Tunnel (2017)

Interesting premise destroyed by bad writing

Please ignore the MDL rating (8.6 at the time of writing in 2023)!

The very basic premise (time-traveling detective and serial killer) of this story is interesting. But the writers did a great job of destroying the potential. In two ways:
- All the characters are unbelievably stupid, except the murderers.
- The time traveling aspect is not used at all, it is rather a weird fact on the side.

To come back to the stupid characters: do you know those dramas where there is one lead character who always knows everything in advance and before everybody else, just by being super smart and of course they are also the best in every practical aspect? They can get annoying. Well, in this drama you get none of that :) Everybody is just so unbelievably stupid and incompetent it hurts. When a good detective's skills are 100, the average person's detective skills are maybe 10. All the detectives in this drama are a 1. And that's generous! No common sense at all. And they repeat their mistakes over and over again, and drag this very simple story out into 16 episodes. Some examples:
- When you want to catch a suspect, sneak up to them until you are 10 meters away, then shout at them, so they can run away from you without you being able to catch them.
- When you found out in which house a suspect is hiding, go to the house with 4 cars, all with full sirens! Then storm the house from the front without covering the back door.
- When you are a ML in a team of two and a great revelation comes to your mind, don't tell anyone and storm off angrily to get yourself in trouble.
- When you are a weak vulnerable FL, speak to a serial killer in code via TV and lure him into a dark forest where you wait for him all alone to be his next victim. Don't tell anyone of your police friends about it.

Then the time travel: time travel stories never fully make sense and that's fine. But here's a question for you: when you are a time traveling detective, would you try to catch a serial killer when he is young (in the past) or when he is old (in the future)? And as I said, the time traveling aspect is just there, it is not really relevant for the story, it just makes for some confusion and funny scenes. For a better use of time travel in a detective story, check out the K-drama Signal from 2016!

Ignore the bromance tag on this! It lasts two seconds, is super weak and can't save this train wreck.

I guess I should also say some positive things. The acting is generally quite good, except maybe the time traveling lead who has a limited set of faces. And the character development of the FL was a bit too much: for most of the drama she has the facial expression and emotional warmth of a stone and then suddenly in the end she meets a certain person and becomes normal quite instantly.

Ignore the rating and positive reviews and skip this one!

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To be candid, I was not sure if this would be a good drama because of how dark it seemed, however I watched the trailer and decided to give it a try.

This show was AMAZING! It has sci-fi elements as well as mystery, and drama. In some cases, it had comedy, but it does not show up often.

The acting was a little robotic at the beginning, but I think it fit the story very well because the characters start to open up more. In my opinion, it had great character development and growth.

This drama reminded me of the drama, "Signal" which is also really good. If you have seen that drama, I recommend this one for you (if you haven't seen "Signal" go watch it NOW!).

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I am not sure what made me decide to watch Tunnel, when so far all the dramas I have seen were of the heavily romantic verity. But something about it attracted my attention, so much so that it has also become the first show I watched on-going instead of marathoning as I have done so far.

Whatever it was, I thank my lucky stars that I choose this show to introduce me to the thriller side of dramaland, because it's one I now plan to explore.

At its core, this show is about people. Wonderful people; Angry people; Broken people; Hotheaded people; Closed people; Straightforward people. People who come together and find in each other a place to heal and to mend. A place to find closure.

And this, THIS, is what makes Tunnel a fantastic show. Not the mystery. Not the time travel element. Not the case-of-the-week format of the first half of the show. No, it's the people. It's these characters and the fantastic relationships that form between them. It's the way they navigate and evolve in the situation they have been thrust into. It's the way they start the show one way, and you love them, but then they end the show in a different way and you love them more than you could have imagined. It's the little things; the little looks, the little touches, the little hesitations, the little steps forward. It's the way they find this incredible balance between them.

I have to give such a huge, huge applause to the actors for portraying these characters so brilliantly, for making me feel every single thing alongside them, and for the writers for writing such nuanced characters. And for the casting director for choosing the right people; I can't imagine enough else as these characters.

