For my thirty-ninth drama, I picked out Crime Squad 강력반. Crime Squad reunites the main leads, Song Il Gook and Song Ji Hyo, who previously co-starred in another series. As with a number of drama series I chose to watch, I selected Crime Squad because I wanted to watch an actress I liked who was on Running Man. In this case, I wanted to watch Song Ji Hyo. I first saw her star in Goong, which is about five years before she filmed Crime Squad. Crime Squad is also my first Korean police drama. The only police dramas I've seen were scenes from Hong Kong police dramas that I saw growing up as a kid.
Park Sehyuk (Song Il Gook) is a detective at the Seoul Gangnam Precinct's Homicide Division. Sehyuk became a detective after witnessing his daughter, Haein, get caught in an accident. Unable to accept her death, he made a promise to do anything it took to learn what happened and seek justice. When Sehyuk's police captain retires, a new police chief is transferred to the precinct. The new captain, Jung Ildo (Lee Jong Hyuk) and Sehyuk are already off to a bad start. Sehyuk's 'take action first' personality contrasts Ildo's 'by the book' style. Not only that, Ildo was involved with Haein's accident when Ildo tried to stop a fleeing suspect in a car. While investigating a new case, Sehyuk meets Jo Minjoo (Song Ji Hyo), an aspiring journalist looking for a way to begin her career. Minjoo starts as an intern for a gossip tabloid website. While helping Sehyuk and his fellow detectives solve crime cases, Minjoo slowly makes her mark as an journalist and discovers the whereabouts of her father.
Crime Squad is very interesting drama to watch. The entire drama involves around the Homicide Squad solving several cases as Detective Park unfolds a bigger mystery surrounding a crime case from five years ago that ultimately led to his daughter's death. When I compared Crime Squad to the other dramas I've watched, I noticed that the main focus of the drama was the mystery surrounding Sehyuk's daughter's accident and less on relationship between Sehyuk and Minjoo. In fact, it can easily be said that Crime Squad doesn't even have a love story. I normally would have objected to this lack of romance in a drama, I actually felt it was a good idea that the relationship between Sehyuk and Minjoo did not progress any further than it did. I felt Sehyuk's past with his ex-wife and daughter would make it too weird if he would start a relationship with Minjoo. In a weird way, I'm glad the ending was really open for interpretation and inconclusive. I thought the drama was amusing when I realized every police related movie or television series needs a main character who is impulsive but righteous. With this thought, I thought Song Il Gook was a great actor for being able to portray a stereotypical character like Sehyuk but give the character a unique feel.
The soundtrack for Crime Squad includes three songs. There's "Believe" by T-max, "Joy & Pain" by DJ Doc and "Farewell" sung by Insooni. While the soundtrack isn't impressive for a drama series, I really liked listening to "Farewell". The song fit really well in a number of sad scenes. Although it could just be because I really like ballad tracks.
I recommend watching Crime Squad. The drama is pretty standard for a police investigation mystery TV series. Since the drama is focused on solving crime mysteries, the drama lacks a romantic story typical of Korean dramas. However, that should not be a reason to shy away from Crime Squad. Each of the crime cases that occur every few episodes is very interesting on its own. As a viewer, I got so caught up in trying to solve the mystery myself that I nearly forgot the bigger plot. Crime Squad is a great drama series to watch. For Song Ji Hyo fans like myself, it's absolute must watch.
