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The Whirlwind is a South Korean political drama where everyone seems to be at each other’s throats, although some more than others.
Note that in this review, there’s one basic premise I have to get across, but rest assured, it’s no more than is shown in the trailer, below, and it does also come up very early in the first episode.
And that is that President Jang Il-jun (Kim Hong-pa) has been mur-diddly-urded! Well, they tried, but he’s rushed into surgery with a 20% survival rate. And the one in the frame is Prime Minister and deputy President Park Dong-ho (Sol Kyung-gu – Kill Boksoon).
Now, I’m not well up on Korean politics, but I don’t know why a country needs both a President AND a Prime Minister, but then between the UK and USA, we have one of each, and they’re both bloody hopeless and we don’t need any more!
Still, someone’s always looking for a leg-up in the power game, but with all eyes pointing to Park, why isn’t he immediately being carted off in chains? Has he got something over othes in power – since everyone seems to have secrets, or is someone going to finger him?
And will he get arrested and convicted, or will he turn up a ‘Trump’ get-out-of-jail free card?
There are two sides in this drama: those on the side of the President, and those on the PM’s side, but will the former find out he’s been poisoned? And if it’s done by the hand of the latter, what’s the deal with him being potentially immune from prosecution? Who does he think he is – Richard Nixon?!
Just like in reality, there are dodgy politicians and in this drama, some of them have ties to the Daejin Group, and I did try to follow quite how that all linked in, but I only managed the first episode-and-a-half of The Whirlwind, because Good Lord, this is is ridiculously slow-moving!
Everyone walks round massively po-faced, looking at each other mega-serious and pensively, and if Park ever smiled, he’d crack his face! That actor really exhibits about as much emotion as a doorstop.
In fact, everything in this opener could’ve been done in 20 minutes.
And the Whirlwind? It’s barely a slight breeze!
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
The Whirlwind is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from June 28th.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 55-65 minutes per episode (7 episodes)
Release date: June 7th 2024
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.39:1
Director: Yong-wan Kim
Writer: Park Kyung-soo
Music: Kim Dong-wook, Chae Min-joo
Cast:
Park Dong-ho: Sol Kyung-gu
Jeong Soo-jin: Kim Hee-ae
Seo Jeong-yeon: Im Se-mi
Han Min-ho: Lee Hae-young
Jang Il-jun: Kim Hong-pa
Choi Yeon-sook: Kim Mi-sook
Kang Sang-woon: Kim Young-min
Lee Jang-seok: Jeon Bae-soo
Park Chang-sik: Kim Jong-gu
Lee Man-gil: Kang Sang-won
Jeong Pil-gyu: Jung Hae-kyun
Cho Sang-cheon: Jang Gwang
Yoo Jeong-mi: Oh Min-ae
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.