The premise is simple on the surface - what if you could change the past, including your sad past? This crime thriller - indirectly time travel drama definitely surpassed similar drama in terms of its storyline, directing and acting. The story has more than meets the eye; how the past has more intricate connections than I could ever imagine - like peeling layers of an onion. Cha Soo Hyun (Kim Hye Soo) portrayed her character seamlessly; going back and forth between her past and future character. Lee Jae Han (Jo Jin Woong) turned the drama into a quite emotional journey as the story progressed. Get ready for a box of tissue, you are going to cry and rooting for Detective Lee Jae Han. Park Hae Young (Lee Jae Hoon) can be over dramatic sometimes - but it's minor. The classical and nostalgic OSTs are gems - hard to forget. After all, can a Misaeng production team gone wrong?
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A 100x times better than the CW-adaptation (girl and her father in the past communicated via radio).
A lot of people loved Kim Hye Soo in her role as the main female lead but I really did not enjoy her acting in this. Her eyes are expressive for sure but too much eye acting made it feel she was a creepier character than she really was. I enjoyed the main male leads' acting in this
The wrap-up was satisfying. A show I've been consistently recommending to my non-kdrama watching friends as a hope to get them into watching kdramas!
It's usually really hard for me to watch shows with little to no romance but this show succeeded by making me watch it all the way through.
Overall, a really solid show if you are into great writing, execution, and acting. One of the most recommendable shows of 2016 for sure.
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Not bad but not the best
I watched this drama because a lot of people keep saying that this is really good. I am usually watching a lot of thriller&mystery drama so i had high expectation regarding this. Sadly i was a little disappointed. The story was good but could be a better development of cases and characters. This drama has some original parts that until now i didn't found in another dramas so let's say it worthy to watch. For those who are not a fan of thriller&mistery drama, Signal, can be amazing and catch your atention.Was this review helpful to you?
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Disappointing if you have a high expectation
I started watching Signal because it was directed by the Kim Won-Seok, and won Baeksang Art Awards for Best Drama in 2016, the same as My Mister in 2018. To be honest, the first few episodes got me hooked, but later on it became painful to finish and I almost quit (twice) in Ep 7 and Ep 15.The production is excellent, granted, acting isn't really bad, just average, OSTs are not memorable, but the story is ruined by too much "grandfather paradox" from time traveling. We can never really apply logic to any time travel novels and movies, because it's not logical from the start.
What I like most about this drama is its key messages: injustice that always favors the riches, and "never give up." What I hate most, perhaps as much as illogical time travel, is the stupidities of protagonists--all three of them. At one point, they seemed smart, but then made a series of same stupid decisions. Well, that may be our nature to do something stupid repeatedly, but for a drama, I don't think it's fun to watch our protagonists succumbed to their stupidities too many times.
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Great drama, just a bit overrated.
This is one of those shows that start out as your basic crime story but turns out to be a melodrama after all. The crimes they worked on are quite intriguing. The investigations, though, are sloppy and the police are either lazy and promotion-hungry or just plain lucky. Even the cold case squad members don't have excellent investigative skills. I guess the writer really wants to show to the viewers that the transmissions are the real hero in this story. Everyone else is just a tool --- the self-righteous profiler, the kind-hearted cop who always cries, and the grieving squad leader. The good thing is that there is a clear rule about the impact of changing the past that is established early in the show. Even though there are a lot of awkward dialogues, ugly crying and cliches about cops, overall acting is really great. Even the lazy, conniving cops are so convincing i had to keep myself from throwing the remote.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Spellbinding, captivating stuff
This is a show that will linger in your mind long after you are finished with it. It is captivating, heart-wrenching, beautiful, devastating, cruel and agonising. The story of two detectives connected by an old walkie-talkie solving cold cases is a fantastic concept and this show did not falter in exploring how far it could go. I've never watched a show that has finished as strongly as it started.Signal deserves a longstanding reputation as one of the greatest TV shows in Asia. For that, the writers and the actors deserve so much credit. They delivered with each episode. There was no silly subplot, no silly love triangle. This show was coldly ruthless in telling the story it wanted to. The magical realism imbued it with excitement but it was the human story, the struggles involving the characters, that won you. They were all good people trying to fix the old wrongs. At the heart of it was Lee Jee-Haan, the old detective guided by a an unmoving moral compass always pointing the right way. His emotions, the intensity of his resolve and ethics, was beautiful. The music complemented the show superbly too and accentuated the tone of every scene, adding rather than diminishing.
I would recommend everyone to watch this show. You will cry, you will sit in despair, your heart will ache for them. But you will watch it all the way through believing in them as Lee Jee-Haan did in justice. This might just be the greatest Korean show i've ever watched.
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A solid suspense drama and the walkie-talkie business was one of the highlights of the show.
So Signal is about a detective from 1989 and a cold case profiler in 2015 working together through a magical walkie-talkie to solve and prevent crimes from happening. Solving them in 2015 helps prevent them in 1989 and through trial and error, Lee Jae Han, the detective from 1989, and Park Hae Yeong, the cold case profiler from 2015 figure out what went wrong and how to fix them in their own times. The concept behind the show is was initially drew me to watching it and I’m glad that I did because the actors really brought this story to life. It totally made sense to me that there was a magical walkie-talkie helping a man from the 80’s help a man from 2015 solve crime and beat the bad guys.I also thought that the cases that they worked on together were interesting. From the kidnapping case to the rape case, to every other case, each story really stood out and had me thinking about them long after I turned the final episode off. These characters really go through it personally and professionally and they had to overcome so much to get to that end. There were times where I had to walk away from the TV because what was happening was too much for me and my blood pressure but I will say that the villains played their roles really well in this one because I hated their asses so much.