There are a lot of good things about this drama, like the side characters who are equally amazing as the main trio and help make this show one to remember. I could talk about the mystery, and how it's never supposed to be a mystery to us the audience, and yet it still keeps us in suspense. I could talk about the killer, and how I think the writers wrote him perfectly because of what he turns out to be at the end. I could talk about how much I love the way the old and the new interact. I could talk about how it left me tense every episode, and how I bit my nails as I was watching. I could talk about a lot of things.

But really, I think I have said enough.

If you love character driven shows with a lot of heart and just a smidge of romance to make you all fuzzy inside, do yourselves a favor and pick this one up!

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Tunnel got a lot of comparisons to Signal in the beginning and I can see it a little bit. I don't think it was quite as good as Signal, but I still enjoyed it a lot and looked forward to it every week. The story was engaging and the characters were written well. I enjoyed the dynamics of the 3 main characters and how they interacted with each other. As with all time travel shows, there are a few plot holes, but nothing major enough to detract from the show.

Choi Jin Hyuk did a wonderful job as Park Kwang Ho. He put a lot of emotion into his performance and really twisted my heart for him and how badly he wanted to catch the killer and get home to his wife, Yeon Sook. Yoon Hyun Min also played Seon Jae well, and his progress as a character was interesting to watch. Same for Lee Yoo Young as Shin Jae Yi. She started out almost robotic, but it was a quirk of her character and not due to bad writing. When her shell finally cracks open, she is a sympathetic character.
I have nothing but praise for all the cast - excellent work!

The music was good, nothing stand out, but enjoyable all the same.

This one isn't really suitable for re-watch as the suspense is gone after you've seen it once.

I would definitely recommend it to fans of the shows genres.

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Time travel plot hole the size of a tunnel

- This drama was a solid 8/10 for the first 8 episodes, but unfortunately lost its pacing.
- I binged the first 8 episodes and struggled to get through the rest. The second half did not live up to the first half.
- I love interesting psychopaths but none are in this drama. I found them totally uninteresting, boring and shallow.
- Should have been 12 episodes max
- Liked the ML being clueless about modem tech; Hilarious, wish there was more.
- There's only so many times I can bear to see this team fail. They are constantly outwitted in the dumbest ways.

Overall rating 5/10
- 1 for Acting
FL acting was sterile. Liked the bromance between ML and Chief. Well cast minus FL
- 1 for Direction and Production:
All average nothing to write home about. Nothing wowed me but decent.
- 1 for Music:
Same as above
- 1 for Story:
Good concept but I don't think it was pulled off as well as it could have been. Illogical decisions from characters made me roll my eyes and concepts I wanted exploring were only touched upon. Time travel is hard to get right; without plot holes (This drama does not manage it).
- 1 for Watchability:
Great bingeable first 8 episodes. The rest were a struggle.

P. S - I Judge the English accent heavily.

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⏳The Long Game ↪️↔️↩️ 2 May Enter ↩️↔️↪️ 1 Leaves ⌛8.5,Excellent

Tunnel is a show about Police Detective, Park Gwang-ho/GHO (Choi Jin-Hyuk from The Heirs-7.3 & Mr. Queen-8.5) who has 10 years on the force in the violent crimes unit in the year 1986.

GHO is an old school seasoned detective. His well developed instincts enable him to think like the criminals and anticipate their next move. Beating up suspects? It's a given. Fists fly frequently. He is, at times, the very definition of a misogynist, but he is also loving and utterly devoted to his wife. He's a good guy. He's just a little boorish.

He's currently mentoring Sung-sik (Jo Hee-Bong from My Sassy Girl-8.5) who dreams of being the chief one day, but has quite a distance to cover prior to merely reaching competence as a detective. They investigate a string of murders that appear to be by the same perpetrator. In 1986, though, profiling wasn't developed yet. Serial killers had not been studied sufficiently enough to be helpful with the investigation, either. GHO is deeply frustrated as the investigation is dragging with no leads. He decides to revisit the crime scenes near the times of the corresponding deaths. The first stop is The Tunnel. GHO immediately notices a suspicious character and commences chase. He exits the tunnel 30 years in the future.

