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Nobody Knows korean drama review
Completed
Nobody Knows
13 people found this review helpful
by nimwoo
Apr 25, 2020
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 9.0
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers
'Nobody Knows' is a crime drama about finding one's life purpose and fulfillment. This is not your typical crime kdrama in which you will spend about 80% of the time trying to find the clues that will lead you to the killer or culprit. It's very common in some crime dramas like '365: Repeat The Year' or 'Memorist' for the audience to be as clueless as the cast and actually 'work together' to solve the cases and find the killer/culprit. Most crime dramas make you break your head to think who could be the culprit and that's a considerable part of the plot and the fun of the drama.

However, what stood out about 'Nobody Knows' for me is that this is not the type of culprit-hunting kdrama. We actually see the culprit as the culprit in a rather early stage of the drama and we get to know him as a character much earlier than when the police even starts suspecting this person. And still, it does not take the fun out of it because 'Nobody Knows' manages to deliver a perfectly-written story with nothing but outstanding acting, plot, greatly likable characters and an amazing character development and self-growth.

Cha Young Jin is a detective whose life changed when her best friend was brutally murdered by a serial killer and she decides to spend her life trying to find the killer. I can't imagine how strong you must be to make your life be absolutely about finding a killer and to succeed at work because of that one goal. She threw everyone out of her life in order to fulfill this goal. While doing so, she was shown as a cold-hearted woman who let nobody in her life, but there was a kid who touched her heart and she opened the door for him. I love the fact that even though she was this tough woman since the very beginning of the drama, we could always see how warm and caring she was about Eun Ho, and that's something I truly loved about her character.

Go Eun Ho is the strongest middle schooler that I have ever seen in a kdrama. We usually just have school dramas about high school, kids that are almost about to graduate and start college, etc., but here we see a kid in middle school who happens to have such a powerful energy to change everyone around him. He turned Cha Young Jin into a person who was not closed to her feelings anymore, he made Dong Myung stop being a bully, Min Sung gain confidence and stand up for himself, his homeroom teacher Lee Sun Woo realize his previous mistakes and gave him a new opportunity to be a good teacher; he was powerful enough to even change his mom. This boy is the purest, softest and strongest kid ever, as he didn't let his hardships outshine his kind personality. Such a beautiful kid.

I loved every other side character that was directly or indirectly related to Young Jin or Eun Ho. Lee Sun Woo's crush on Young Jin was undeniable and even though we did not get anything, not even a tiny hint that could make us think that they may start a romantic relationship, there's no way that anyone can make me think that Sun Woo wasn't head over hills for Young Jin and wanted to be much more than whatever their relationship was about. I loved how supportive and willing to cooperate he always was, he also made sure that as far as his scope went, he could be of use to resolve the cases. The actor is so tiny and cute but this character had such a strong personality and was absolutely lovely.

Dong Myung and Min Sung were the best friends that Eun Ho could ever have, as they were never perfect and never even intended to be, but they were mature enough to own up for their mistakes and try to do better in life; and all of this was thanks to Go Eun Ho. He really changed everyone around him and these two boys will forever thank him for helping them become the good kids that they are. I really loved the three friends dynamic and how worried and caring they were all about each other.

Getting to one of the highlights of this drama: Baek Sang Ho. This man! What a masterpiece of character and portrayal he was. At first I did think he was suspicious or probably just very crazy and creepy (like when Young Jin and Sang Ho were at Millennium Hotel's rooftop in the very first episodes and he said that he hoped Eun Ho was pushed instead of jumping by himself because that would be much more traumatic for Young Jin --hinting a possible suicide), so it was a nice surprise to slowly reveal all his madness and get to know his thought process, how everything he did had a meaning and it was to make someone suffer as much as they can. Baek Sang Ho was a traumatized kid, and although trauma definitely does not justify crimes, he was definitely not 100% to blame for becoming this psycho. When BSH and CYJ were again at the rooftop in ep 16 and he saw how YJ saved him because of Eun Ho (basically), he was reminded of his dark past and wondered if his life would've been different if he had been saved by CYJ... I almost felt for him. At the core, he was still a human (like the detective later said) and had human emotions that were suppressed by another psycho and turned him into one himself. Nonetheless, BSH was definitely perfectly built character and Park Hoon's portrayal was academy-award worthy.

Every other side character that was part of this amazing cast and drama had a reason to exist and that's one of the many things that I loved about this drama. I thought multiple times that it was just amazing how everything was connected and how every character added something either to the stigmata murders, or Eun Ho's case. Baek Sang Ho's villain squad, the violent cases team, Eun Ho's mom Tae Hyung, the school director, etc. All these characters contributed to make this such an amazing crime drama that is worth every single minute of your time. Definitely one of the best 2020 K-Dramas and one of the best in general too.

As an ending note, I'm not giving this drama a full score because there were some very little plot details that I am not satisfied about, like whatever happened with Young Jin's parents, or how Baek Sang Ho saved Bae Sun Ah (it was never revealed); and also I'm not sure if it was during the whole drama or just by the end, but the editing felt too off for me in the last eps. There were a couple of continuity errors that put me off: simple things like if a chair was placed in some way in scene A but then the camera changes and the chair is in a completely different position, or a character posture in the same context, the content of the glasses being different in one camera vs another, etc. Also, the action scenes by the end were not very fluent (Young Jin's fights against Doo Shik and Hee Dong), time lapses were not shown properly... I studied TV production for about 2 years so I know a bit about these things, which makes me pay attention and spot this kind of mistakes and that's why I'm giving it 9.0. But overall, it's definitely such an amazing drama worth watched.
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