Overall, there were moments when certain characters and cases made my blood boil but I’m glad that I stuck with this show because it was a solid suspense drama and the time through walkie-talkie business was one of the highlights of the show for me. I love the friendship that blossomed between Lee Jae Han and Park Hae Yeong. I thought the way that their friendship grew and grew with each case that they worked on was just so stinkin’ great.
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Story: Kept me on my freaking toes, that's for sure. It would be a 10/10 for me if it didn't end on a cliffhanger (with no season 2 in sight, sigh). Otherwise, I don't want to say too much, as to not give it away. This drama is rated highly for a reason! If you like Crime/Investigation this should be at the top of your PTW. There were definitely some plot holes, but overall, for entertainment purposes, this drama hit the ball out of the park.
Acting/Cast: 10/10 hands down. Y'all had me crying and literally jumping out of my skin. It was fun to see some familiar actors in guest roles, such as Seo Ji Hoon and Lee Sang Yeob. This was my first Lee Je Hoon drama, but I've already added When Stars Land and Tomorrow With You to my PTW. He's also been indoctrinated into my massively accumulating cult of children from KDramaland. I will protecc with my life.
Music: So good! ahhhhh. My favorite OSTs were 나는 너를 (literally, I ... you) by Jeong Cha Sik, The Road by Kim Yuna and The One Who Will Leave by Inkey. The instrumentals were also great. Check out the album here: https://open.spotify.com/album/3XWPudsfSroRADDvNdWFei?si=JyyDCZN-QaK6ZKNx9D3lLw
Rewatch Value: Medium? Having just finished, I'm not in the mood to rewatch, but I can see myself rewatching in the future.
TLDR; bangers all around, found some new fave actors, if you like crime then add this to your PTW right now!
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This review may contain spoilers
Finally I finished watching this drama after like 2 years procrastinating. I started watching the Japanese adaptation first before watching the original. Since the Japanese remake tend to be shorter in length than the Korean one, the pace for the former tend to be faster and some parts from the original may not be included in the remake. While at first, the slow speed at how the plot on the original may feel a bit draggy when compared to the remake, the plot later gradually pick up and revealed to be as engaging as the remake.Having watched the remake first, I couldn't help noticing that some of the scenes was a bit more cleaned up in the remake. Regardless, it didn't mean the the original production wasn’t as good. Loved the casting, and Jo jinwong and Lee Jehoon made a very good pair for partners separated by 20 years between them. It was an unlikely partnership yet you can tell that they really can work together well as a team despite the barrier between them.
At first, I wasn't really taken to Jehoon as Park Haeyoung. Probably because he was in a period drama prior to Signal, the accent that he used to speak in the drama seemed jarring to me. But gradually that awkwardness in the way he spoke throughout the drama started to fade away and I was able to continue watching his scenes comfortably. Jehoon's acting started to grow on me due to his more recent works so it was really interesting to see his older works and him taking a role of a soft-spoken profiler. That aside, I was much more familiar with Jo Jinwoong's works so it was pretty enjoyable watching him play a righteous detective who tried his best to solve crimes.
Overall, I like how the entire plot had been written. Considering a lot of the cases shown in the drama was based on actual cold cases that happened in South Korea, it was an interesting story on how things like a transmission from the future may affect the outcomes of the past and change the future.
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Every problems that i have with korean dramas is always, always, and always—the pace (and the lazy writing sometimes lol). It shows in this drama too, even tho its really really good, i just can’t diminish the fact that the pace is just too slow and too long. The lazy writing too… oh my god, too many replayed flashbacks. Half of the 15th episode is just them playing flashbacks over and over again until i got bored of the flashbacks lol. I think it will be so much better if they cut the episodes into 12 or 14 episodes. Anyways, the acting carried this drama. I mean…. Lee Jehoon, Kim Hyesoo, and Cho Jinwoong as the main leads? Damn! I need a more packed season 2!
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Heart-stopping from start to finish
I often have doubts about crime dramas due to alot of the unoriginal developments in storylines, but Signal could never. This was a drama that did NOT disappoint from start to finish - in fact, the heart-stopping end to every episode had me wanting more. The artistic camerawork, captivating nonlinear narrative, sophisticated direction, unique plot twists, compelling performance, highly-constructed alternate timelines, and last but not least, the suspense and anticipation was what made a drama like Signal worth watching. The drama was extremely unique and satisfying to watch in that it hinged on one specific object, and that object's ability to dictate the fates of the main characters, including every decision bound by it. Finally, the series also received widespread acclaim from audience and critics alike so what more can I say?However, there were some things which I felt could've been better explained at the end. For example, I couldn't quite grasp how that walkie-talkie ended up sending radio transmissions in the first place, and felt disappointed that those mere last 3 minutes didn't allow the audience to really get a taste of satisfaction (despite the great outcome being deduced). Extending to include just some couple more scenes to see everything tie in such as having Park Hae-young and Cha Soo-hyun appear at Lee Jae-han's hospital door (so I could finally exclaim with joy and satisfaction the words: "FINALLY/YES" would have really been the cherry on top.
Storyline -- original screenplay, highly engaging, well-developed script;
Cast (supporting included) -- remarkable performance by each actor's ability to convey emotions and thoughts through eyes and body language effortlessly;
OST -- adapted from old school melodies (ie. pre-2010 Korean OSTs) was an unconventional move, but at the same time, so fitting as it only gave the drama way more character and depth.
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