But I have been bothered more & more by Lee Ha Na - I always did like her but not so much now. This really became obvious as I watched this version - because I MUCH prefer the Thai actress!!!
That said, the story is pretty much the same. I feel some details were left out of this one, but it wasn't terribly noticeable until the last episode, where our killer's back story wasn't filled in as much, nor was the hunt for his lair as exciting. Not sure why since both had the same number of episodes.
Our male lead did a great job of being a crazy obsessed cop, & our killer really outdid himself - neither were quite as good as the Korean leads, but they still managed to put their own unique take on their characters.
I found this very watchable, and entertaining - I'd highly recommend it to anyone, in fact.
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great ML, ok actors. needed better writers
at the time of this review I'm still only at ep04.I didn't like the character Aran at first. but he's now become my favorite. the actor playing him did an awesome job.
but....
the script....
is really bad.
very poor dialogues. some scenes felt too draggy and just too preachy lol.
the female lead is ok; her acting is good but her dialogues sometimes just doesn't sound very sensical. some of her scenes make her character being top of the game very questionable too.
some scenes just ran a bit longer than what I think is necessary, with a lot of actions and dialogues that the series can do without//
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falls somewhere in the middle
Not terrible, but it could have been better. There's some issues with pacing and the scripting definitely needed some work. Never tell a criminal who has taken a hostage to "calm down." Do things to help them calm down without realizing it, but don't command them to "calm down." I was annoyed by the amount of times our leads just blatantly told people wielding knives or guns to "calm down." It was weird and is not how a hostage negotiation would go in real life. You also don't tell victims to calm down, either. Why would you do that? Yes, they're freaking out, but telling someone to calm down isn't going to help.Andrew Gregson as Aran was definitely this drama's strength. I'd never seen him before, and apart from having a striking resemblance to Alex O'Loughlin, he was really excellent. He has a great emotional range that seriously impressed me, and he's the only real reason why I kept watching. I like dramas that deal with someone who has lost a loved one due to their own mistakes. So watching him go on a revenge kick and then come to terms with it was important. His character was absolutely the high point.
HOWEVER, the writers did a serious disservice to their female lead, Captain Irin. I have no idea what they thought they were doing, but nobody is going to believe she is the top in her field. It's just not going to happen, and I put that solely on the shoulders of the writers. Yes, some episodes and dialogue for her are better than others. But that character makes a lot of critical thinking errors that are not ok for that type of role. Such a shame because Pancake did a great job. She just had so little to work with. The writers, yeah, it's on their shoulders that their script for her primarily sucked.
The series was a little gruesome, more than I like now, at my current age in life. So that was unfortunate. But I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it. I did like that it had no romance. You just sit down and watch a suspense Lakorn and don't have to worry about getting side-tracked by lovey-dovey looks. So that was great. I will track down more of Andrew Gregson's roles since I really ended up liking him a lot.
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