At first, he doesn't know he's in the future. It's dark. He has a headache. He's frustrated. He's focusing on how he failed to catch the suspect (Where did that guy disappear to?). He returns to the station. It looks different inside, but all he notices is a stranger in his area. They argue, each claims to be a cop. GHO doesn't want to hear it. He handcuffs the guy to the cell and ends up falling asleep at his desk. He wakes up in a different world.

Writer, Lee Eun-Mi (Navillera), has so much fun dropping this veritable neanderthal into the PC climate of 2017. The station believes he's a new transfer, but... He doesn't know what DNA is, or what CCTV or dashcams are. He tells the criminal psychologist (in front of everyone) that it's all mumbo-jumbo and besides… (in an incredulous tone) .... She's a /WOMAN!/. He doesn't know to use gloves at the crime scene (yikes, they really ran with that one. We need an intervention). Computers? What for? The other cops can't understand how strange he is, or how he's making so many “lucky guesses" as a newbie detective. It adds up to lots of laughs and a fair amount of wincing. In the end, it adds up to growth for GHO. He does grow in the course of the show.

They partner him up with the most coldly detached, methodical, intelligent and antisocial detective at the station, Kim Seon-jae (SJAE). SJAE gives a chilly glance and saunters off while ignoring any overtures or questions. This enrages GHO to the point that he eventually starts a fist fight with SJAE. Will they work it out, so they can work together to catch the killer who is still at large?

That's the premise. Now we'll investigate what they did well, and also what didn't work. In short, they excelled in most of what they put into the show. There are no weaknesses in the acting, soundtrack, dialogue, plot, or character development. The needs improvement list is short and largely forgettable.

The show opens up in 1986. The colors are a washed out yellow/greenish, low contrast palate that looks like an old photo or movie. Coloring the past in such a way shows impressive thought and effort. The directors, Shin Yong-Hwi (Bad Guys) & Nam Ki-Hoon (Voice 3) often use color to send a message to the audience. The creators threw plenty of metaphors in the mix. SJAE plays chess regularly with Prof Mok (Kim Min-Sang from Private Lives-8.1 & Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung-7.6). It represents strategy, moves, counter-moves, gaming, competition, rematches, winners, and losers. They are in a chess game with the killer. We see GHO's wife, Yeon-suk, stuck alone in the past doing laundry. She's made a hole in what she's washing. It's the first hole in her hope that she will see her husband again.

They use misdirection by introducing characters that appear one way, and then quite differently later. Elaboration isn't possible w/o spoilers, so we'll leave it there. Even when it's not difficult to see some of the twists that are coming, it doesn't mean that they weren't done well. The exposition of those surprises was riveting. More important than delivering surprises, the director is chasing the theme of FATE through the tunnel.

We also see some impressive character arcs for several people in the show. Whaaaa?? After a couple weeks with GHO, we see the never-a-hair-out-of-place SJAE, phalanges naked & free, go armpit deep in the trash and pull out a bloody weapon. That's the least of it. The audience's dessert is when he acts out in a way that's too much for GHO. It doesn't happen often, but what tasty morsel it is when it's tossed our way. Professor Shin, the criminal psychologist (Lee Yoo-Young from Dare to Love Me), goes through a transformation as well. Once she's able to face some truths, her makeup is done, her hair is silkier and polished looking, and her clothes are stylish. She's looking hot, actually.

The show is brightened a little by the hint of romance. Or was that a BRO-mance? A 30-year one. Anyway, there's some "mance" happening. {BTW, Is there some Bro-code that when men are fighting, they never knee each other in the dumplings? Even the most sadistic and depraved sociopaths seem to adhere to it both on the big and small screen.} Romance or not, as some people draw closer to eachother, they may start to mirror each other, or their clothes might start to look coordinated. The show sends many visual messages.

Now for some negatives.

