Watcher Kdrama Episode 1

[Odette Millian]

Fifteenyears after the brutal murder that changed each of their lives, a scarred police officer, the head of his unit, and a lawyer come together. They work to dig into the case, leaving no corner unturned, and in the process, uncover many dark secrets.

This show was very well acted. I believed every bit of the characters. That being said I believe @saya that your assessment is correct. Chi-Gwang needs his own watcher and Young Goon is perfect for that. Of the 4, he is the only one that didn't "betray" the team. He wanted to find the truth. So Young Goon is the watcher for the watchers and will hopefully keep them on the straight and narrow.

i still dont understand this show and i am not sure if it was well written or not. i am leaning towards no and think that everyone involved is smart but too smart and it fails in what it presents. it's a shame and i would love to hear more critique and reviews of it since i think i oppose so much of what was done and found it polarizing. it's interesting to me that people loved it and found it an amazing thriller but fewer the opposite.

that being said, the director is talented. everyone was good in this show and i would rewatch it and need to finish it because it's interesting at the least (at worst, way too confusing and pedantic almost) but the way it was filmed and edited is beautiful. one of the most visually well done dramas i have seen. even more so than 'stranger' which the director did. i want to know what they filmed on. the blue tone wasn't too blue but fit the theme, the violence was grotesque and beautiful, and the blocking was insane. and honestly that alone would help me understand people drawn to the show.

on top of that while i think the writing fails, the acting succeeds. i'm really shocked at seo kang-joon--i just assumed he wasn't great. and maybe he wasn't outstanding but he was natural in this role and that's something i felt. everyone did a great job. han seok kyu and kim hyun joo are immensely capable. given that i literally cannot watch some scenes because i want to STRANGLE his character (the interrogation scenes where he's chewing gum oh my god it was so overwhelming and i hated it which means it was well done.) the noise of the gum and the irritations omfg! so lots to critique and criticize but plenty to praise.

also i, personally, would challenge this morally grey idea. i know i'm coming from the perspective of someone who supports abolition of a police state but what crimes are true crimes and what is crime? so what would make a murderer or someone corrupt and what is okay? i don't believe that being an officer exists in an ethical system therefor does chi-kwang need to be ethical in this particular system himself? is that corruption? i can never tell what is and isn't intentional with this show which is part of the issue i have with it but i think it's a valuable question to ask that they have presented. thanks for the writeup and would love to see more thoughts!

What this show did for you is make you think and ask questions. You can't ask for a better drama than that.

What is good? What is evil? What is black? What is white? These are the same questions Lan Zhan asked in Untamed.

When we're children we're taught good vs evil, black vs white. It's all well defined. As we grow and mature, we realize there are grey areas and some people can grow. Some states don't want us to question anything. Some people never grow.

i agree to an extent. i think this particular question was intentional (obviously) and they didn't need to answer it because it isn't an answerable question. can i say i think these people grew? maybe not completely.

i struggle with black and white thinking but as i learn more about the world, i understand the complexities. what i mean is that in an inherently oppressive structure, what would be the grey area? but this brings up a lot more sociopolitical questions which i feel like they are interested in but didn't get enough to truly delve deep. for me, the question is more of who defines morality and benefits from this obviously skewed definition and to get out of it, to survive, there will be no straight path but does that, then, make the person 'bad' or as harmful as others? much to think about.

oh and i am not sure if anyone has brought this up but a user, i forgot who and i don't want to mention them randomly so if they see this please reply, mentioned the US show 'the shield' which is based off a true case. the show (watcher) is clearly inspired by it and follows some of the patterns of the show (the shield) to a t.

i do not think it is an interesting ethical question at all....being part of the group that is hurt by this system, but the filmmaking makes it so. but i think a lot of people's takeaway was that exact question of morality. i have a very different perspective though. the quote is from this guardian article if anyone is interested! -and-radio/2019/apr/30/all-hail-the-shield-the-scuzzy-forgotten-classic-of-tvs-golden-age

I haven't really thought about the writing, so for me that means it wasn't terrible, but that also means it wasn't excellent. The writing was serviceable if a bit predictable. What allowed this to be a good show is as you said the excellent acting and direction. It elevated a regular script and made it more interesting.

