South Korean thrillers have always done well on Netflix. I mean, do not look further than the sustained popularity of “squid game”, the successful world feeling that now obtains the Hollywood adaptation treatment. All the South Korean shows cannot reach levels of popularity “Squid Game”, but some gender entries have made a brand, such as Kim Seong-I’s Criminal Movie “Bogotá: City of the Lost”, which exceeded the Netflix charts in February. Now there is a whole new program of serial killers which regularly makes waves on the streaming platform: “Queen Mantis” during Byun Young-Joo, which merges the standard criminal thrillers with a procedural format of the slow combustion police.
It should be noted that “Queen Mantis” is based on another The Netflix series, namely the French thriller “Le Mante”, where a serial killer nicknamed “The Mantis” becomes the subject of a scary mystery (filled with a complex family trauma). While “the mantle” performs interesting ideas, it is also problematic in its treatment of gender identity, which has a negative impact on part of the plot that it makes throughout the mini-series. While the episodes of “Queen Mantis” continue to deploy, we can only hope that this adaptation will ultimately adopt a more delicate and nuanced approach to the subject.
So what is “Queen Mantis” talking about? Police detective Cha Soo-Yeol (Jang Dong-Yoon) desperately wishes to escape from the past, but the truth about the identity of his mother returns to haunt him. His mother, Jung Yi-Shin (Go Hyun-Jung), is the infamous Mantis, currently serving the time with five horrible murders. The problems are starting to brew once a killer imitates the Modus Operandi of Mantis, forcing Soo-Yeol to contact his mother to capture the culprit. What follows is a tense game and inducing chat and mouse anxiety, making “Queen Mantis” a must for crime thriller aficionados.
Queen Mantis uses subtle intrigue and convoluted motivations to advance the plot
Spoilers For “Queen Mantis”, follow.
The authorities engaging the expertise of a serial killer to catch another serial killer is not a new concept within the thriller of crime. The mysterious German mysterious thriller of Fritz Lang “M” succeeds with great effect, where criminal organizations come together to catch an elusive infant murderer after the police do not do it. There is also “The Silence of the Lambs” by Jonathan Demme, where the recruit Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is forced to play a twisted game of Quid pro quo with the terrifying Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to track down a killer before it is too late. “Queen Mantis” adds intriguing strata to this trope by establishing a family relationship between negotiation parties, and Soo-Yeol vulnerabilities are doubly pronounced in the proximity of his mother.
SOO-YEOL’s attempts to find the copycat inevitably led to a confrontation with the past, because it needs to deeply dig into its own trauma to be able to understand the mentality of the copier. This also means to allow her infamous mother to access her most intimate feelings, which include both a deep resentment and a repressed desire for maternal affection. There are also diapers for the motivations of Yi-Shin, because she had only targeted male sex predators during her madness, alluding to the fact that there is more in her situation than what responds to the eye. However, this does not mean that Yi -Shin is unable to manipulate – in fact, his relaxed existence inside his prison cell proves that she has intelligently negotiated concessions over the years.
As you may have already guessed, “Queen Mantis” has dark connotations, which go hand in hand with the gravity of the genre (with the psychological chaos that it promises to deliver). That said, the format of eight episodes could produce a fun and rapid criminal thriller if the current momentum is expanded and supported.
“Queen Mantis” is currently broadcast on Netflix.
