SBS / 2014 / 16 episodes
Genres: drama, time travel, thriller
Written by Choi Ran
Directed by Lee Dong-hun
More information: Wikipedia / HanCinema
God's Gift: 14 Days
– A Mother's Race Against Fate
God's Gift: 14 Days is imperfect in a way that makes it quite good nonetheless. Its story is exciting, despite being burdened by unnecessary elements and not being free from exaggerations, ultimately culminating in a shockingly abrupt conclusion.
As the start of the story, we see a somber tale come to life in an animated film. It is about a self-sacrificing mother who wants to recover her dead daughter, but the tale is interrupted when, in reality, the child listening to the reading asks: "Did she manage to save her?"
The main characters of the story: a female television producer and her human rights lawyer husband, along with their young daughter—a private investigator who left the police force and now makes a living from petty jealousy cases—and a police detective who is the woman's former lover and the private investigator's former colleague.
To kickstart the story, the drama reaches for a mystical prophecy and time travel, but in a "one-time-use" manner, purely for the purpose of somehow navigating the two people back in time to 14 days earlier.
The woman's task is clear: since she knows the upcoming events, she must save her little daughter, who was kidnapped and murdered. In the light of the prophecy, she must fight for this, which is a difficult task since everyone considers her insane due to her apparent obsessions, for which she cannot provide an acceptable explanation. Although the private investigator joins her as a partner from the beginning, it is a very distracting element in the story that for a long time the drama does not even raise the question of why he was granted time travel and what his business would be during those 14 days.
The investigative twists lead us through the future murders known to them. Although minor shifts occur during their commission compared to the original events, the end result is nevertheless always the same: the victims die. Despite various perpetrators being exposed, the identity of the true culprit remains a total mystery.
During the struggle taking place under the pressure of time, we live through the family drama of the woman, whose relationship with her husband completely falls apart, although the man, in his own peculiar way, also struggles to save their child. However, more and more threads lead toward the private investigator, whose past finally comes into focus, and he realizes that his task is to save his brother on death row from execution, which was ordered unexpectedly following a swift presidential decision.
Although the private investigator considers his mentally disabled brother guilty, he has no real memories of what happened on that night when his girlfriend was killed. The discoveries gained during the accelerating events provide increasingly surprising answers to the question of why the execution of the death sentences might be so urgent.
A general characteristic of Korean crime and justice dramas is that the initial, local-seeming crime is regularly grown into a massive, government-level conspiracy. They likely possess deeply rooted historical experiences regarding all-encompassing political and economic corruption, as well as the privileged position of the ruling elite, as a consequence of which they claim a right even to unscrupulous acts. In the present drama, the story runs out to this point once again, though not entirely in the usual way.
However, more and more twists are added to the exciting construction which, after a while, seem tiresomely self-serving. It is as if the whole story were over-dimensioned; in reality, the final explanations of the events lead to a petty culprit, regardless of their social background. If we put the events into logical order, it seems that a presidential speech constitutes the final turning point, and unfortunately, for me, this was the least credible moment of all. It felt as if we received some political jargon suggesting that no matter what happens, even if they are surrounded by hand-picked villains, our top leaders are still decent people.
Despite this, the driving force of the drama is not the work of the investigators, but maternal determination. We have already seen a maternal drama infused into a thriller in Bong Joon-ho’s direction (Mother); a similar case is present here with writer Choi Ran’s first filmed screenplay. Beside the protagonist, who appears increasingly crazed to those around her and is unstoppable in a way that shames Terminators, we meet various mothers who carry out a similarly desperate struggle for their children. We see this in the case of the woman’s sister or the investigator’s mother, in the story of one of the victims, and finally with the president’s wife. While the female characters are detailed and well-developed, those of the men are much more obscure. Their actions are sharply outlined, but their personalities are not truly visible.
This is especially true for the little girl’s father (played by Kim Tae-woo), about whom it is hard to decide whether he is a fundamentally stomach-turning figure or just a man who has stumbled badly, as we get no handle on what led to his straying. The question is more intriguing in the case of the private investigator, who is the key figure of the story. We get to know him as a sympathetic man tormented by remorse, who quickly moves from a duty initially undertaken for money to emotional involvement, becoming the sincere and sole support for the woman, and he truly wants to save the little girl. We do not really receive conspicuous signs that something is wrong with him; even his aphasias after drunkenness do not seem like it.
