Detectives in Trouble
Detectives in Trouble
Five years ago Park Se-hyeok daughter died in a tragic accident during a police operation. After his team leader goes into pension the replacement is incidentally the man which is responsible for the accident back then. Therefore Se-hyeok deeply mistrusts his leader and is determined to find out the truth about the accident.
Meanwhile Jo Min-joo starts her new job as reporter for a small tabloid online newspaper. By accident she stumbles into Detective Parks investigation.
Detectives in Trouble (Wikipedia, AsianMediaWiki) is a quite typical police drama. It has it all: Officers which tend to bend rules, difficult cases, revenge stories, corruption and some comedic situations to light things up. The only unusual thing is that cases are stretched across two episodes, each one over an hour long. That’s quite long compared to similar shows which wrap up a case in 45 minutes. Of course that gives room to focus on the lives of the characters, about their motivations, pleasures and setbacks.
The show mainly follows Detective Park, his team and reporter Jo, as they are working on a case. While the main cases are solved the back story of the accident is woven in occasionally. As the show progresses more and more interconnection and relations are revealed.
I my opinion Detectives in Trouble is a very solid cop drama. Especially because it gives the characters a little more time to develop than most shows. Of course the story is not something you’ve never seen, but solid enough to be enjoyable. The only thing which seriously could be improved is the production value. For example some stunts look sloppy executed. Also a lot of scenes look a bit like a cheap soap opera show, static and not polished.
Despite all the weaknesses I really enjoyed the show. Of course it is only suitable for people who are willing to read subtitles or understand Korean ;). You can watch the first two of the 16 episodes for free here. And, yes, it starts with toilet-humor, but I promise that’s only the first 10 minutes =).
Star-O-Meter: 
(4/5)
Here’s a (very, very generic) trailer: