WATCHER (2019)

Who watches the watchers?

Seo Kang-joon and Kim Hyun-joo back together (they were boyh in 'What Happens to my Family'), with Han Seok-kyu, making a really good team fighting corruption within the police and prosecution service.
It's not a light watch, so concentration is needed to follow a story that twists and turns. Never have so many characters looked guilty!
Well written and acted with a decent soundtrack too.
There were several occasions though, when I felt that, given the circumstances, characters blindly entered into dangerous situations far too naively.
I wonder if we'll get a season 2? I shall definitely watch if we do.

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It is quite confusing to watch the watcher. However, I can guarantee it is really amazing. If you like story like this, investigation on those kind of officers, then you realize this story is totally showing the true color of those people. You can already detect who is the bad one from episode 1 (if you are good enough). Yet, this story will go into spiral ways to get you confused until the end. I stick with the actors until the end, so I am quite happy with the ending. Not really good for those who have heart attack since some story line might get you shocked out of the blue. Also, frustrated. Yet, you can have faith that the whole things will be revealed in the end. They actually did a good job in untangling the spiral so that you can know the truth behind it. You will get shocked that the whole system is a mess up system. Take a look. OCN is really good. For the first time, they actually go to spiral movements and then untangle the rope. In watcher, they did perfectly well with quite adorable ending. So, take a peek. You won't regret it.

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This is not my kind of drama. It reminded me documentary style filming. Not making anything look beautiful, just leave it the way it is. I guess that also can be considered as a charm but it was not so for me.
This show is grey! At the start too, but at the end you realize that none of the characters is good and none of the villains is evil. Everything and everyone is just in between. OCN has some good thriller mysteries. I think this one too will have it's own audience and maybe not the mainstream one.

What I liked about this drama:

-Han Seok Gyu! Well when i heard it's a drama with him i thought i need to watch it, because I loved his acting both in Tree with Deep Roots and in Romantic Doctor. He can seem the same and at the same time so different. I like the way he talks, no wonder many try to mimic his way of talking. He played amazingly well here, and till the end I wasn't sure if he was good or bad.
-Seo Kang Joon! Well I heard about him playing in this drama first and it was a must watch for me as I love him! He played so well everywhere he was in. And being partnered up with Han Seok Kyu, well I thought this is going to be awesome. lol
-The mystery around the case at the start
-OST!! Music!! it was great really! There wasnt much of BGM during the show so it reminded me of Japanese dramas. But when there was music it was amazing! really OST of this drama is great!

What I didn't like:

-It was super slow. There are slow dramas that I like. For example My mister or On the way to the airport. But this is a thriller, I don't think this slowness suits a thriller. Maybe it's just me. At the start it was kinda confusing with two plots, one to know who is the killer and one to find a ledger and catch corrupt people. Later they merge into one. Well it indeed was predictable that they will merge into one but overall this story was complicated and simple at the same time.
-The conclusions of all the cases. Well after all the mystery around there everything turned out not so thrilling and not so full of justice or terrifying. Maybe my expectations were just too big. All the conclusions were meaningless for me.
-The greyness. I like dramas where there is no exact distinction between black and white. There are some good ones. For example the villain in Pied Piper. But here, in my opinion, they didn't pull out that greyness well. Yes, all characters were neither good or evil. they could go anyway. Each one of them could one day become the same villain. But overall I think this all could have been made in a better way and it wasn't. Everything seemed just miserable, leaving a grey taste after the drama.

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Qui surveilla celui qui doit surveiller les autres ?

La commissaire principale Yeom constitue une équipe anti-corruption avec Chi Whang, la jeune Jo Soo Yeon, Young Koon, l’avocate Tae Joo étant leur conseil juridique.
Mais les trois personnages liés par ce drame passé ont chacun leurs motivations personnelles derrière cette mission.
Au fil des épisodes les ramifications se font de plus en plus nombreuses, vont de plus en plus loin et haut dans les hiérarchies, et on est de moins en moins de sûr de savoir en qui on peut avoir confiance !