Totally agree! I guess the biggest issue i failed to underline is that the show knew it was simple in itself so i dont think they had to throw in all these hoops and in fact they were unecessaryX wouldnt give it below a 7/10 tho! And all those factors rly made it compelling and their chemistry

One thing I was sure when the show was ended: I need to re-watch it! There are so many things I didn't particularly understand but I really enjoyed it very much. Do Chi-Gwang as a character has given me so much chills, especially when he's smirking.....

I've never seen a show with so many grey characters, and everyone made mistakes and not purely clean police. What the show has done to us is "raising our suspicion" from one character to another. We do believe that each character has his/her own card. Like from the beginning, when Deputy Commissioner Park insisted Do Chi-gwang to find the ledger, we may have guessed that "his name is on it." Also with the Commissioner Yeom.. Her moves were suspicious from the beginning especially when she put Jo inside the team to spy on what they're doing.... Same thing goes to Jang Hae-ryung....

One thing I don't really understand is Jae-myung went to prison... I know it's because of Do Chi-gwang has fabricated the evidence... but couldn't Jae-myung to at least tell YG the truth that he didn't kill his wife? This, I still don't understand till the end.....

The relation between the characters is what I love the most:

- Jae-sik & Tae-joo: Jae-sik's loyalty to Tae-joo is what's impressed me.... He even told honestly to Tae-joo when Hae-ryung "bought" him in exchange with visit his son in the juvenile center. And Tae-joo nonchalantly said to just go with the game... and pretended that Jae-sik was doing anything HR had asked.

- Han Tae-joo to YG: she's the one who worried YG the most... checked him in the house, and offered him comfort as best as she could although it could be driven by her guilt to make YG the witness in his mother's murder.

- Chi-Gwang with Young-goon: i love their relation dynamic the most. At one point, YG considered CG as his protege and mentor; but when he started to suspect him as his mother's murder, he started to distrust him... and it took a while for YG to start (not really) trust CG.

I think my problem for me is they never have a proper time to develop their emotional baggage, it seems feels only the surface, never dig deeper, nothing of what their traumatic past resonate or touch me. They focus too much time on who is who, or connect the dot, busy doing countless investigation,figuring out shady politic, etc. And how many times ledger has been mention be in this drama? For example, They killed Kim Jae Myung too fast, might be it's good for the plot, for me we audience never get the chance to feel the importnt of his character, despite him being one of major plot point in the whole drama. And after that, they keep focus on investigation instead of dig deeper Young Goon's inner trauma. Same with Han Tae Jo's or. Chi Kwang's past for imprisoned YG's father.

Yess.. it's answered at the last 2 episodes. But it's not not my issue. I want an emotional paid off, after they tease me and we see what emotional struggle each character had went through. The writers is good making a good plot, plenty red herring to make audience engage. But the emotional conflict is lacking sincerity to me. I have to give this drama nother try.

I feel like writing in the second part was weaker or they build so much tensions that they were unable deliver on the promise? Tae Joo's husband plot line was weak and unnecessary no matter how much I usually like Park Hoon. The acting was top notch and characters writing was pretty consistent and that I always appreciate in Kdramas because the lure to flip everything on the head for the idea of some "surprising" plot twist in the end seems to plague Korean scriptwriters.

There's so many things that i would want to say, but like you said it would be endless to start commenting:

" Watcher is a show that deserves a close watch, and then a rewatch, and then a thesis, to fully encapsulate every theme and every dark side of human nature that it took upon itself to delve into."

The level of intrication and complexity was mindblowing: it felt like the scriptwriter wrote a novel, and then broke it in scripts while editing and added a lot of dialogues, rather than working on a concept and trying to expand it without clear definition of the end like usually dramas do.

Everything about the dark atmosphere of the drama, the ambiguous motivation of its characters was kept so consistent from the beginning to the end within a constrained budget and limited locations and characters. It's incredibly impressive.

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