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Shadow Detective korean drama review
Completed
Shadow Detective
1 people found this review helpful
by michelleoc
May 27, 2024
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 1.5
This review may contain spoilers

Very suspenseful

This drama had more twists and turns than a corkscrew! I must say, corruption isn't my favorite thing to watch, but I watched an episode every day on the treadmill and didn't have to fast forward at all. I would not recommend binging it. You kind of have to let things marinate after you watch an episode. It was very dark, with pervasive tones of grays and blues, which was effective to the feel of the story. A note of warning, don't get too cocky and think that you know what is going on, and who the bad guys are, because you'll probably be wrong!

Acting: Lee Sung Min as Taek Rok - I've only seen him in a couple of guest roles, and he was fabulous in this. A tired, overweight, chain-smoking, disheveled, grizzled cop just trying to move to retirement without making waves. That quickly falls by the wayside when he gets blamed for the murder of a co-worker. Then the cat and mouse game begins. There was something sad yet endearing about his character. His loneliness was almost palpable.
Jin Goo as Jin Han - he was very good. I really liked the developing bromance between him and Taek Rok.
And, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Go Gyu Pil as the dormitory manager. I love him, and he brought some levity into all the seriousness.

Somewhat of a cliffhanger ending, since there is a season 2. I hope that we get a different case rather than a continuation of the case from season 1. I'm ready to move on.

My only minor quibbles:
1) Why do the same people always play the bad guys? There are a couple of the actors that when I see that they are in a drama, I know that they are corrupt.
2) Oh, so many names to keep straight! I finally just decided that as long as I knew what was going on with the main characters, that's all I needed.
3) The psychiatrist was under-utilized. That whole storyline didn't make much sense and was never completely fleshed out.

Do yourself a favor and watch this. And, if possible, watch it in a dark room, because some of the scenes are too dark to make out faces or what is going on.
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