant acting, and a fast-paced story, the first half of Death’s Game comes out of the gate running and doesn’t stop. A bleak tale about a man who ends his life, even death offers him little solace as he is forced to play a game as punishment for his sins. Will our doomed protagonist learn his lesson at the end of this twisted journey, or will he continue to chase after the things that brought him ruin?
EPISODES 1-4
The show opens with its protagonist CHOI YI-JAE (Seo In-gook), an unemployed college graduate with a mountain of student loans. After seven years of fruitless job hunts, he finally calls it quits when he loses all his savings in a scam and sees his longtime girlfriend with another man. Scared of living more than dying, Yi-jae jumps off a building… and wakes up inside a private jet.
Thus begins the story in earnest as Death (Park So-dam) plucks Yi-jae from his way to hell and throws him into a game of sorts. As punishment for insulting her, she will make him experience 12 more deaths, but there’s a catch: if he happens to survive, then he gets to live again. However, Death won’t make these trials easy for him, and the first body he occupies (cameo by Choi Siwon) dies almost immediately in a fiery explosion.
Between every round, Yi-jae returns to a dark limbo where Death waits for him by the gates of hell, and try as he might to plead for mercy, his fate is sealed. With every new body, Yi-jae picks up tricks about this game, and from his second one (Sung Hoon), he learns that not only does he obtain the original host’s memories but their talents as well. Alas, his second chance ends with a splat — along with a hilariously dark ending — and our protagonist moves on to the next.
The third body Yi-jae enters is of a bullied high school student (Kim Kang-hoon) whose original death was suicide. At first, this round seems straightforward, but nothing about these games is simple. Though Yi-jae successfully ousts the bully from his position by prodding a few teenage boys’ egos, his plan turns the bully into the bullied, and the outcast teenager kills Yi-jae in a fit of rage.
At this point, Yi-jae questions if survival is even possible, but Death owes him nothing, let alone hope. Rather, his suffering will only increase from here, and Yi-jae finds himself mid-torture in his fourth body (Jang Seung-jo). As a fixer for a secret organization, the fourth body stole his boss’s money as well as his lady, and his skills are unparalleled. After an intense chase through the city that ends with a rooftop jump into a swimming pool, Yi-jae manages to survive only to be betrayed at the end by the lady he saved.
By now, Yi-jae starts to see this game as an interconnected piece rather than separate entities, so he stashed body four’s cash in a secret location to collect in the next round. Death, though, enjoys toying with her prey and foils his plans with the fifth body (Lee Jae-wook), an inmate.
The fifth body is an aspiring but poor boxer who took a bad deal for some cash. Taking the fall for a hit-and-run, the fifth body was sent to prison when the victim died, and with only four days left until his release, he threatened the original perpetrator for more money. However, blackmailing shady people only leads to more trouble, and Yi-jae fends off attacks from other inmates who want the bounty on his head.
Worlds collide in this fifth incarnation as Yi-jae bumps into the bully from body three who was arrested after the murder and currently acts like a psychopath to scare the other cellmates. Seeing through his act, Yi-jae smacks some sense into the bully and scares him into thinking that the boy he killed is haunting him.
As soon as Yi-jae is free, he retrieves the bag of cash and splits it in two, storing one in a subway station locker. On his way home, Yi-jae gets stabbed by the father of the hit-and-run victim, and though he survives the attack, his friend from prison comes moments later to finish him off. Rather than dwell on this latest death, Yi-jae focuses his attention on the cash he stored which he needs to get within four days. The clock is ticking.
If the fifth body was a prank by Death, then the sixth one is a cruel joke. Yi-jae finds himself stuck inside an infant with abusive parents, and though people see the warning signs, no one acts up to save him. Powerless, Yi-jae dies that very night when the social worker sent to investigate the case leaves without questioning the parents.
Halfway through this game, the seventh body (Lee Do-hyun) seems to be Yi-jae’s best bet to redo his life. Not only does he reclaim the bag of cash with seconds to spare, he also gets a handsome face to boot. However, Death would never be so kind to our protagonist, and Yi-jae soon discovers what grim hurdles he will have to overcome this time.
While working at a café, Yi-jae meets his ex-girlfriend LEE JI-SOO (Go Yoon-jung) and learns that she recently debuted as a novelist. He realizes that she never cheated on him — the man he saw her with was her brother — and his own inferiority complex led him to misconstrue the truth. After reading her book, he approaches Ji-soo as a fan and an aspiring author looking for advice.
