Muneeza22
Pakistan
This review may contain spoilers
Despite being the minority with this opinion, I will go ahead and say it: the show was a major disappointment.
WHAT I LOVED:
ACTING:
I mean, it started out great, and I remember thinking that the plot was Robin Hood trope, but was at the same time unique when it came to kdramas. I love Ma Dong Seok, and right from the start I fell in love with Seo In Guk's acting. He really truly makes you believe that he is a con-artist, and a simple look at the various accents he pulls off in episode 2 while calling different people is a testament to his acting prowess. Ma Dong Seok too completely embodied his character, in voice, looks, and gestures.
This was my first time watching Lee Sun Bin act (all I knew about her was that she's Lee Kwang Soo's girlfriend and I saw her on that one episode of I Can Hear Your Voice 2019) , and I have to say I loved it. Of course many other actors were veterans and masters of the craft.
ACTION:
Despite not liking the way the drama turned out, I have to admit that at least for the first half, the episodes were not boring at all, there were cliffhangers and suspense, as well as the right balance of dialogue and action.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
PLOT:
There were loopholes and missing aspects in the plot which at first I had some difficulty pinpointing, and I got this vauge feeling that there was something missing from the drama. I've concluded that among the few things that bothered me were:
(1) the way the whole team got together. Initially, of course they were all in for the money that was promised to them for duping Ma Jin Seok, but what bothered me was that all the con-artists in the team were actually good guys. Wait... what? What are the odds of that? The plot got boiled down to good guys masquerading as bad guys (Robin Hoods), and these "respectable" so-called good guys who are actually bad guys (like the police, the businessmen, the higher ups, their families). I wanted there to be more grey areas, and I also wanted at least one con artist to be actually greedy and selfish. [Yes I know Hak Joo betrayed the team for a little bit but then he went back to being nice in the span of one episode]. I was also waiting for someone to elaborate on how Seo In Guk's character came to save the "Chairman"'s life twice. Idk what that was all about.
(2) how Sung Il's (Ma Jin Seok) family got left behind after the first few episodes and were never heard from again. This guy has joined all these conartists, he's meeting them secretly almost everyday, he's roaming around the entire city, he's been to the police station several times, and he got demoted, but we don't get to really see his relationship in depth with his wife and daughter. I also found his relationship with his brother-in-law in flashbacks to be kind of hollow, so the motive of ensuring that no one else dies like he did was a little flimsy for me.
(3) how the plot twists got redundant and tedious: the plan B's and the counter plans to the plans of the enemy, the feints and the always-one-step-aheads got really boring really fast, because they were really similar.
(4) the fact that Jeong Do was cheated by Sung Il when the latter agreed to give testimony against Jeong Do and send him to jail for ten years, and it wasn't made that much of a big deal? And somehow Jeong Do got let out in 2 years on parole despite having priors? and that he and Sung Il made up fairly quickly? and we don't even know how the other con artists reacted to that whole thing? I was so baffled. I did not know how to react.
(4) how there was one bad guy on top of the other, more powerful than the last, like a final boss in a game except there's a final final boss, and then a super boss, aand a mega-super-awesome boss. Boring? Boring.
(5) the nearly romantic plot line between Seong Hee and Jeong Do was not satisfactory at all. I wanted them to at least get together or have some sort of proper closure which I felt was missing. No, more than that, I wanted them to shake hands and start over to get to know each other. It was just underwhelming.
CHARACTERS:
(1) Let's face it, Seong Hee's character was irrelevant to the entire drama. I guess they wanted a girl in the taxation department, just for a change, but her character added nothing to the plot itself and contributed nothing to any sort of development except in the first 2 episodes. In the start she was really annoying because she kept butting in what wasn't her concern at all, but later on she just became this broken record, always calling her favorite chief and always worrying for him, trying to save him etc. Hers was a very flat character.
(2) Speaking of flat characters, Jeong Do despite being the main protagonist was astonishingly flat. I wanted him to learn something about human nature, about his own self, about this world, but he stayed a good guy throughout, one who is just trying to take revenge for what happened with his parents, who despite having a rough exterior actually cares for his team and for his ex-gf, who never realizes that Mi Joo loves him, and who takes the fall for the rest of them selflessly.
(3) With the exception of the mayor, the bad guys were all greedy politicians who had no driving force, no depth and were very flat.
CONCLUSION: I get that a lot of people love this drama, and I got into it with high expectations, but for the reasons stated above I was unable to join the majority, which is a bummer. Also, I keep wondering why the show is titled 38 Task Force. Hm.
