Catch the Ghost (2019)

I don't know what made me think this was going to be a spooky season drama about cops that hunt down ghosts that cause chaos on the subway, but I think it rooted from confusing this drama with the one I watch before - Bring It On, Ghost. Both great dramas, but both completely different. I think I found this one solely because The Rose's Woosung sang on this drama's OST, so I had to watch it in order to jam out at the end of every ep.

The drama started off with a simple mission; the subway team needed to find the Grasshoppers (who were a team of pickpockets that have never been seen) and the metro team was in charge of finding the Subway Killer (serial killer to lured individuals by stealing their wallets, contacting them to get their wallets, strangle them to death, and then hide their bodies under the seat cushions in the subway). We have the chief of the subway team - Go Ji Suk, a promising young metro officer who quit the force to solve petty crimes to help pay and take care of his mother who was diagnosed with alzheimers; and Yoo Ryung, a fiery officer trying to find a way into one of the crime unit teams to use their resources to help further the search of her twin sister who disappeared 2 years ago (and a possible victim of the Subway Killer.) Yoo Ryung finds herself joining the Subway Team as Go Ji Suk's partner, but are always at each other's throats due to their conflicting ideals.

I did love the relationship between the two mains, but I felt like Ji Suk trusted too easily and Yoo Ryung was extremely selfish and secretive. Once we find out why it is, it makes sense why she did what she did, but it was painful to watch the process of it all. I must say though, once everything comes together and Ji Suk connected all the dots, there is a touching scene of him sticking up for her. It was my favorite scene in the whole drama.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching this drama. It surprised me how light and comedic is was in the beginning, and how dark it got whenever they got a clue about the Subway Killer. The drama only got better and better as it went on. The only thing that I wasn't a fan of, was that even though the drama took a dark turn, the relationship between Ji Suk and Yoo Ryung was very...PG...or really G rated throughout the drama. They did have some moments, but if you are wanting to watch a romance drama, it wasn't very satisfying. Yes, we get the happily ever after between the mains, but instead of a huge love gesture at the end...it was more like, the mains finally agreed to go out. It makes sense why it ended the way it did (given Yoo Ryung and all the stuff she needed to figure out before thinking about a romance), but I am very content with how Ji Suk came through, once he figured out Yoo Ryung and why she did what she did in the past. I wasn't in love with the characters in this drama (they were both extreme people on opposite sides,) but I did enjoy how the writer made them come together with both unexpected and tragic backstories, that were completely different, but somehow, the experiences they both went through made them into similar people.

Also, I was in love with how dark the drama was as well as it kept you guessing on who the killer was. Once you think you know, they throw in another curve ball. It was a little messy at times and there seemed to be a few plot holes, but overall, I was very entertained and I loved how everything made sense at the end. I almost want to rewatch this whole drama again, to see if I could figure out from the get go, just by the obvious clues they do give you, that I missed the first time, who the killer was. PS, I thought it was a little worth mentioning, but even though he messed up one time and I apologize for thinking you were the killer (in the beginning), Kim Woo Hyuk was kind of bae. After no one wanted to help Yoo Ryung find her missing sister, he decided to break the rules in order to help her. Unfortunately, Yoo Ryung had already made up her mind on him 2 years prior when his partner, Ha Ma Ri, wouldn't help her with her sister's disappearance. And speaking of Ha Ma Ri (as well as looking at all the comments and reviews, who all seem to have a similar view point), I am not sure if it is all the roles that she plays, but I am not a fan of any of Jung Yoo Jin's characters. She always plays this second lead (from the dramas I have seen) who somehow believes she always has the upper ground and does not let anyone forget it. In this drama, she was a great detective, but had had zero empathy towards people and she followed EVERYTHING by the book in order to impress her mother, the director. Unfortunately, her mother always seemed to admire great cops who showed empathy towards people - Ji Suk when he decided to take a demotion in the beginning of his prime in order to be there for his mother and Yoo Ryung, who decided in the middle of the Grasshopper investigation (if they followed, they could have caught them) to save a baker's son who had been kidnapped. Plus, Ha Ma Ri, after 2 years, still was hung up on Ji Suk and made missions personal when she saw his relationship with Yoo Ryung. I think that was one of the better scenes, when Yoo Ryung and Ji Suk switched partners during an investigation and we saw how Yoo Ryung effected Ji Suk in terms of what truly mattered during an investigation. He noticed it and so did Ha Ma Ri, and it was a turning point fo everyone.