The two get closer as Yi-jae recounts his deaths as if characters in a story, but Ji-soo isn’t ready to open up her heart again. Seeing Ji-soo mourn his death, Yi-jae realizes the impact his actions had on his loved ones, especially his single mother. Throughout his punishment, he tried to tamp down the guilt he felt for leaving behind his mother, but every time he interacted with a host body’s parent, the longing and sorrow only deepened.
Realizing that he could die at any moment, Yi-jae wastes no time gifting his bag of cash to his mother, and in the evening, he reveals the truth to Ji-soo. At first, he paints his confession like another one of his stories, but the more he describes his love, the more it sounds like Ji-soo. He thought she would be all right since she was strong, but he knows now that he was wrong. Yi-jae tells her that he still only loves her, and in that moment, Ji-soo sees Yi-jae standing in front of her.
As Yi-jae says his real name, a bright light engulfs them, and their tender reunion comes to a screeching halt. A car hits them both — killing Ji-soo on impact — and Yi-jae looks up at the man behind the wheel: PARK TAE-WOO (Kim Ji-hoon). With mounting horror, Yi-jae realizes that this is the heir of Taekang Group as well the older brother to body one, the sponsor for body two, the client of body four, the perpetrator from body five, and now, the murderer of body seven.
Returning to Death’s door, Yi-jae glares at his captor and then charges at her. Gliding across the table, he grabs her gun and points it at her head. He asks if she is enjoying all of this and gives her a taste of her own medicine. The screen turns black, and a gunshot rings out.
It’s been a while since I last read the original webtoon, but it seems that this rendition is a relatively faithful adaptation with a few key differences. The pacing in the beginning is pulled almost straight from the source material, throwing the audience in the middle of the action and giving them very little time to get their bearings. Rather than explain everything upfront, the rules of this “game” unfold with each death, and I enjoyed how the show unveiled revelations in layers. The bodies, while seemingly arbitrary, actually build on one another and help establish the world as well as its rules.
The first body sets the groundwork and introduces the idea of the crystal (the object that allows Yi-jae to access the host’s memories). It also emphasized how futile this game can be and the importance of time. The second taught Yi-jae that he can gain the body’s skills, and it also showed the audience that Yi-jae’s personality can be influenced by the host — at first, he was afraid of falling but then turned brash once he received the host’s crystal. As for the third, the parameters for “survival” are widened and simply avoiding the original death is not good enough to beat Death’s conditions. This body also revealed that Yi-jae’s actions in this alternate timeline affects his world and aren’t isolated events.
The fourth marks the start of Yi-jae’s counterattack, and instead of focusing on each body individually, he looks at this game as connected pieces. However, the show highlights his shortsightedness and depicts him not realizing the original body’s death nor the fact that freedom of movement isn’t always a given. Thematically, we also start to see the importance of money and greed as core elements to the show. Moving on to the fifth body, this is when the show makes Yi-jae’s selfishness more explicit as he willfully ignores the consequences of his actions, which ultimately lead to his demise. Furthermore, the fifth body reminds Yi-jae of his mother, and the doubts begin to form.
Out of all the iterations, the sixth body deviates the most from the rest in interesting ways. This possession expands the possibilities of Death’s choices and also introduces the idea of personhood. The baby remains nameless, and even in death, they become a cold statistic in a broken system. The sixth also builds on the idea of parents, and once again, pushes Yi-jae to reevaluate his choices and the hurt he caused. Lastly, the seventh becomes a culmination of these brewing feelings, and faced with his loved ones, Yi-jae can no longer run away. For the first time, he reflects and realizes that he had enough reasons to live. However, the moment he learns this lesson, Death mercilessly steals it from him, reminding both the protagonist and the viewers that death may come at any time.
Besides the lessons Yi-jae must learn from these 12 punishments, the show hints at something bigger happening in the background. These bodies aren’t just a tool for Death to teach Yi-jae but also pieces to a puzzle. At the center lies Park Tae-woo who appears to be a stereotypical rich villain with no ounce of morality, but it is still unclear how Yi-jae plays into all of this. From Death’s cryptic warnings, it seems Yi-jae committed a grave crime that caused his damnation, and if he doesn’t figure out why he is being sent to hell in the first place, all his efforts to survive are for naught. While the show is definitely dark and cynical, there’s also bits of macabre humor sprinkled throughout that bring in moments of levity, and coupled with some amazing performances, Death’s Game delivers on the hype of its star-studded cast.