Done with Athena : Goddess of War after weeks!
Basically Athena : GoW is a spin-off of Iris - one of the best kdrama I ever watched. I don't really know what spin-off really means but Athena started with a scene from Iris when Lee Byung Hun etc tried to save a scientist involved in a nuclear technology or sthg for South Korea (SK). Just so you know, the scientist died. Killed by the coolest serial killer ever - TOP. lol
Anyway, Athena : GoW is basically about the nuclear technology and what good will it brings to SK yadda yadda yadda. When SK decided to start this technology, they created a security agency, NTS (National Terrorist System or whatever) in order to ensure the safety of the technology from being invaded by other countries or simply anyone.
Athena is actually a name of an organization that meant to intercept any technology development worlwide to gain benefits from it. I don't really understand this part and not that it's important either so let's skip it. Athena got involved with SK because they want to take over (or was it to destroy? I'm not sure) the nuclear technology SK is developing by trying to capture the head professor of the research, Dr. Kim something something. And NTS job is to protect Dr. Kim because without him the technology development might never be successful.
So there were incidents and since Athena is a worldwide organization, they managed to infiltrate SK by positioning their agents everywhere including The Blue House (Presiden't office) and NTS itself. The agent put in NTS was Hae In and she managed to capture the heart of NTS' best agent Lee Jung Woo. To cut the story short, Hae In started to feel unsure about her job with Athena because she had started to develop feelings towards Jung Woo. On the other hand, Athena's director in SK, Son Hyuk has feelings towards Hae In. What a drama...
Throughout the drama, Athena did a lot of things and as usual NTS managed to block em but failed to capture Son Hyuk. There were deaths involve all the way to the final episode and finally Son Hyuk died. The end.
Honestly, I didn't feel this drama. Except for the action scenes. Other than that, blergh. Boring. It was draggy and focused too much on the love stories. Iris was million times better, seriously. Oh anyway, I don't think this spin-off in any way related to Iris' the Movie because apparently the North Korea General or something who died in the movie was alive in here.
Kim Ki Soo's character si something like a flower of this dull drama because his cheesy dialogues and appearance had somehow brighten the mood of the drama. And he really is cute for a 40+ years old guy lol
Most of the actors are excellent anyway but whatever. I'm not interested with them except for three characters, Son Hyuk, Ji Hoo and Jung Kyung Won. Oh yeah Kim Min Jong who played Kim Ki Soo too, but I've already talked about that.
Son Hyuk character was played by Cha Seung Won and he.was.awesome! He really did look hateful and stuff but sometimes I feel bad for him. I mean part of him, his soft side or whatever made him look so sweet. His love and care for Hae In made him more human at times compared to when he was doing his missions blah blah blah. I mean though people ususally say if an antagonist weren't hated by the viewers than he must not be good enough. That's true but I guess Son Hyuk's character wasn't meant to be hated. I mean he became more and more violent because he wanted to protect (that was what he thought of his action anyway) Hae In apart from doing his job. And he might also been driven by jealousy because Hae In chose Jung Woo, not him. Duhh, what did he expect? Bad guys never win, do they? Anyway there was a scene in one of the episodes where he disguised as a hotel bell boy and I was surprised! He looked cute! And damn innocent lol. It was in episode 19 if I'm not mistaken.
Next is Ji Hoo's character, played by Super Junior's Siwon. I didn't have high hope for Siwon because I'd never watched any of his acting either in SuJu's dramas or Oh! My Lady (
Jung Kyung Won character wasn't an important character and I didn't like him because of his acting skill or whatever. It's just that he's so mysterious in real life. I googled for him (boo me I don't care) because he looked a bit like Song Dong Woon! (my bias in Beast). Some said he looks like SuJu's Kibum. Thing is, I found almost nothing about him! I mean, he appeared in most (if not all) of the episodes yet there wasn't much info about him. I didn't even know his real name nor did I found any drama he used to act in. I don't remember how but after googleing diligently I managed to find out a bit about him. His real name is Do Ye Sung and he's actually a musical actor! Athena : GoW was his first drama (the only one so far). I do hope to see him in more drama ^ ^ . And he appeared in Huh Gak (Superstar K2 Winner) MV too. Got that info here (translate that on your own OK?)
The unknown Do Ye Sung
And the MV he was in ^ ^
Overall, this drama is quite okay but I don't think I'll be watching it for the second time as it lacks one of the must-have of action drama - suspense. There were not much surprises except the comeback of one of the supposedly dead agent. On the flipside, the drama failed to mention what actually happened to him, where had he been all this while and how on earth he escaped death. In fact there were so many loopholes in the plot like how the hell did Dr. Kim survived at the beginning of the drama? I watched all episodes because I really wanted to know how did he survived, where did he go to escape, who helped him etc3. Yet I was left disappointed. Until the very end, they didn't show all that. Same goes to Seon Hwa's cameo. If you've watched Iris, Seon Hwa was the female North Korean agent, remember? Anyway her cameo in this drama was...nothing. Perhaps just wanted to provoke North Korea by giving it bad image. You see, Seon Hwa's appeareance was meant to see her husband and daughter got killed by North Korea agents who planned to eliminate all ex-agents. It turned out that Seon Hwa left NK for good and built a new life in New Zealand with her own little family after her mother and sister were killed in a NK's conspiracy (this was in Iris). After the incident that killed her hubby and kid, she returned to NK to take revenge and that's it. The point of having her to cameo was just to show that she was in danger of being 'eliminated' by NK along with Ki Soo because they both ran away from NK for a better life. Lame.
Oh I almost forgot about DBSK's Changmin's cameo. It was messy and really, I swear Athena : GoW got him just for the sake of the rating. He was pretty useless except during the part where there was a bomb in NTS and several other irrelevant scenes. Irrelevant because IDK why should he be there because other NTS agents can be in his position anytime. He was involved in one fighting scene but that was a total joke! I really don't understand why they slow-motioned those fighting scenes instead of fast-forwarding it to make it looked more aggressive or what not. The slow-mo really made me laugh! Perhaps they just wanted to show that Changmin acted all those action scene on his own so that cassies will be wow-ed and stayed in front of the TV to watch him. Making a good use of DBSK's effect eh? Duhh
Overall I give this drama 3/5 rating.
Changed my mind. Gonna watch My Girlfriend is a Nine-tailed Fox instead