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First episode got me hooked. I almost gave up 2019 because there was barely anything that kept me intrigued, but I thought with Camellia and this that things were going better!
I liked the fillers with the case after case format, and the fact that they successful blended thriller and romance. The slow burn made it evenly distributed through the drama and you don't have the impression of watching 2 different series.
The concept for the killer wasn't that unique tho, but it could've worked very well. The interesting part was how the killer planned the grasshopper thing to make himself an alibi. It's just that the pace was odd (they revealed those too early imo) and some tiny holes kept bothering me at a point I really couldn't ignore them like: how did the killer traced back all his victims? I mean his plan was to rob their wallet to lure them in dark places (and who sane in their mind would just enter those tbh) but how did he knew where to strike? What the metro police did those 2 years? They investigated...what? Both side leads where kinda unnecessary...the girl was just bitching because no one believed in her (tho I think the male lead was a dick not to tell her the reason to break up. Is this noble idiocy in reverse? Lol) while she was unprofessional and she put her personal feelings into the investigation (and seriously, 3 episodes on that damn telephone booth), the male side cop was intriguing at first...it was purposely suspicious but then he became just the trigger for the ml jealousy...meh. I thought that maybe he too had lost someone because of the ghost, but unfortunately they didn't delve into his character.
Also those are the worst cop and criminals I've seen in all my life. Cops that let criminals that they've been chasing for 3 years escape so easily (actually it even happened offscreen lol), criminals that keep their phones while on the run, fingerprints on cigarettes, coins and wallets. Like seriously those are legendary thiefs? XD
Female lead was annoying but I accepted that in her pov cops are untrustworthy (but why she couldn't judt trust the ml remained a mystery as why they go on night duty to sleep and how the ml lived after selling his house) and she was blinded by her sister's death (presumed lol) .
But usually autistic people are followed by professionals, they said she was taking care of her ALONE by the age of 10 and that's absolutely impossible xD
Overall wasn't that bad, but I was so excited at first that my expectations skyrocketed and I felt hard the disappointment twt I had a lot of theories, involving people like the nurse friend, the caretaker, the mysterious lady with red shoes, the other cops, that mystical door with the abandoned project of another line and it was very simpler than what I imagined xD

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KIM SEON HO VISUAL

Honest opinion: Story is drab, cliché, recurring in every episode. Too many loopholes and messy character amplification, story is not well written, its all over the place. Not that promising plot.

Actors are bit stiff or awkward. I would have dropped this at episode 4 but Kim Seon Ho's dimple motivated me to watch a little more this time. But the scenes really suffocating, frustating and boring at times because of the dark setting.

Dropped this because there are fare more better dramas with better plots and cinematpgraphy at that time. This series is not for everybody especially like me who gets bored easily.

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Disappointed but not surprised.

I'll keep it a buck fifty.

Story:
One word - elongated. Every episode follows the same stretched-out circular arc that is "pro-police cool detectives showing how stressful it is to catch criminals with a hint of thrill". By episode 8, the crux of the plot, which primarily revolves around the Subway Killer and minorly the Grasshoppers, clearly becomes staggered. I understand how kdramas are unique for their handling of arcs through long episodes etc. but the way they handle is in a far more different manner. There is a lack of character development in all of the main protagonists that make this supposed "drama/thriller" almost bothersome to sit through, stale even. The female lead is deliberated construed as a reckless, sometimes emotional, careless "victim" (when she really isn't) that pushes forward a very troubling idea of how a policewoman conducts herself, but also the misogynistic narrative that a woman can only be annoying, loud and rude in important positions within the police to be taken seriously. This is shown the most with the FL and Ma Ri, the supposed minor antagonist of the show whose baseless one-dimensional personality exists to drive the main leads apart and create convenient delays in the plot.

What bothers me the most is just how FLAT everything is, but also how mindblowingly incompatible the FL and ML are. There is no character development. Romance? Pft. The only reason the plot moves at all is because of lucky breaks and the recklessness of the FL whose behaviour the ML has to take accountability for. The FL is supposedly meant for us to sympathise with her (despite her brash attitude that doesn't seem to learn a lesson or two across 10 episodes, even though she literally got people suspended and was moved around divisions), because of her autistic sister who disappeared.

Why does this show make the autistic sister out to be a villain? They unevenly balanced the dynamic of the sisters so much so that it became weighted towards the FL. Most crime/thriller kdramas create situations that push for more clues and breakthroughs, like The Killer's Shopping List or Beyond Evil but this show does literally none of them in the first eight episodes. It almost feels like they're trying to take the sympathy of being autistic and shove it into a spooky murdering mess. I couldn't force myself to sit through this anymore because:
1) As an autistic person, I don't think the way they did the last couple episodes with the autistic sister and the Subway Killer, was healthy in pushing forward a more informative discussion on ASD.
2) The FL did not appear to learn from her own actions. Some main protagonists can play this "messy but relatable" character well like Devi from Never Have I Ever but the FL here will very rarely evoke a laugh, in fact, the comedy in this show becomes very odd to squish in given it tries to mix "grave, dark mystery" with "haha, arrogant fl vs arrogant ml who wins".

