Brief Story Line
An excellent Seoul Criminal Profiler Yoon E-na (Kim Da-mi - Soulmate, Itaewon Class TV series etc) was the witness of her uncle's murder ten years ago and was suspected by the rookie police Kim Han-saem (Son Suk-ku - The Roundup, Big Bet TV series etc), though it was never proven. Because of the trauma that made her lost a bit of her memory, E-na had been seeing psychiatrist Dr. Seong Joo (Park Gyu-young - Sweet Home TV series, Love + Sling etc). In present day, a series of gruesome murders started where the killer left a piece of puzzle to E-na related to each of the crime.
The violent crime unit led by Captain Yang Jung-ho (Kim Sung-kyun - Moving TV series, Seoul Vibe etc) that also included now-experienced Han-saem, was assigned to investigate the case. Despite his suspicion, Han-saem had no choice but to work together with E-na.
So what was the reason for the killings and what was the relation with the puzzles? You could find out in the series.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was pretty interesting. At the start of the series, I was actually a bit surprised by the rather unusual characteristic of the lead character E-na as sometimes it felt she was a bit over excited & weird. But after several episodes, I was getting accustomed with her, though few times I still felt her weirdness was over the top. Fortunately she was paired with by the book & rather cold detective Han-saem which was a nice combination. Anyway, for me the first two cases were quite intriguing and I enjoyed the way they were solved. However not until the third case that the connections were starting to unfold and made me felt more curious.
As the story progressed, I felt there were plenty of things that were shown to deceive (mislead) audience which sadly were not exactly resolved or explained. In fact once the real culprit was revealed, the story seemed more intent on providing the reason/motive rather than the how which I was interested in finding out. Too bad cause otherwise it would have been more satisfying for me. Nevertheless I still thought the conclusion was very nicely done and I guess it was as good as any. Oh and do I detect a tease for second season with that ending? Regardless though, I am still fine even if it is not renewed.
During the opening/closing credits, I did not see any reference to a book or webtoon or anything. So it was solely based on the creative mind of the writer Lee Eun-mi, the person behind that well received time travel series Tunnel (need to find time to watch that one as it was highly recommended by my wife). All the episodes were directed by Yoon Jong-bin (The Spy Gone North, Narco-Saints TV series etc). Other than the names I mentioned above, the series also had some recurring characters like the rookie Choi-san (Hyun Bong-sik - I, The Executioner, Gangnam B-Side TV series etc) and Violent crime unit 2 detectives Su-gwang (Kwak Ja-hyung -Forbidden Fairytale, Family Matters TV series etc) and Yeong-ha (Cha Woo-jin - Team Bulldog: Off-duty Investigation TV series etc). It also had several well known guest stars which I am sure K-drama lovers (like my wife) would have recognized most of them, though only one that caught my attention as I had seen him several times in lead roles before, i.e. Lee Hee-joon (Karma mini series, Handsome Guys etc).
For a thriller crime series, this one might tick some of the boxes like intriguing mystery, interesting enough characters, pretty well done case solving and satisfying conclusion. However the lack of how and the missing explanation on few things made me feel it rather incomplete. Overall it was still an OK experience watching this 11 episode series. To my surprise it only took 3 weeks for the whole season to be released as opposed to standard 1 week per episode from Disney+. So if you are interested in the attributes mentioned above on series of such genre, then you can give this a try. You might find yourself enjoying it.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment