✦Elzary
Cinema·5 min read·👀 Watched 2023.07.22

Burn the House Down

Don't watch it with a mystery-drama's logic and you'll feel much better. A story about how obsessing over your social-media image can turn you into someone else's idea of you.

2023 · Drama / Mystery · Yuichiro Hirakawa, Koji Shintoku, Arisa Kaneko · Netflix

"Everything I've done, I did to protect my family!"

→ Adapted from the manga The Mitarai Family Goes Up in Flames by Japanese Kodansha artist Moyashi Fujisawa.

Bottom line

If you're after the vengeance-thrill of The Glory, all I can say is: you won't get it. But I prefer the step-by-step buildup this one offers — my questions really did get answered later, and there's the mutual support and cohesion among family. Reviews are mixed, but I think if you don't watch it with a mystery-drama's logic, you'll feel much more at ease 😀

By the finale, the various twists on one hand voice the tug-of-war between a character's vanity and guilt, ultimately still swallowed by greed; and on the other, they voice how a person who cares too much about the image they project on social media very easily becomes not themselves, but the self others want to see. The show uses Makiko's most treasured thing — social media — to turn against her. I really didn't see it coming; social media's power to sway countless hearts is terrifying, and we really must use it with caution.

⚡️⚡️ Heavy spoilers below ⚡️⚡️

Japan vs. Korea? A reverse-revenge drama to The Glory.

  1. It's very different from what I'd assumed — not a dark-to-the-end, aim-to-kill revenge drama like The Glory, but Japanese drama's usual (somewhat) warm-hearted grand finale. Compared with The Glory, the direction is completely opposite: here everyone ends up with a good home and development, everyone's a saint, no dwelling on the past — admit fault and you're forgiven, want to change and it's instantly realized. Maybe that's the Japan–Korea difference? You can't say either is better; it depends on what viewing experience the audience wants.

  2. Purely personal view: the character Burn the House Down focuses on isn't the avenger herself, but Makiko — who seems to have swapped lives with the avenger's mother. Consumed by jealousy and vanity, even with her sons leaving her, she stays her same old self — you could fairly call her consistent to the end.

  3. Happily, though, Burn the House Down doesn't, like The Glory, force in an unnecessary romance element; instead it uses a budding romance and elusive character design to create a suspenseful atmosphere — a clever touch I really admire the writers for.

My favorite scenes

  1. The exposé post has drawn a fervent response, and just then the event fireworks begin — whether matching Makiko's tangled state of mind or symbolizing the successful prelude to the revenge plan, that contrast and symbolism feel so exhilarating.

  2. Makiko squarely confronts her son's female classmate, seemingly innocent and cute but actually brimming with vanity — the little bxxch gets seen through and exposed on the spot; so satisfying to watch.

— "I'm sorry, brother. I... in the end I couldn't become a good person." — "What are you saying? Life's not over yet. Starting now, it's not too late."

"In search of the one truth, I leapt into the vast dark. Do all the countless stars hanging in the night sky have a right answer? So I wandered, lost. Falling and rising again, then falling again — but the only thing that can guide you to that target star is the compass within. Don't be swayed by anyone's words, nor manipulated by information; trust the path you chose, because at the end of that path you'll surely find what truly matters."

Same tug-of-war with guilt — one against vanity, one against the wish to make amends.

The tight pacing plus that eerie, Japanese-flavored background music, paired with the cautious, step-by-step revenge, is really nice.

"You came to tell me the truth — thank you. But I will never forgive you. I'll hate you for the rest of my life."

#series#mystery#netflix
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