Tempest (2025)

It's urgent escapism, and the first three episodes suggest the series will become more psychologically and narratively complex as it goes along. If you've never watched a K-drama and are curious to dip a toe into the genre, it's hard to imagine a more perfect place to start than this.

Overall, the characters are faceted, and the series is layered. Blink and you might miss a clue, an inciting incident, or an insight into how and why things began to unravel. Combine that with the friction and realistically orchestrated action, and “Tempest” enticingly plays out like a blockbuster spy thriller with a slightly slower pace than on film.

Tempest definitely shows potential in its first episode.

Based on three of the nine episodes, though, the money spent leasing midlevel Hollywood talent might have been better spent on the screenplay. .... But the stars are attractive (the iconic actress Lee Mi-sook lends weight as a scheming mother-in-law), the hand-to-hand combat is well choreographed and by the third episode the story starts to gain some of the juice and propulsion that we come to South Korean thrillers for.