Criminal Minds (2017)

If you are into crime dramas, then give this a shot.

I watched the whole drama for 3 days only. I discovered it after watching Flower of Evil. And I have not seen the original Criminal Minds.

I believe that the drama's focus is on the stories of the killers, investigation, and the crime process. It's not about the character development, love story (there's none), etc.. So, you wouldn't see these in the drama. (Although, there are some scenes that do show them).

I've seen a lot of negative reviews on this drama but I think as long as you are more into crimes than character development, this should be a good drama for you. Also, I forgot to mention that this is a really cool drama for people interested in psychology- I'm not sure if they are accurate, but they are believable.

*Flower of Evil is definitely a better drama, so if you decided to drop this, watch that!

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The key point of the series is the character's story and the cast. While the story of the series lies under one villain,[Reaper] it was sewn for substories. The underlying motif of the series "as crime" remained alarming throughout. The dialogue/lines from script requires patience for it's viewers. The scene is one-sided so the story is definitely dependent to the episode development.  Sometimes, the investigation could be dreary but the process of profiling, catching the criminal was entertaining. I personally quite pick up some informative terms.
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The series has it's depth and execution, the character-story is stronger than of it's other features. It surely failed on small connecting dots but , as whole, I think it hold more substance than any investigating teams out there in a series.

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Really i wasted my time

When i saw lee joon ki in and moon chae won the couple that solicited everyone in flower of evil, i decided to watch this drama but from the frame of the story, it was groundless, one team is investigating cases, each episode is independent , the case scenario is not adjusted per episode as it may start at the end of an episode and continue with the another, the recap is a mess.
The first two episodes and the last two episodes can presume everything. Among the storyline, there is many defaults and some good outwork.
first let me start with the good things i noticed, the NCI agents are powerful as team, i liked this profiling method to unveil the criminal, the IT used for tracking, hacking, and extracting information is well mastered, they study the psychological background of the criminal to identify him and his motive for murder which was the trauma the most reason that developed the desire to kill someone in addition to the false believes triggered by a psychological disorder subjected by the trauma.
On the other hand, their cleverness is countered by some dumb decisions that they make or fruitless move that they take which may endanger them like in the last episode so where was the backup knowing that the reaper isn't someone to be taken lightly( i liked his personality btw and how he dazed the authorities exposing their weak points and soften parts).plus there is some technical problem in the montage that some scenes are doubled beside that if they have ended an episode while they won the investigation and cought the criminal, the next episode start anew like nothing happened in the previous one,example when Na young and hyun jun were injured while she was abducted by that criminal who has multiple personality disorder, the next episode, they were sane like nothing happened.
Let go also of the things that has not been sort it out properly in the scripts and others..
Quotes at the end of each investigation were valuable/ the ost were good also.
There was no love story in this drama and that's a dark point also not much to laugh about, only the last episodes can give a bit of a goosebumps but it doesn't last long .
This drama was not a success unfortunately

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A Good Start That Went Nowhere

The first case which kick-started everything was good with enough intrigue and stakes to make it worthwhile, however, the subsequent cases were unbelievably bland and generic in comparison. I'm not sure why they went for this route, they usually preserve the big case until the end but here they showed most what there's to it at the very beginning. There was a small follow up to it at the end but not much to consider. The cast members were fine but the drama didn't do a good job building the team dynamic and relationships which added another layer of disconnect with the stories and cases. There's no point in comparing the drama to the source material because it's a loose adaptation.

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One Time Watch; Starts well but loses its touch somewhere in between.

Let's start with the fact that I have not watched the English version of this show yet, so the Korean one was a fresh one for me where I did not have any kind of expectations at all. I started watching because of the cast line-up and the detective aspect of it. I would separate my review into Story and then Everything Else.

The Story:
It started good, like any other detective drama, it started with one case per episode, with each detective's own back story and a case at hand. Instead of being just investigators, they were profilers, so it was fun and interesting listening to the psychological aspects of the suspects. They used it quite well as well. However, this became a little repetitive as the show went on. Cases, at their very core, were kind of similar, where the motive and the MO of the case were similar and even the way it was revealed. Also, whenever someone was abducted or there was a time-related issue, the team was way too calm.
In the end, I would say that it didn't have anything grand planned out as a show should end. There were not that high stakes that would keep us on the edge of the seat. I would say they exhausted a good plotline in the middle of the show.

