Mouse - A Book with Side Stories in TV format

Mouse is one of the rare Korean dramas, where it feels like the write planned out everything that would happen in each episode from the start. This might have come with some drawbacks, as there are some episodes that felt like the directors had to cut some scenes in order to make it under the allotted run time of those episodes.

This drama does not have the typical rushed ending that you usually see in Korean dramas. It also does not 'end early' and just put filler episodes at the end.

The side characters in the drama were fleshed out. Each one of them had roles to play. They weren't just thrown out of the window near the end which is what happens in most Korean dramas.

Now, I'll discuss the possible issues that you might face when watching this drama. The first 7 minutes of the 1st episode might be slow for some people. But, you need to remember that this is much better than having to watch 2 to 3 episodes before the pace even picks up.

Next, the pacing around the middle episodes is slower compared to the rest. These episodes still contributed to the overall story, but they felt more like a side story adding to the lore of this drama. Lastly, the gory scenes are censored. This is to be expected, but it would have been better for the international release to not be censored.

Is the drama predictable? If you have read a number of detective/mystery books or you have watched tens or hundreds of mystery TV shows, movies or anime that have made you familiar with the tropes, then yes it is possible to predict who the killer is within the first 3 episodes.

So why watch if it's predictable? Well, you have only answered one or two mysteries, there are other questions that need to be answered.

As for the acting, Lee Hee Joon is the one that stood out the most to me. You could just feel the emotions of his character.

Mouse is a well-written detective/mystery drama with pacing issues in the middle. This might put-off some people, but do note that these 'side stories' in the middle episodes add to the overall story of the drama.

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