Red Zone

Tomorrow is a television series that has an excellent cast and probably the most heart-wrenching storylines I've ever watched in a k-drama. Because of the latter it took me a while to finish watching the series.

Choi Jun-woong (Rowoon) is a young man who keeps trying to land a corporate job but has been unsuccessful. After trying to stop a suicidal man from jumping off a bridge, and falling into a coma, Jun-woong becomes half-spirit and half-human; as his body lay in the hospital on a respirator his spirit lands in Jumadeung, which is a business version of the souls who deal with human afterlife. The Director of Jumadeung offers Jun-woong a bargain: work for her as a Grim Reaper for six months, after which he'll wake up immediately from his coma, or wait three years to wake up naturally.

Jun-Woong agrees to work for the Director, and is assigned to the Risk Management Team, run by Koo Ryeon (Kim Hee-sun) and assistant manager Lim Ryung-gu (Yoon Ji-on). Instead of collecting souls to escort to the afterlife, however, the team tries to stop people from committing suicide. While seemingly cold and unemotional about their work, both Ryeon and Ryung-gu have tragic pasts of their own, and have yet to completely deal with them. Adding to the dramatic mix is Park Joong-gil (Lee Soo-hyuk), the grimmest of reapers and the top manager of Jumadeung, who disapproves of the Risk Management Team and wants them to stop meddling in human affairs.

All the actors did a wonderful job, and I finally understand why Rowoon is so popular. I admired Kim Hee-sun for her understated performance; she was perfection. Yoon Ji-on is definitely an actor to watch, as he handled a tricky role with elegance. Lee Soo-hyuk is as wonderful as always, and I was glad to see he was allowed to show more emotion with this character. He often gets cast as a cold or inhuman guy, but there's so much more to him than that (watch Doom at Your Service if you want to see that side of him.)

While there is occasional humor, this series is very, very intense. Every episode deals with brutal, suicide-triggering subject matter, and does that so well I think that should be a clearly-posted warning in the opening intro. It's hard not to despair and cry along with the suicidal characters, and I often reacted so much and so strongly I had to stop watching it. If nothing else you definitely come away with a better understanding why people kill themselves over things you might consider trivial or easy to resolve, like their weight or dealing with bullies at school. This is why I think the series is very good, because it will educate the oblivious.

That said, I felt some of the episodes went too far in portraying the reasons for those motives for the sake of drama. I have dealt with ugly situations that made me question the value of my life several times, and Tomorrow brought back a lot of those unhappy memories for me. I think it might be too much for some people who are still dealing with their own tragedies. Please keep this in mind if you decide to watch. Available on Netflix.