However, a few cases were a lot interesting, and getting into the minds of such criminals was intriguing.

Other things:
I liked the acting a lot, though I felt there was a weird amount of screen time distribution done. I would have liked to see some interpersonal relations between the detectives, even a few casual moments of them talking and such. In a few instances, they tried to focus on that but then suddenly forgot about it. I liked the cast and their acting but in all couldn't connect to any one of them. The music in the intro and outro was lit. And the direction was also good. In a few cases I was at the edge of the seat and I liked the fact that just to do a thrilling moment they didn't just turn the lightings off.

Overall, it was an enjoyable watch for 70% of the time. I won't rewatch it for sure ever but if you are looking for some good detective series and have watched all obvious famous ones, you can try this for sure.

This was my first review in like 5 years of my watching. Anyways, enjoy watching!

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I rarely listen to reviews. I like watching things and making up my own mind.

With that said, I was a HUGE fan of the original Criminal Minds until they began replacing cast members. Then I just stopped watching because after Morgan and Garcia were no longer a thing, what's the point?

What everyone seem to forget is this is a REMAKE. It's not a continuation, it's not a whole new series around the same premise, it's a remake. Another thing people need to appreciate too is that it is fiction. It doesn't have to match culturally with the country it's being made in. It's fiction.

Now, even though I know it is a remake, people has this habit of comparing remakes to the original. That is one of the MAJOR reasons why we can't enjoy remakes because we go in with an expectation rather than taking things on their own merit. At the beginning of watching this, I pushed the original cast out of my mind and hit play.

First of all, if you're looking for romance - not the show.

Now, with that out of the way. The cases they chose from the original to remake are stories that I believe they picked so that he could match with the underlying story they've chosen to add to the series. They also had to ensure the cases are memorable from the original which I believe they did great because I remembered all those cases.

The major case that carried through the entire series was one I binged from the original with Stretch.

The acting was great. The cases had their little Korean writer twists which I appreciated. The music was great, I am happy about that. I don't think I've ever seen Joo Gi in anything before. His face wasn't familiar but he was a great actor. I loved the way the team talked out the cases between each other.

Lee Han - that character reminded me so much of Reed and I adored him fully. Gi Hyung wasn't that great of a leader but I could see this frailty and understand his hesitation. I get him as a character.

Now, what I had issues with.
1. The relationship between the cop and the computer girl - they needed to be closer, not lovers close, but their friendship lacked the kind of love and care I wanted.

2, I didn't like the Sun Moo character. While she lacked empathy and that could be a great character trait, if written well, there was something entirely too cold about her. Even in the end I still couldn't figure out what it was but I felt nothing fr her.

3. The team, though they had drama from the beginning, there isn't the same kind of close-knit kind of deal I wanted. I love a good team tv show and love seeing relationships develop, but this show had none of that.

4. The ending - um....yeah, nope. Nope. Nope.

I agree, the show needs little tweaks here and there but it is not half as bad as everyone is making it out to be, The actors I felt worked very well with what they had and if you put the original CM to the back of your mind and watch these actors for their own merit, you'd actually enjoy this.

I will be adding this to the rewatch list to watch with my niece once this COVID garbage is over.

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You are definitely going in for a treat, especially if you have not seen the US original show. Initially, I was conflicted to start this show because of the rating, but I gave the first episode a chance anyway because I wanted to see Lee Joon Gi in something else (the first of anything I have seen him in was My Girl (2005), so this was a major glow up of him for me). To my surprise, the first episode was impressionable (more specifically the first two minutes opening) and it did hook me enough to make me feel curious about the rest of it.

In terms of the cases, I do find that they have picked the most unique and interesting cases in this drama so I did find myself very invested in the villain's acting more than the lead characters' acting most times. The most memorable villains to me were Jo Han Chul, Jung Tae Woo and Kim Won Hae and I might pick the episodes they appeared in to rewatch although those can be pretty gruesome because they are such amazing show stealers!

