Police University should have come 5-6 years back to be accepted as something good (not even very good because Kdramas had such dramas back then too which did extremely good). With a basic decent plot, this production messed up with every different aspect of a show, creating several flaws that can't be ignored.

Police University is basically the happenings of a university which is definitely different than other academic educational institutions along with an accompanying plot of cybercrime thriller that the main cast tries to solve. Yu Dong Man (Cha Tae Hyun), an ace in homicide plus cybercrime investigation with 20years experience ends up in Korean National Police University (KNPU), as a disciplinary action due to messing up a high-profile case. There he meets Kang Sun Ho (Jung Jin Young) as a fresher with whom he have had bitter experience in recent past. Due to multiple encounters at critical moments, they decide to work together on the case and gradually grow fond of each other. Oh Kang Hee (Krystal Jung) a girl determined and hardworking, have had hard times because of her mother who has been prisoned multiple times. She also finds the case to be linked to her mother's conviction and helps the duo in solving it. There are also Roh Bum Tae (Lee Dal) and Jo Joon Wok (Yoo Young Jae) who are the lead couple's closest friends in the university and are also a part of the secret investigating team.

Other minor yet important characters are:
Park Min Gyu (Choo Young Woo), who is also a good student, in one-sided love with Kang Hee and plays cheap tricks few times; Choi Hee soo (Hong Soo Hyun), a judo professor; Kwon Hyuk Pil (Lee Jong Hyuk), law professor, Seo Song Hak (Kang Shin Il), professor of Scientific Investigation & Public Administration.

I can't say that the plot development is very bad but it's definitely below average and awfully dull. It was dragged at many points that it becomes boring and so many illogical as well as useless elements. There are plenty of instances of inconsistent writing and the there is a null character development for the even the main characters. The screenplay writing skills are of poor quality, no doubt the writer is a rookie. The story, plot or screenplay, none of them felt like that of a university life in 80% of the drama. I mean police university is different from the usuals but this was very far from that.

The story is dominated by Cha Tae Hyun and Jung Jin Young giving other very less screen-timing, making them insignificant. Whatever the characters other than these 2 did, awfully looked like mere showoff which was forcefully fitted to make the drama lengthy and attractive, which became a miserable failure.

Park Min Gyu who is supposed to be the 2nd ML turned into a noone after 5-6 episodes, adding to his pathetic acting; ngl, I don't think he's prepared for cable dramas yet. Jin Young needs to improve his skills; his character rarely did give off the vibes of a male lead, his expressions to be particular were not very suited according to the mood, also annoying. I wonder why Krystal accepted this drama where her character even as a FL is nothing but an annoying, immature girl and isn't appealing even in the peak moments. The character was only there to fulfill the ML's love interest. Firstly she's not a rookie actress and secondly she's worked in good dramas but this just---. I have admired Cha Tae Hyun from his pree 2000 dramas and movies and he's a nice actor but I couldn't get myself to like his character in here. May be he was directed to act like that but that also made him lose the essence of his own skills. And Young Jae plus Lee Dal duo who are supposed to be comedy sidekicks kept passing lame jokes till the end which weren't a bit funny.

Director could have compensated this bad script but even he failed to do his best. In fact, another major drawback for this drama is it's sound and screen editing skills. I swear it low-key felt like that of a pre 2010 drama but again, those drama did better job in this regard. The camera work sucked to it's core making the viewer lose interest to continue. OSTs are good, I gotta admit.

Comparing it to some of the dramas with similar setup, a very good drama comes to mind, i.e. LIVE (2018). Though KNPU things were for just one episode followed by the story of a patrol division, the movie did an amazing job seeking attention and winning hearts but look at this mixture of light comedy and lame investigation work. I'm not sorry that I couldn't even enjoy it as a light drama.

The story felt kinda good for the first 2 episodes. The rapid yet touching progression of the plot, Sun Oh and his adoptive father plus brother, his backstory and present life portrayal were all good but it somehow fell through in 4th episode and nobody could help it. I feel it should have been a 12 episode drama only for the sake of not making the viewers lose interest and eventually drop it in between. However, one of the very few things I liked about it was the mystery plot, as for to discover who the key personality at the top of the pyramid who have deployed so many people for his greed. They managed to keep that in suspense till the very end and the revelation was quite astonishing. I'm glad for that.

Overally, Police University (2021) deserve the least hype and I'm glad it ain't that popular in real time. I had so much expectations from the story because of the cast obviously even though I was aware of the skills for most of the characters but I came here to be disappointed. It's totally fine even if you don't try this. It's just me who is bad at dropping so I anyhow forced myself into finishing this. Or if you wanna kill time, use it as a trash watch.