Acting/Cast:
The acting was average. Some scenes really did evoke emotion, such as the crying scenes from either the ML and FL given their backstories, but given how little character development there was, it eventually became a circular stale bread of dialogue being repeated amongst one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Minor characters only added to this.

Music:
I actually enjoyed the choice of music! The OST is honestly quite intriguing. If you need at least one thing to take away from this review, perhaps let it be this song: Highlight (https://open.spotify.com/track/0mo6CutiqCo2hWBxuyl7HH?si=fadb5b7229d641a5)

Rewatch Value:
Very little point in rewatching in my opinion. It ruins the very stagger suspense they tried building up but also because of how mind-boggling the ending is. Anyway, it wasn't my cup of tea, but like what people say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Hope this helps!

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honestly I watched this drama because of the cast and it was so worth it. the only thing I didn't like was how people kept saying the FL is annoying and stupid. I agree that yoo ryung was really reckless but that's what made her character so charming. also she didn't do it without a reason , she had been through a lot in her life and just wanted to help the people in need because when she needed help in her life no one came forward. Also the development of friendship , partnership and understanding between the FL and ML is perfect as he goes from finding her annoying to loving her. All in all its a must watch with all the elements that make it a perfect must watch. if you are unsure then take my word for it , this drama won't disappoint.

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What a shame I found this drama in late 2020. Kinda addicted with Kim Seon Ho's drama after watch him in Start-Up

My first impression about this drama is about catch a ghost something but yeah I'm totally wrong. Not expect that I can really enjoy the whole storyline meanwhile I never like a crime theme drama. For me, the crime story in this drama is not really heavy and easy to understand the storyline. But a little bit disappointed when it's comes to romance part. This drama is not really have a romance except for the last episode but doesn't mean I don't like it.

I feel this drama is kinda underrated even the station is TvN. People should give a try to this drama because it's really good. I not even dare to skip any minute

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I honestly don't know where to start but I will anyway.

I liked the ost (a lot it's still on my playlist till today), I liked the mystery, and I liked the comedy (it was cool).

The problem was the FL and ML's relationship as much as I shipped them I didn't like how their relationship obstacles were hindering the investigation process. The story had a lot of potentials, especially the mystery part of it.

I hated the 'both ways love triangle' not only was it getting on my nerves, but it was also unnecessarily like both of the leads already had their personal problems what's with the love triangle. I really liked the ML and Fl's acting it was really forthright and enjoyable to watch.

Another reason I liked this drama was because of the way each character had something to deliver. The romance genre of this drama might have been unnecessary to me but apart from that, the drama was quite fun and thrilling.

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Extremely unlikeable FL

There are a lot of shows that you watch that start out with an unlikeable character. This show adds the fact that she makes stupid mistakes, is insubordinate, doesn't go to the ML for help but the 2ML, and she isn't even very nice. The way this character was written is very unfortunate. I have dropped very few shows, but I just couldn't watch this anymore. She didn't appear to be growing or progressing as a person, and I would have really been mad if I got to the end, and she hadn't learned from her mistakes. And how do you expect me to believe that there is supposed to be a relationship between the ML and FL when she never turns to him. Not the beginning of a healthy relationship, that's for sure.

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My opinion

I hate the FL in this I think that the girl who played the role of ha mi ra should be with the ML and not the girl i hate her acting and the way she looks.. I think I Regret watching it ...................................... I dont ship the ML AND FL together in this series Gotta say, JS is one of the best MLs ever, and Kim Seon Ho is now on my top list of actors. He knows exactly when to emote and exactly when to keep it subtle, but with equal impact; his eyes do so much talking, even in the quiet scenes. The way his character is written is probably the best in recent years;
I had doubts about trying this drama when it first aired so I didn't watch it then. However, I really liked Kim Seon Ho's acting in 100 Days My Prince and I like the crime/mystery part in this drama so I went back to try it.

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a great investigation/comedy/romance/family drama

AFTER WATCHING ALMOST 100 DRAMAS,

this is the 1st drama that makes me intrigued to write review.
I like this drama because of how great the actors are. All actors esp Moon Geun Young and Kim Seon Ho portrays the character really well. They infused it with a lively believable emotions. The gradual turn of comrades into deeper understanding between 2 human was shown really great and I can see why this pair works.

I love how they manage to show consequences, the show points that every action has its consequences and everyone should be brave enough to bear it. This is why the story works. It doesn't defy logic.

It definitely captures me because
- no dumb female lead. Only a strongwilled one.
- captivating plot with twist great enough, they fooled us long enough and it's actually enjoyable because it still made sense
-subtle romance. Subtlety elevates the whole love arc. They built it gradually, and never try to shove it down the viewer's throat.
-great acting, great directing
-lovely side characters.
-even the villain is great. I think if you create an investigation drama, one needs to have a strong villain. This is definitely a villain who I can never root, but I can come to understand why he behave that way.

Go Ji Seok / Yoo Ryung will always have a special place in my heart.

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