Although the cases were primarily interesting enough, there seem to be some noticeable problems in the editing room. For instance, in multiple episodes, the transition from the ending of a case to the next especially when it happens midway the episode instead of as an ending cliffhanger was rather awkward. For instance, in one of the later episodes, the case was frustratingly not properly concluded, and the scene just moved on suddenly to a rather jovial Nana Hwang in the office inviting her colleagues for a drink.

This scene could have been added to show off some camaraderie between the team members, but it was awkwardly placed, and very far off or little in-between. There was also some interesting backstories with the character Ha Sun Woo (the FL), but at the end of it, we are not sure if those were the only issues that made her character so cold/frozen in demeanour. Likewise, contrary to some viewers who thought the actors who played Lee Han and Nana Hwang were trying too hard to be quirky, I didn't find them that way at all, in fact, I really liked them for they are all so competent at what they do. The only problem here is that these characters were not given enough screen time to develop their personalities more and make them more engaging outside of their investigative roles.

Team Leader Kang and his subordinates are a great team, but I also understand when other viewers say they wished we managed to see more of Kang Ki Hyung-Kim Hyun Joon bromance beyond their supervisor-subordinate relationship, something like what WATCHER has given us in the relationship between Do Gi Kwang and Kim Young Goon. I also read somewhere that Lee Joon Gi's character in this remake is an addition to the original, so that may explain why some people find the character of team leader Kang a bit stiff/boring, since most of the kickass scenes were carried out by Lee Joon Gi himself (not that there were many of it). I also respected that the writer/director did not explore a deeper relationship between Kim Hyun Joon and Ha Sun Woo here, but I wished we at least got to see more of their friendship and not just some work-related stiffness. Well, the reason I get her character is that there are female investigators out there in real life who's demeanours are as stiff as a rock exactly the way she portrayed here or in the original, but I am not sure if that worked in favour of this drama given her character came out rather flat and largely uninteresting. Lee Sun Bin is a great actress, and more than just a very beautiful face; there's a specific episode here which proved that.

There were two directors actually for this drama and PD Lee quit before the first episode airing so the remaining of the show was directed by PD Yang. We are not sure at which episode of the drama did he quit, but many viewers seemed to note that the quality of the directing may have improved from episode 3 onwards. Nevertheless, I cannot testify to this, because the problematic transitional scene editing I mentioned above actually happened way later, in episode 15. But the middle part definitely had the most interesting cases in the entire series.

All in all, the more favourable reviews most likely came from viewers who have not seen the original, and the least favourable ones came from those who have. This show definitely had its multiple glaring flaws mainly of its lack of leads character development, the rushed process of criminal profiling itself (or some very rushed case's conclusion), the lack of showmanship of team members' chemistry as well as the miscalculated editing for some transitional scenes. That being said, these, in my opinion, were most likely issues with the episodes constraint, as they finished the entire drama in only 20 episodes, and many things felt rushed and could have been given more space to be explored properly had it was given more screen time, say at least 24 episodes or more. If only there were more episodes to this, I am sure THE FINALE SHOWDOWN COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER.

This is the first drama where I seemed to have picked up on the difference between the writing vs. directing of a drama, maybe hugely because this is a remake. My entire reviews to-date have noted more on the writing, but this drama seemed to have more noticeable flaws in the directing side. Therefore the marks I deducted off the story is actually for the directing, not writing.

However, definitely a drama worth the watch, because the great things that kept a viewer engaged were enough to make the viewing experience redeemable, bearing its obvious flaws. I leave the overall score very high because I remember really liking Hello Monster a lot as an overall story, but the crime part there was just not dark enough, and the cases here had the kind of brutality (read: realness and impact) that I like in a police-procedural series, so I favour this drama a lot in that sense of comparison. In all seriousness, the cases are really great though again, some profiling here felt rushed or appeared out-of-nowhere, but definitely a good homage to the US show, so all props to the scriptwriter of the original series!