Therefore, it is surprising that after the story is busy with its increasingly complicated construction almost until the final episode, the conclusion was solved rather abruptly and strangely. It is possible that the goal was simply to bring back the initial mysticism, as they clearly tried to frame the story. We learn the end of the tale, but not completely, as there is still no answer to the little girl’s last question.
The final scenes are enigmatic. We cannot be entirely certain whether we are seeing reality or a projection of what was planned against the investigator, or perhaps an illusion playing out in the investigator’s head. What became of our hero’s fate? Even if we try to fit the mosaics together, we do not get a reassuring answer.
* SPOILER *The hairclip, which the investigator finds on the lakeshore in his delirious state, was lost by the little girl back when she was caught by the gangsters and dragged to the church-like place. We did not see her escape from there. The president definitely tells the mother, "Saet-byul is at Lake Moojin. I have already alerted the police. Hurry and find Ki Dong-chan. He thinks the child is already dead." —but this does not mean that the investigator and the little girl would be together. The woman, who previously said she would save her daughter, the investigator’s brother, and the investigator too, immediately realizes that Dong-chan has been deceived; she searches for him, but from the cuts, it is not clear whether she finds him. At the end of the scene, they play with the possibility of a split personality, but in light of the details seen previously, this would not make much sense, as it would fundamentally not rewrite the story. So, the investigator might just be hallucinating, but through the fog of delirium, he perceives that the little girl is alive and wants to save her. Meanwhile, it is as if he realizes the meaning of the prophecy heard at the beginning of the drama—however, let us not forget that the little girl's drowning and the assassination attempt committed against her by the gangsters did not happen on the same day. We hear a splash repeated several times, but we do not find out what that sound actually is. The investigator’s brother, being released from prison, is met by three figures, but we cannot see exactly who the third person is besides the man’s mother and his son. The women walking on the lakeshore do not seem sad while the enigmatic end of the tale is heard. Let everyone hope or be sad as they please.
* END OF SPOILER *
However, the acting of the two lead actors is worth everything. Lee Bo-young, in the role of the mother, provides a performance so mature and authentic that it is second to none. Her monologue addressed to the kidnapper during a live television broadcast is deeply moving and heart-wrenching in a way that avoids all the clichés usually seen in Korean films to express maternal pain. Her role is very difficult because she must simultaneously be terrified and determined, tired and persistent, logically thinking and panicking, meanwhile performing everyday maternal duties and enduring that everyone in her environment regards her as deranged—indeed, even we sometimes find her quite annoying. The character contains not only the symbol of timeless maternal self-sacrifice but also the process of maturing into a true mother. The initially cold, achievement-oriented woman who looks at her daughter with slight blindness slowly understands what a truly affectionate mother-child relationship means, and this transforms her being, making her softer and more feminine. Lee Bo-young accomplishes all this without any particular difficulty.
In the person of the investigator, Cho Seung-woo is a true treasury of cinematic pleasures. Since I last saw him in the role of the impassive prosecutor in Stranger, it was even more entertaining now to get to know this rather rogue-like, quite casual, constantly snorting fellow who speaks with such a dialect that even I could not help but notice it, even though I do not know Korean. He is an immensely good character whose true personality is revealed to us by having to peel off his outer layers one by one. Then we see his personality struggling with the oppressive burdens of his past, as well as his sensitivity. He is not a superhero type, but he is smart and can be cold-headed as well as immeasurably hot-tempered. He is a charismatic man; it is not even surprising that his former colleagues work under him as if they were still partners today. He is the only reliably functioning figure in the series, whose realization is like a time bomb: it explodes big at the end of the series, and we do not find out who falls victim to it.
The other actors also professionally deliver what is required by their characters; it would not be worthy to leave anyone out of their long list. Particularly dear among them is the chatty Kim Yoo-bin playing the little girl, who lives her world as a real child in the turmoil that has arisen around her, and the work of the actors portraying characters struggling with mental problems, Cha Sun-woo and Jung Eun-pyo, is also great.
One of the supporting actors, however, provides a real surprise. Once again, No Min-woo’s performance is worth highlighting, as he managed to create something unique in his very brief role. This time he is the frontman of a death metal band who helps the investigators while we constantly suspect that he might be the serial killer after all.
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