Ce que j’en pense :

J’ai vraiment été passionnée par ce drama, dont je dois dire de suite qu’il n’est pas facile, à suivre car foisonnant de personnages et les noms coréens n’aident pas forcément, ni à endurer, car il est très noir. Non seulement par certaines scènes violentes (nous sommes sur OCN, n’est-ce pas ?) mais dont la violence n’est jamais gratuite, que par la noirceur des personnages dont la plupart n’ont pas la conscience bien nette.
Pourtant comment lâcher cette histoire, alors que chaque fois qu’on croit avoir trouvé une réponse celle-ci ouvre de nouvelles questions ? Do Chi Gwang s’est donné pour tâche de nettoyer la corruption, mais pour arriver à ça il ne craint pas de se salir les mains, et alors où est la fragile limite entre la Justice et la conception personnelle de la justice ? Quand une société secrète de policiers et procureurs décide de rendre justice en lieu et place de la Loi et du Droit, on frôle la catastrophe !
Les acteurs sont parfaits, avec en tête Han Suk Kyu (qu'on ne présente plus) et Seo Kang Joo que je découvrais là et qui m'a laissé une impression indélébile, me conduisant à rechercher tout ce que je pouvais sur lui ! et il ne m'a pas déçu !
La fin, parfaite scénaristiquement, laisse un arrière-goût de désenchantement, car les dramas ne nous ont pas habitués à ce genre de héros, qui justement n’en sont pas ! La dernière réplique entre Chi Gwang et Yoon Koon résume tout : l’un dit : je m'y emploierai de toutes mes forces et quoi qu’il m’en coûte, et l’autre répond : je vous surveillerai ! Car quand on surveille, qui surveille le surveilleur ?

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WATCH it!

This show brings together three incredible actors who keep you on tender hooks with their personal stories and their joint mission that when it ends you desperately wish there was another season.

If you thought Seo KangJoon was a flower boy only capable of stereotypical roles, watch this. He’s something else here. Yeong goon is tough as nails and gets beaten up, while doing some crazy beating of his own in his role as a police officer. He holds his own against veteran actors like Han Seok Kyu and Kim Hyun Joo and all three of them together make this edge of seat psychological crime thriller one of the BEST I have watched to date.

I just have to give a shoutout to the music score. It’s perfect for this show and enhances the nervous excitement one feels while watching tense moments on the show.

Season 2, JEBAL!

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People can not be divided as the good and the bad, because they are both.

If you want simple crime show with typical good police officer catching bad guy this isn't for you. But if you want a slow-paced crime show with complex morally ambiguous characters then you are in for a good ride. Pls do not pay too much attention on the score i gave bcs i don't think rating can measure how good a story is.

In term of the crime-solving, the execution of it in Watcher isn't perfect. As much as I loved the show, I can't turn a blind eye on the unnecessarily complicated plot that sometimes makes you don't even know what's going on despite it being a slow-paced show. The writer throw too much misdirection to stray the audience from guessing the actual culprit, when it's so obvious who the main culprit is. And because of that when the very much obvious actual culprit is revealed, the revelation felt flat and the misdirection become a waste.

Then what makes Watcher worth a try?? The complex characters, psychological aspect, and the portrayal of police corruption.
I think Watcher is more of a character driven story rather than case driven. They focused on how a single murder case can affect the mental health and morality of the people involved. And thus in this story the main leads who are affected by the tragedy turned into complex broken characters that you can not judge simply as 'good' or 'bad'. Kim Young Goon, Do Chi Gwang, and Han Tae Joo are all have questionable bad sides, but at the same time they also can be considered good people, that's what's make the characters felt very real and human. And the concept of morally gray characters also applicable to the police.

In many crime drama police always portrayed as good side where everyone fighting the injustice, but that isn't the case on Watcher. In this story Police are organizations that doesn't free from corruption, they are as badly as the criminal they catch. It's a realistic portrayal of how police actually are in real world (at least in my country they are like this).

TLDR: Watcher is a good watch for people who enjoy crime drama with character driven story with psychological aspect.

