This review is spoiler-free for the series Black Knight which is currently shown on Netflix.
holds a scientist Black Knight A lot of great potential as a story about the end of the world with a devastating atmosphere, characters and a distinctive plot, but unfortunately it suffers from some negatives that prevent it from exploiting its distinctive idea and achieving its maximum potential. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer 6 episodes of thrilling action and a great atmosphere that slightly makes up for those lapses.
The background of what happened to the world is explained in a fast and fluid narration at the beginning of the first episode, where the series tells the story of a world that was exposed to devastating meteorites that left it with unlivable air without masks, where people must buy oxygen and food to be able to survive, which bears many similarities With our modern reality, the spread of Covid-19, the atmosphere of sterilization, and more. As with most apocalyptic stories, the people were divided into classes: public, private, and essential, plus a fourth class called “refugees.”
Each caste has been divided into its own territory, where the refugees live a life of extreme poverty at its worst: “Gangnam Province”, an open city covered in polluted air. While the public class lives in orderly homes with clean air inside (air that must be purchased of course by a company called “Cheonmyeong Group” which we will come to mention shortly), then there is the private class who lives in a place that looks like a huge closed shopping mall that is more luxurious than the houses. The general class, but unfortunately we do not have the opportunity to know much about this class during the six episodes of the series full of events. And finally there is the basic class, who live under a huge dome that extends hundreds of kilometers underground which looks just like the real world today, and which of course is populated by the elite of the elite, basically the Cheonmyeong Group Corporation that controls everything.
Although there are still remnants of the old world where a female president still rules the country, she obviously needs to get along with the Cheonmyeong Group Chairman, Ryu (Nam Kyung-yeob), in order to be able to run the country. So that Ryo managed to invent A giant air core to convert the polluted oxyanium into oxygen, which made it dominant over the world’s oxygen stock.
In addition to all classes, there is another class of very great importance in this world, and they are the “delivery men”, who deliver orders of oxygen and food to all parts of the country, which makes it necessary that they have important physical qualities of physical strength and the ability to fight for Fend off poachers who ambush them along the delivery routes in order to steal the items they deliver.
And there is a legend among them, the 5-8 delivery man who has so much power that no one can beat him…and that’s where our story begins. The series presents great action scenes, with distinct hand-to-hand and gunfights, and actor Kim Woo-bin shines as 5-8, providing great footage of him and his teammates fighting.
On the other hand, there is another protagonist of the story, Sa Wol Yeon (Kang Yoo-seok), a refugee boy who dreams of becoming a delivery man one day because it is the refugees’ only chance to obtain the token of QR Which gives them access to a life outside refugee territory. Of course, these two heroes cross paths with a common goal.
The series is characterized by a wonderful atmosphere of a destroyed world, and it carries a lot of potential, and includes many wonderful action scenes, most notably The third episode, which includes a delivery car race full of action and tension, Unfortunately, he suffers from a very weak villain that weakens the series as a whole. As the main villain is the son of the chairman of the board of directors Cheonmyeong’s group, Ryu-seok (Song Seung-hyun), who for some inexplicable reason hates refugees and all he wants is to rebel against his father and build a world of elites only. The series does not give him any logical motives, and he wants to kill and take revenge on the refugees as if they were the cause of all the calamities, without caring what his father says. And speaking of his father, his entire presence is superfluous in the series, and he does nothing but sit in an enormous room that looks a lot like Professor X’s room (Cerebro) from a string X-MenHe argues with his son (who doesn’t care about anything he says) without actually doing anything.
The series also suffers from being too predictable, especially towards the end, with characters sometimes acting frustratingly irrational just for the plot to move forward. But the series’ span of just 6 episodes, and its fast-paced, non-stop action that never lets us get bored, make up for these weaknesses, making it well worth a weekend night out with friends for some quality time together.
The Black Knight series has a lot of great potential with its apocalyptic plot and pollution-ridden atmosphere that has a lot of elements touching our modern reality with the spread of COVID-19. Despite his distinctive characters, great performances, and exciting plot, he suffers from a superficial villain and predictability in many situations, in addition to sometimes illogical behavior by the characters just to push the story forward. But despite that, it offers enough action and excitement throughout its six episodes to make it worth an evening out with friends.
