#ExploringKDRAMAS: Review#1: BAD GUYS

Credits: AsianWiki

Basic Information:

Genre: Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime and Suspense

Viki Ratings: 9.8
Starring: Kim Sang-joong, Park Hae-jin, Ma Dong-seok, Jo Dong-hyuk and Kang Ye-won

Plot

To combat rising violent crimes, the Police Chief asks Detective Oh Goo-Tak (Kim Sang-Joong) to form a team consisting of criminals. Detective Oh Goo-Tak is currently suspended from the police force for using excessive force. Detective Oh Goo-Tak gathers team members: Park Woong-Cheol (Ma Dong-Seok) who is a gangster, Lee Jung-Moon (Park Hae-Jin) who is the youngest serial killer with extraordinary intelligence and Jung Tae-Soo (Jo Dong-Hyuk) who is a contract killer. Also, Police Inspector Yoo Mi-Young (Gang Ye-Won) joins the team.

(From: Asian Wiki)

My Personal Rate: 9.5/10 Episodes Watched: 11

P.S. This blog is spoiler- free!

This show is pretty short for a Korean Drama Series, which made it pretty straightforward and dramatically precise. It’s a total bomb for those of you out there who love Crime Thriller Dramas. When I first read the description and watch the teaser of this show, it sounded like the American movie entitled, “Suicide squad” except maybe it’s more realistic since there is no comic fiction involved. Watching to end, in my opinion, it’s a thousand times better than that movie. The noticeable qualities I’d seen in this show are...

ü Unpredictability: Every single episode makes you think of what might happen next. And when you did, you often fail. In my case, that can also be your case; you can guess who’s the killer, what’s his motive, is it intentional or is he really good or bad… but in the end, you can either be partially right or far from the real case.

ü Action-packed: Given that it belongs to an action genre, this show really nailed it. The scenes or the characters won’t just show you fighting scenes or car racing, they also show you mind blowing strategies!

ü Dramatic: I’m often the type who’s not really into scenes where it gives you the crybaby feels, I mostly skipped those scenes. But this show, you can’t skip it. Because all of the scenes are mostly on huge relevancy to the climaxes and conclusions of the crimes they’re solving. It gives you clues, reasons, explanation of motives of the killer or whichever. There are some scenes featuring losses of love ones, unfair treatments to the good characters and unpredictable killings of one of the best characters.

As for the characters’ performance of the dramatic scenes, they really did an amazing job. Especially Kim Sang-Joong! (who played the role, Detective Oh Gu Tak) His acting was really genuinely heart breaking. He doesn’t care on how he looks when crying (sometimes it may look disgusting, but when he cries on some scenes, saliva and sniffles are involved which I don’t think is necessary) and he really puts an effort to portray a realistic cry of a man! However, thesniffles/salivas aren't necessary. I dont really like those parts.

Credits: OCN

ü Casting accuracy: The casting of this show is really good and accurate. All characters fit their roles impeccably.
Especially the casting for the character of ‘Lee Jung Moon’, the youngest serial killer with incredible IQ! I know that Park Hae Jin (the one who played LJM’s character) it’s not the first time that he played a psycho role in a drama, but in this one… I’m completely hands down. He could stare at the camera effortlessly then smile, the next thing I knew, my laptop is automatically closed and I’m already closing my bedroom window and saying a silent prayer.
Park Hae Jin's looks and gestures on every drama always gives me the chills, thinking that violence is always his forte. But in this drama, where he plays the character of a psycho serial killer who doesn’t actually remember his killings as he gets imprisoned and treated like trash, he actually played this character with a tone that tells you to believe in him even though all the evidences of him being a terrible person are pointed directly at him. I have no idea how he does that.

Cast of 'Bad Guys'
Credits: OCN

Credits: Pinterest

ü Suspense: I’m honestly just completely speechless in the suspense of this show. It’s like every moment you feel like there’s a gun aimed at you wherever you are when watching, even when you’re just in bed eating Doritos, you never know.

ü Sound effects/tracks: The sound tracks in every action scenes in this drama really helped a lot emphasizing and increasing the thrill on each particular scene. I like its perfect relevancy and I love some parts where the soundtrack absence on some dramatic scenes makes it more realistic. But It's not that memorable so the songs are okay and normal.

ü Realism: This drama is realistic, I can assure that. The characters aren’t flawless, the circumstances’ ability of availability in real life is reasonable and the feelings/reaction of an average person on a character is present.
But yes, there are some instances in the drama where it’s far from realism. But then, it wouldn’t be as interesting and exciting if a drama is ‘wholly’ realistic. Also, there's this one unrealistic scene that occured in this show(that I know almost all kdramas have) where one character just pissed you off when doing white lies...

Credits: DramaFever

Plot twists: As aforementioned about this drama’s unpredictability, the plot twists are not just surprising but it’s also satisfyingly interesting. The twists in every episode leads to more and more questions up to the next and next.

It made it really hard for me to move on when the show ended because of the show’s necessity to keep you hanging on its cliff hangers of every episode endings. When I've finish watching this show, I ended up being like this...