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As always I try to find dramas with action and suspense with no romance and this one didn't disappoint. I love the fight scenes Korean dramas have but is amazed at how the character who is fighting can get clocked in the head, or stabbed in the gut and still be able to thrive. Plus they blur out a knife but a gun is in focus....that's beginning to really irritate me for some odd reason.

This drama....it was a good watch but in my opinion it went off the rails throughout each episode. I should've seen it coming but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

We all know this drama is about police corruption but.....how do I put it....it just didn't delve into the corruption. It showed two shady police officers in the beginning but after that we get nothing but stories of how the corruption unfolded and in my opinion the corruption was barely there. There was just too much of a story about corruption and not enough visuals to keep the plot strong and steady.

The drama shifted to the three main character's life stories about how each one suffered a tragedy and the series just focused on that but threw in a little bit of this and a little bit of that. By episode 10 I had no idea where the story was going. A new villain emerges that made no sense but I still watched.

As I mentioned earlier the type of Korean dramas I like to watch, I also watch for the chemistry. I don't want to say it wasn't there, it just wasn't as strong as I would've liked. I did like all of the character choices though.

As usual the last episodes of Korean dramas are usually disappointing. This one held true to the game. I didn't get the closure I thought was going to happen. Sometimes I wonder if skipping the very last episode in a Korean drama is worth it.

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A PURE HIDDEN THRILLER JEWEL

A MUST WATCH FOR ANY SEO KANG JUN'S FAN AND/OR THRILLER's FANS !

The acting, the rewatch value, the OST were the strongest points.

The OST were pure gem, they fits all perfectly the different sides of this mystery thriller sad dramaatic epic action drama. If you want a preview of this drama then you can simply listen to the OST and you will get a glimpse of what the drama is about perfectly well.

The ACTING is fantastic ! One of the best acting I have ever seen. Seo Kang Jun delivered on this one like there is no better drama out here at this level of acting, from my poinf of view or if there is please tell me. I am curious.

The rewatch value is HIGH HIGH and only HIGH I have watched this drama at least three times.

The story is great, though in the middle was a little bit annoying but it was made on purpose for the overall story, at the end you understand why you went through annoying parts of the story!

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The writers did not know what they wanted to do with the story.

This pretty much sums up Watcher, contrary to most thrillers, Watcher actually starts off on the wrong foot and gets somewhat better towards the ending. The story is not as gripping if you were to judge it from the first episode, however, as the story continues, you'll find more reasons to stay and wait for the story to unravel.

The characters are not the best written. It was evident that the writers wanted to make appealing, smart, and sophisticated characters. However, as each episode passes, I felt like I was watching a new character; their personalities were inconsistent and they were too unreachable to be realistic and believable. They were too good to be true. In addition to this, there would be no semblance of community, or affection between this group of people. They were simply individuals who worked together, it was only up until the end that I felt like they were actually a team.

Plot-wise. I really loved the story's general gist, how this fiasco could be true, as there was a nice foundation laid out for the antagonist organization. It was coherent and believable, and the timelines made sense. It was far better as compared to other corruption dramas. Which is why I was so disappointed with how they made use of it.

Watcher is also awfully "slow-feeling". This is something that I noticed with the drama, it uses so many cuts of the main characters randomly walking, flipping through pages, and staring at whatever was on the horizon, I felt like they wasted too much time using these cuts. The music didn't help, it was way too stimulating, to the point that I could hear the leather seats as they conversed with one another. I think these are aspects that could have been prevented and could be changed to make something that was less documentative feeling.

Lastly, Seo Kang Joon and Kim Hyun Joo played their roles wonderfully. As for Han Seok Kyu, I really don't know how to feel about the casting decision made with him, and the decisions that they made for the character he portrayed. Do Chi Kwang was someone who was extremely dull, and overall unenthralling. He wasn't a character that was clouded in a mystery that you'd be gripped with his persona, no, in fact, he just appeared awfully shady throughout the series. The very few moments where he actually had a personality were so scattered and delivered far less impact than what I was hoping for. I don't know where the issues lie, would it be the actor or the way he was written?

As for my verdict, I would say give it a shot. On the other hand, I wouldn't say you'd be missing out if you skipped past this drama.

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