WHAT I LOVED:
ACTING:
I mean, it started out great, and I remember thinking that the plot was Robin Hood trope, but was at the same time unique when it came to kdramas. I love Ma Dong Seok, and right from the start I fell in love with Seo In Guk's acting. He really truly makes you believe that he is a con-artist, and a simple look at the various accents he pulls off in episode 2 while calling different people is a testament to his acting prowess. Ma Dong Seok too completely embodied his character, in voice, looks, and gestures.
This was my first time watching Lee Sun Bin act (all I knew about her was that she's Lee Kwang Soo's girlfriend and I saw her on that one episode of I Can Hear Your Voice 2019) , and I have to say I loved it. Of course many other actors were veterans and masters of the craft.
ACTION:
Despite not liking the way the drama turned out, I have to admit that at least for the first half, the episodes were not boring at all, there were cliffhangers and suspense, as well as the right balance of dialogue and action.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
PLOT:
There were loopholes and missing aspects in the plot which at first I had some difficulty pinpointing, and I got this vauge feeling that there was something missing from the drama. I've concluded that among the few things that bothered me were:
(1) the way the whole team got together. Initially, of course they were all in for the money that was promised to them for duping Ma Jin Seok, but what bothered me was that all the con-artists in the team were actually good guys. Wait... what? What are the odds of that? The plot got boiled down to good guys masquerading as bad guys (Robin Hoods), and these "respectable" so-called good guys who are actually bad guys (like the police, the businessmen, the higher ups, their families). I wanted there to be more grey areas, and I also wanted at least one con artist to be actually greedy and selfish. [Yes I know Hak Joo betrayed the team for a little bit but then he went back to being nice in the span of one episode]. I was also waiting for someone to elaborate on how Seo In Guk's character came to save the "Chairman"'s life twice. Idk what that was all about.
(2) how Sung Il's (Ma Jin Seok) family got left behind after the first few episodes and were never heard from again. This guy has joined all these conartists, he's meeting them secretly almost everyday, he's roaming around the entire city, he's been to the police station several times, and he got demoted, but we don't get to really see his relationship in depth with his wife and daughter. I also found his relationship with his brother-in-law in flashbacks to be kind of hollow, so the motive of ensuring that no one else dies like he did was a little flimsy for me.
(3) how the plot twists got redundant and tedious: the plan B's and the counter plans to the plans of the enemy, the feints and the always-one-step-aheads got really boring really fast, because they were really similar.
(4) the fact that Jeong Do was cheated by Sung Il when the latter agreed to give testimony against Jeong Do and send him to jail for ten years, and it wasn't made that much of a big deal? And somehow Jeong Do got let out in 2 years on parole despite having priors? and that he and Sung Il made up fairly quickly? and we don't even know how the other con artists reacted to that whole thing? I was so baffled. I did not know how to react.
(4) how there was one bad guy on top of the other, more powerful than the last, like a final boss in a game except there's a final final boss, and then a super boss, aand a mega-super-awesome boss. Boring? Boring.
(5) the nearly romantic plot line between Seong Hee and Jeong Do was not satisfactory at all. I wanted them to at least get together or have some sort of proper closure which I felt was missing. No, more than that, I wanted them to shake hands and start over to get to know each other. It was just underwhelming.
CHARACTERS:
(1) Let's face it, Seong Hee's character was irrelevant to the entire drama. I guess they wanted a girl in the taxation department, just for a change, but her character added nothing to the plot itself and contributed nothing to any sort of development except in the first 2 episodes. In the start she was really annoying because she kept butting in what wasn't her concern at all, but later on she just became this broken record, always calling her favorite chief and always worrying for him, trying to save him etc. Hers was a very flat character.
(2) Speaking of flat characters, Jeong Do despite being the main protagonist was astonishingly flat. I wanted him to learn something about human nature, about his own self, about this world, but he stayed a good guy throughout, one who is just trying to take revenge for what happened with his parents, who despite having a rough exterior actually cares for his team and for his ex-gf, who never realizes that Mi Joo loves him, and who takes the fall for the rest of them selflessly.
(3) With the exception of the mayor, the bad guys were all greedy politicians who had no driving force, no depth and were very flat.
CONCLUSION: I get that a lot of people love this drama, and I got into it with high expectations, but for the reasons stated above I was unable to join the majority, which is a bummer. Also, I keep wondering why the show is titled 38 Task Force. Hm.
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