When Narco-Saints was announced it was immediately added to my plan to watch list, even though I am not a huge fun of series or movies with drugs as the main theme. Was it really worth it though? Let’s see every aspect individually.

Production Quality
From the first scene of the series, it was obvious that they invested tons of money to make it. Long story short, it looked realistic and expensive. However, for me at least, the production quality was the best thing this drama had to offer along with the acting of the two main leads.

Cinematography & Directing
As many other Korean series, this was another well done drama in the directing and cinematography department. The colour grading gave the same vibe as other series or movies that deal with drugs. It was well done and thankfully they didn’t overdo it with the darker tones.
Was it anything that I haven’t seen before? Definitely not. There was not even a single scene where I was like ‘’Wow, that looks so good’’. Even the action and fight scenes were not that well directed or choreographed. There were a few times that I shouted on my screen ‘’You could have killed him by now’’. To be honest, after My Name my expectations for fight scenes skyrocketed. This is just the typical directing that we have seen way too many times in the past.

Plot
Narco-Saints has nothing new to offer to the genre. I personally expected something better, after a very well-executed pilot episode. However the plot was a bit boring and draggy. Some things were happening over and over again. I think it would be wiser to make this a two hour movie or a series with three episodes. There were also some matters that stayed unresolved. Even the last few episodes that were more action-packed didn’t feel that suspenseful.

Acting
Well, well, I will probably get killed for this, but I definitely expected something better. The thing is that the actors themselves are fantastic. Taking a look at the cast is enough to understand what I mean. Ha Jung Woo and especially Hwang Jung Min were fantastic and it is worth a try just for these two. However I have two main complains.

The first one is the believability. We have Yoo Yeon Seok portraying David Park. He is supposed to be fluent in English and he is script-wise. It is his comfort language. He prefers speaking in English and he uses the language, when he is angry or emotional. Nevertheless, the way Yoo Yeon Seok speaks English makes me believe that someone is forcing him to do it.

My second problem is the fact that the main language of communication is, obviously, English. It is given that the pronunciation of the majority of the actors won’t be great. After all, it is not their mother tongue. The problem is that in some scenes specifically, it feels like the actors don’t know what their lines mean. They are awkward to hear and sometimes it is pretty cringe to watch. It feels like they just memorized them and forgot to act. On the other hand, when they are speaking in their native language they are fantastic.
The foreign actors were not bad and that’s a first. Okay, honestly, they were not fantastic either, but they were decent enough.


All in all, Suriname was a decent watch that had nothing new to offer to the genre and in my opinion, it would work better as a movie. On the other hand, if you are a huge fan of the main theme, you may enjoy the series much more than I did, even though it has its downsides.