At one point Prof Shin decides to act as a decoy, or bait, for the killer. Her attempt is so feeble and ill planned that it's exasperatingly out of character. She's smart, so how could she be that dumb? She had been put under pressure and guilted, so that may have prompted her to act foolishly, but it didn't play well. Given how he acted in their first encounter, GHO will have to mature in his interactions with women to which he's not married. Watch and see. It's arresting.

As I watched, I tried to block out how gorgeous SJAE is (Yoon Hyun-min from My Holo Love) so I could pay attention to the show, but it was a challenge. Is that even a negative, I wonder? Perhaps it belongs in both categories. The biggest letdown is that, while we get a filled out view of the past, we don't get any information about how things play out in the future. That seriously shocked and disappointed me. It almost affected my rating.

In the end, this is too good to rate a "7". The last episode is beautiful and moving. If you decide to give it a try, make sure you watch through episode 5; it's an awesome episode. You should know then whether to continue or not.

QUOTES📢

Sometimes memories can gobble up a person.

If everything that happened in the past was gone, and we lived a new life every day, we could learn nothing from past mistakes. We are who we are today because of the past. (Prof Shin).


〰🖍 IMHO
🎬8 🤔7 🎭8.5 ⚡7 💓7 🎨7 🌞 6.

Age 14+

In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:

Action/Sci-fi/fantasy -
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Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,Train to Busan-7.8 D.P. 8.4
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
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Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
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Good plot, good acting, good show.

The plot was interesting. Time travel was the catalyst, but rather than focusing on the time travel, the show was completely focused on the chase to catch the serial killer (which I liked). I enjoyed the character development between the ML and the other characters; tense moments, sad moments, relieved moments, shocked moments, it was all fantastic.

While there were some good plot twists, rather than being completely shocking, there were hints dropped so that the audience could scheme who they thought the serial killer was.

The show did have humorous moments to balance the seriousness.

The acting was amazing; I was completely immersed the whole time, on the edge of my seat while mirroring all the characters’ emotions.

One thing I didn’t like, however, was the purposelessness of some side characters. I felt that a couple characters were only used as plot devices once or twice and discarded. It would have been nice for them to be tied into the story better. Also the ML seemed to be a bit of a “God” character in that he didn’t seem to have any flaws or make any major mistakes. But it didn’t really detract from the show.

Warning: it was quite graphic, and there were closeups of disturbing scenes, but weapons and gruesome images were all blurred. I didn’t find it too much, but if you are easily disturbed by graphic imagery the. This show may not be for you. That being said, it is a murder mystery, so if you’re watching it’s a given that you aren’t easily triggered by such content.

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Warning, this review contains massive spoilers related to character identity and ending, so beware.