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Main actors are wasted, the villains and victims actors shined in this show

This drama is just not good nor is it for me. Pity. I wanted to like this one since this is Lee Joon Gi and Moon Chae Won together. But the plot's execution is just not good. There are some episodes which are more interesting for me than the others (I find the cases in those episodes more compelling to watch), but this drama just fails for me to connect them with the main characters emotionally. I do appreciate some episodes that show the background and the struggles of some NCI members. Actingwise, as good as Joon Gi and Chae Won are as actors in general, the actors that were really given the chance to shine here are neither them nor the rest of the NCI team, but the actors playing the villains and their victims. At least Joon Gi and Son Hyun Joo (the other super main character NCI member) have some moments where they show their acting moments, I just wish Chae Won is given a heavy scene herself too (I hope people who only seen her in this one call her a bad actress, she has dramas and movies before this one where her acting really shine). I like Lee Sun Bin, Go Yoon and Yoo Sun in their respective roles but I think this drama didn't make them shine in their own way either (I do think Lee Sun Bin has been given more than the other two actors). Giving this drama a 6.5

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harmful stereotypes of mental health

It started out fine with a lot of potential. Originally it had a good chance at a good plot but halfway through they just finished part of the main plot? Was a very weird choice to do and rest of the main plot just kinda dragged along with no character development at all. The crimes was kind of interesting but they sometimes magically solved it with profiling in ways I don't know how they did it. They saw like a half eaten cookie and just "this guy must have bad teeth caused by chewing on pencils so we should go see dentists nearby and find the killer in their database" it was just a lot of reaching or sometimes something would perfectly happen right in front of them that caused them to solve it.

The BIGGEST issue i had though with this show was that with every episode though I noticed that all the killers had some sort of mental health problematic that somehow caused them to kill. Mental health disorders does in no way contribute to a person being a killer! This made all the main characters refer to the bad guy as crazy, unstable and other harmful ways to look at mental health. Often they got the diagnosis seriously wrong too! Not sure if this is spoilers but one of the killers had dissociative identity disorder where one of his alters was his abusive dad.. usually DID is caused by trauma and seperates the trauma from the main personality to cope with what has happened. it doesnt intensify it and copy another persons personality?!

Also one of the bad guys had a unnamed mental issue, im guessing they tried a stereotype of schizophrenia but they never said what he had just that he was crazy. He was going to some sort of event to celebrate that he was finally healthy again and ofc he suddenly "snapped" and killed a bunch of people.

Somehow i watched this until the end but the ending made me laugh out loud because it was so stupid. they had so many chances to stop the main antagonist but for some reason never did, you'd think the guns they had was fake at that point.. I would advice to steer clear of this series because its so all over the place.

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OMG! This is some crazy insane stuff right here. Um whoever the screenwriter is, has a morbid mind. I have to pray now that I am seeing this. With Lee Joon Gi in this is why I watch~ If you like scary crime scenes this is for you... NOT for me... It is unbelievable!

Lee Joon Gi, a lot of Martial Art action with his turn and high kick moves! All done by him and I LOVE it! What a great actor he is all around! I love Lee Joon Gi in the Historical KDramas but seeing him as an NCI detective was pretty great. I got to see him differently. He is my #1 Top South Korean actor.

The storyline was so full of blood, I wanted to hurl, but it kind of stopped after the 8-9 episode. The killings are usually regarding women and a few men. I'm glad they are bringing awareness to mental illness in people who have homicidal tendencies. The cases may be fictional but it does exist in the real world. Sad but True! The cases shown were horrific and I even felt sympathy for the victims. Because these people exist, we need to be beware and know our surroundings.

The acting of the cast was so believable which made it a great South Korean Drama! All the guest cast, wow, very convincing as criminals! Son Hyun Joo who played Kang Ki Hyung the head of the NCI unit, man oh man, I thought he the real thing. Moon Chae Won, Yoo Sun, Lee Sun Bin, and Go Yoon all play main leads I also thought they were the real great that's how great they did.

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Close to American CM

Truly copied each character but adjusted background and character. It has similarities making it interesting.
You won’t see Reed character falling for AJ here tho hehehe

Hitch we character is debatable and he didn’t remarried in Korean version .

Love the Korean version of crimes. This series confirmed that cultures may be different but crimes are the same; commuted by twisted minds.

I enjoy each from story features in the series.

It is a good recommendation to watch the series. It is entertaining and keeps getting better each episode.

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