This is a good show. I am at a stage where I never have high expectations from k-dramas and that serves! And I certainly don't trust these high ass ratings in mdl. I never watched Lee Joon Gi act, and tbh this was me trying him out. I recently watched something easy and felt ready to dive into something so famous and judge it for myself and for once, I'm not disappointed. It was a really easy and addictive binge. Both the leads are very convincing in their roles and Lee Joon Gi was simply phenomenal as Do Hyun Su (I don't dig the loud sobs but still...). The story was okay, I think it had more impact emotionally than as a logical mind-blowing thriller. I loved that the 14 years of marriage between the leads held a proportional significance in the plot, that Ji Won trusted Hyun Su and actually did some police work to build that trust. The serial killing aspect had its allotted amount of horror and I have to say Kim Ji Hoon was positively brilliant in acting uncanny. Mostly the story is pretty plot hole free imo, but leave it to me to point out a few oddities.
1. The big ass coincidence of the actual identity of the accomplice. I usually hate these out of the blue completely random coincidences (bcz these are signs of weak screenplays) though in this one I did not mind bcz they carried the rest with precision.
2. The last part where they have Hyun Su and the accomplice cornered, for some reason they were more scared of Hyun Su. It was weird af. At least Ji Won should've ran towards him, imo.
3. The memory loss, it offered some nice insight into Hyun Su but it still felt so unnecessary at times. For someone who lost an entire life, Hyun Su seemed oddly pretty chill to me.
4. They could've dialed down the sobbing, not a fan of loud outbursts and it just kept happening. You want to give something impact, you reduce the frequency of it.
Despite these, I loved the show, remedy those points and it would've been perfect by all measures but does perfection really exist? This drama is meticulous and none of what happens are quote unquote unrealistic in a logical sense. I cared about the detective unit, the cases that built Cha Ji Won as a character, Hyun Su's sister but though he brought some comedic relief I'm not sure about how good Kim Moo Jin was. Hyun Su was really abused and suffered way too much and I feel like only Ji Won and his sister conveys enough sympathy.
The romance was intense and on spot. I would've loved a little more attention on Hyun Su as an individual rather than being defined by his love for Ji Won. I think a tragedy would've fit this story, those kind of 'missing the happy ending by a singular moment'...'an end to a lifetime of suffering lost bcz of just one stray bullet'...but I guess I'm a masochist.
In any case, I liked this series and enjoyed the complimentary music (especially the classical tunes), the superb acting and the gripping tension which persisted for a considerable amount of time. This is truly something to recommend.