So I’m continuing my unplanned series of time travelling dramas, this time with Tunnel. After Signal and Kairos, there’s time (heheh, get it? TIME) to get into a bit more literal time travelling, since till now the dramas revolved more around time communication, not direct travel. This time, we’ve got it, there’s movement here, movement in time (cue Doctor Who intro).
So we have late eighties, when leather jackets were in and humanly treatment of suspects was unheard of. Park Gwang Ho, young team leader of violent crime unit, is on his way to catch serial killer who strangles women with their own stockings. Unfortunately something goes a bit wrong and Gwang Ho wakes up around thirty years in the future (cue Mr. Queen intro). Luckily this time Choi Jin Hyuk’s genitals are intact (don’t hit me, watch Mr. Queen for reference) but the status of his life, not much so. He get’s the job of junior officer in the same department that he worked in the eighties, but there’s a lot of questions he wants to know the answer to. One of them is who is the guy with the same name, that Gwang Ho replaced and why are people so obsessed with phones. The new problem arises when he finds another woman strangled with her stockings. Thirty years later.
First feeling that I get after watching first episode was flashbacks to Life on Mars (original BBC version). There we had similar situation but in reverse (travelling to past, not future). There also we had similar problems with fitting in to new environment that is using different investigation methods. And the same as in Life on Mars, I’ve instantly fell in love with dynamic between two main characters. Park Gwang Ho and Kim Seon Jae are both unlikable but with different reasons. Gwang Ho is loud and obnoxious, dive kicking the suspects whereas Seon Jae is silently judging everyone, not bothering with answering questions. Which later on, makes Seon Jae’s relationship with Shin Jae Yi perfectly believable. They’re both pretty weird.
Some things are unfortunately painfully obvious to the viewer. Like true identity of Shin Jae Yi being daughter of Gwang Ho. The viewer can clearly see where this motive is going couple of episodes before it’s finally revealed. But unfortunately, the amount of coincidences, like that is just too much and it makes some things obvious later on. Viewer just learns to look for patterns like that. Like every time someone’s identity is to be revealed, we can tell in advance what’s going on. And you know, in mystery drama, it shouldn’t really happen.
And since I’ve lost hope, that this review will be spoiler free, let’s talk about relation between Gwang Ho and Jae Yi, because how it develops is absolutely crazy to witness. Right away after knowing his true identity she’s staring to treat him as her father, even being urged to call him Appa. And you know, for any other character I wouldn’t be so surprised, but Jae Yi from the beginning was shown as this weird, socially distanced character who’s relation will people is absolutely antisocial. The idea of her being all of a sudden touchy feely to an almost stranger was for me very unnatural. Plus Gwang Ho from the bat starts to call her by her old name (that he learned from someone on the way, since till then he didn’t really know at this point that his wife was even pregnant) and is treating her as his daughter (with standard “you cannot date this man”) which is an absolutely cringe, since technically he’s younger than her.
We have very narrow number of characters here. There’re no new suspects, they all emerge from characters we already know. And this is not that bad of an issue, but just working with the same spectrum od characters all the times felt a bit stuffy at some moments. But that might’ve been just my feeling. Aside of that we have a very nice array of characters, to the point that we quickly get familiar with them.
I’ve wanted to ignore the ending, but I have to say something, because you know what, it absolutely spoiled my impression of this drama. After all this back and forth time travelling, I was sure that the reason for Gwang Ho to travel to the future, was to know the identity of the murderer and to finally catch him in the past. You know, so he wouldn’t commit all those crimes. But no, or at least it wasn’t shown, because it seems, that after catching him in the future, Gwang Ho came back to just live his life, and with all the information that he had (including his diary where murderer one by one describes his crimes) catching him would be fairly easy, right? So it seems that catching him in the future was partially pointless, without saving all his victims that he killed on the way.
But, cutting back to the chase. Overall, I find Tunnel a good drama. With some exceptions of course, but I have to admit, the characters and their chemistry was what finally bought me. And you know, you can never have enough time travelling plots!

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This sounds good reading the reviews but I found most of episode 1 boring, just the usual police thriller with nasty murders and I can not see much sci-fi. Then it gets interesting as he looks like catching the criminal and you are hooked into wanting to know what happens next. I find Choi Jin Hyuk's acting "wooden", but I suppose there's meant to be a contrast between him as the rough cop and Sun Jae as the cool, arrogant graduate cop. Much better with episode 2. The "transition" to the future was well handled. Others comment it is not convincing but you have to have some "suspension of disbelief", not work out every detail of how someone would adjust in that situation. Some of the violent scenes are too gory for me, I must say. But glad I stuck with it as it gets better with every episode. Sci-fi element at first seemed to be just a way of giving a twist to the story, then about half way it takes a central role again, as the way the characters' lives interact with each other in past and future becomes clearer. Very cleverly done. The only thing that bothers me is I wish they could do these shows without zero-ing in on the ghastly murders "as they happen" or the grisly photos afterwards. They look all too real for my liking. How about just a foot with the detectives turning away and making a terrified face? Anyway, leaving aside my sensitivity, what started as apparently just another plodding police thriller turned into a clever and riveting drama. Very moving finale, I wasn't quite sure what would happen until it did..Once again teaches me not to ditch shows based on impulsive reaction to first episode or two. Finally rates a 10/10*.

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