Suspicious Partner

Suspicious Partner

7/10

Suspicious Partner

Genre:                                Episodes: 20                           Year: 2017

Romance

Comedy

Mystery

Thriller

Synopsis:

No Ji Wook is a prosecutor who doesn’t mind overlooking small details as long as criminals go to prison. After an incident involving a murder, Ji Wook is fired and forced to become a defence lawyer. He works with Eun Bong Hee, another attorney, in order to find the murderer behind the case that lost him his job.

Cast:

Ji Chang Wook (No Ji Wook)

Nam Ji Hyun (Eun Bong Hee)

Dongha (Jung Hyun Soo)

Choi Tae Joon (Ji Eun Hyuk)

Nara (Cha Yoo Jung)

Kim Ye Won (Na Ji Hae)

Jang Hyuk Jin (Bang Eun Ho)

Lee Deok Hwa (Byun Young Hee)

Jin Joo Hyung (Ko Chan Ho)

Chansung (Jang Hee Joon)

General Thoughts:

I procrastinated a lot with writing this review (like I’ve watched 3 more full-length dramas since), and as such the finer details of the drama aren’t as clear as they were a week ago. It’s not that ’Suspicious Partner’ was a bad drama, it’s actually pretty good, but it just didn’t really capture my interest or my heart.

I didn't fall as hard for this drama as I thought I would

The acting was excellent all round, with no faults in any of the casting. Ji Chang Wook was plain delightful as our gruff and honest prosecutor hero, and delivered a great performance every episode. He was wonderful at being the sweet guy in love, and also at being the cooly dedicated prosecutor/lawyer.

A perfect picture of their personalities

Next to him, Nam Ji Hyun was delightful as our heroine. She could act sweetly naive without making Bong Hee appear too stupid, and she acted Bong Hee’s pettiness in a way that made her cute and relatable rather than shallow. Her initial bickering relationship with Ji Wook was fun to watch, especially knowing that he would fall of his high horse and come to love her later. The plot did a great job at forcing the two together and ensuring that Ji Wook noticed Bong Hee so that it made sense when he dropped Bong Hee’s murder charges later. It took a little while to stop seeing Choi Tae Joon as a psychotic murderer, but his sweet smiles and hilariously dorky laugh completely won me over. I was less sold on our second female lead who at first seemed like she was going to be a kick-ass character who could be friends with our heroine, but instead went down the path of every b*tchy second female lead ever. Credit where credit is due, Nara did a pretty good job at selling Yoo Jung's good points (few as they were), and often made her seem more obtuse rather than flat-out vindictive. However, the character herself was just so dislikable. When will K-Dramaland learn that we don’t care about crappy exes who want their old boyfriends back?

I was rooting for you Ji Hae

Despite how much I love Ji Chang Wook and how brilliant he was in this, I actually think the star of the show was Dongha as our strangely sympathetic killer. He could be both so chilling and so pitiful. I was really on Bong Hee’s team when it came to Hyun Soo’s trial and was cheering them on when they proved his innocence.

Cute and creepy all at once

I felt the slap in the face just as hard as our characters when they realised that he was the murderer all along. The characters themselves were all very fun and enjoyable to watch, particularly together. The lawyer office was always a hilarious place to be, particularly during the meetings that got far too distracted by personal matters. Eun Hyuk was just a delightful character and peaked my curiosity right away. I instantly wanted to know what he had done to our hero to earn such animosity while everyone else seemly ignored the issue. I actually love that it turned out that Eun Hyuk had never slept with Ji Wook’s girlfriend as it really stuck with how his character had been constructed. He was willing to take on all Ji Wook’s anger and resentment even though technically nothing had happened. He was such a softy and he had the exact determination and unwavering love that Ji Wook really needed- even if he did spurn it at every turn. It was fun to see the two boys slowly start to fall back into their friendship, even as Ji Wook continued to bicker and pretend not to care. By the end it was clear to us (and Eun Hyuk) that Ji Wook had forgiven Eun Hyuk and was just being grouchy out of habit.

The begrudging bromance

On the other hand, I was so not a fan of the relationship between Ji Wook and Yoo Jung. I mean, the girl barely had any redeemable qualities to begin with, but the way she returned from her American life expecting to be forgiven by Ji Wook was just the hight of arrogance. Unlike Eun Hyuk who had spent those years facing Ji Wook’s anger and working to try and repair the relationship, Yoo Jung just disappeared expecting everything to blow over by the time she returned. She then had the audacity to try and get between Ji Wook and his new girlfriend.

Girl, you so don't deserve that man or his friend

Plot-wise the story made a lot of sense. There were very few plot holes throughout the drama, and everything was explained an adequate amount (except perhaps how Chan Ho ended up as Hyun Soo’s clean up committee). It was interesting to see how Hyun Soo tied in with everything, including why he murdered Hee Joon.

Totally not how I thought this relationship would pan out

Early on the show had some pretty great reveals. The writer was very good at making us think we had something figured out, only to have it turn on us soon after. I was so sure that Hyun Soo was innocent and that Chan Ho was the murderer. Then I was so sure that they were a team. But as it actually turns out, Hyun Soo was threatening Chan Ho all along, and ended up killing Chan Ho himself. It was clever writing, especially in the way it was able to turn the viewers emotions so quickly. It took less than 10 minutes for me to go from being sure Chan Ho was an accomplice to being worried and scared about his safety. These twists were helped along by the way the show was shot. We were led to believe a scene went a certain way, but after the truth of the scene was actually revealed, I realised that the perpetrator had always been wearing a mask, or that we’d only seen Chan Ho standing over a dead body, but never actually killing anyone himself. It was the same with the case that started it all out. When Hyun Soo lost his memories and was starting to regain them again, I was confused as to why he had a memory of the girl running away in fear.

Completely did not predict how their story would unfold

At first I thought it was because she had told him about it or he was imagining it, but later we came to find that this memory had been the truth as Hyun Soo had been there while the girl was attacked. Most of the storytelling was tight, interesting and completely engaging, the show just had a few lags towards the end.  

What Was Great:

Murderer:

Dongha (and the character he played) were by far one of the best things about the show, if not the best.

I love when our villains have depth and development

Once we discovered that Dongha was the murderer, I was getting pretty strong ‘I Remember You’ vibes- which is a great thing, as I was completely fascinated and intrigued by the murderer in that drama. It was a similar case in ‘Suspicious Partner’, with Hyun Soo not really being your typical horrible killer. It was hard not to feel pity for him as we became more aware that something tragic happened to the girl he loved.

Breaker of hearts, stabber of hearts

It gave great depth to his character knowing that there was tangible reasoning behind his murderous behaviour. While we all know that killing people is not an acceptable solution to a problem, it was easy for us to see how Hyun Soo ended up where he did. His grief and horror at the situation mixed with his guilt obviously unbalanced him, and the lack of punishment that her assaulters received would have angered anyone. While his behaviour was definitely wrong and condemnable, it was still hard to hate Hyun Soo himself. He was so clearly broken and hurt by the complete and utter failure of the justice system that led to a young girl’s death and a handful of criminals walking free. Of course our villain wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting as he was if he didn’t have such an excellent actor playing him. It’s the first time I’ve come across Dongha as an actor (I watched the KBS Special he was in after), and boy did he blow me away. He was absolutely incredible, and just embodied the character. Angry and broken heroes are one thing, but Dongha made a villain so pitiful and so sympathetic, and played his emotions perfectly.

Dongha is 100% on my radar now

Dongha never had the ridiculous arrogance about him that many K-Drama murderers have, and it was always clear that he thought his murders were completely justifiable. He played the character with the perfect amount of anger, the perfect amount of guilt, and the perfect amount of fake charm to give us one of the most captivating villains of the year.

The Team:

I always love dramas that get the whole cast really involved in the story, so I was glad to see how much screen-time the lawyers were all getting.

What a delightful bunch

They may not have directly impacted the story, but each character had a role to play- be it in uncovering the mystery of the murders (such as Eun Ho) or providing insight into our leads’ lives and personalities (such as Chairman Byun). The scenes that took place in the office were always bound to have a dose of comedy in them, and often served as the much needed lighter part of the show. The coworkers really did seem like one big, mildly dysfunctional family of lawyers. Chairman Byun was the exasperating grandfather, Eun Ho the father, and Ji Wook, Bong Hee and Eun Hyuk were the headstrong kids. It was sweet and often funny to watch these characters interact all together- particularly the meetings in which work was never done. The relationships between the characters were always growing and evolving, and it was always a delight to watch all the characters we loved come together in one place.

What Wasn’t:

The Other Side of Half Way:

While I absolutely adored this series at the beginning, it really started to lose me after the halfway mark. The series as a whole just felt like it was longer than it was supposed to be.

This whole drama went to sleep for a while there

While I was super invested in discovering why Hyun Soo was murdering people and how our team were going to catch him, I cared a lot less about whatever had gone down between our leads’ fathers. The issue of Bong Hee’s father being blamed for the fire that killed Ji Wook’s father was brought in early, but only became a big problem once our leads became aware of it after the halfway point.

A super unnecessary complication that I just don't have the energy to care about

And I just didn't care. Because it’s not an issue that can be solved- it was just something that the characters had to accept and come to terms with. Sure, there was the plot-line of Ji Wook realising that he made a false statement about Bong Hee’s father when he remembered that Bong Hee’s father wasn’t the one to light the fire, but the issue was just so much less compelling than other points the drama had to offer- like Hyun Soo. Not only was this plot-point less interesting than other issues, it also cropped up at the time that Hyun Soo was unconscious and out of the picture. Logically it made sense, as without the crazy murderer on the lose our leads had time to think about other things (like their fathers), but it just made those episodes seem long and boring. Hyun Soo was really the peak of interest in the drama, and the episodes he wasn’t active in just weren’t fun. This particular plot-point also had the downside of causing a fall out between the leads.

You guys are significantly less interesting when you're not acting interested in each other

So not only did we not have the endlessly fascinating, morally grey killer off screen, we also didn’t have any cute couple moments. The show became filled with unnecessary angst that I just didn’t want to have to sit through. 

Intensity dropped when Hyun Soo wasn't around

While our hero had always been a bit on the internally sensitive side, Bong Hee had always been brave and brutally honest. It was pretty disappointing to have our heroine, who had been so wonderfully outspoken previously, retreat into her shell and shut out our hero. It felt like we were moving backwards rather than forwards in their development. It doesn’t help that I’m just not a person who enjoys off-again-on-again relationships. Characters’ willingness to break up over issues such as these always disappoints me as it shows a lack of foresight (you’ll still be in love with him when you get over this issue in the future) and just an unwillingness to work through things together. It doesn’t provide me with the confidence that the couple have the trust in each other to last the distance- which is such a shame, as I was really loving the relationship between the leads before the father problem started causing so many issues.

Recommend?

While not the best mixed-genre K-Drama out there, ‘Suspicious Partner’ is still fun and interesting for most of its run. I’d recommend it for Dongha’s excellent and nuanced performance as our villain, and for the cute chemistry between the leads.

Man they were adorable when they weren't being angsty