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rockmywings · 6 years

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Korean Crime TV Series Review#2: VOICE (보이스)

THE MAIN CHARACTERS TRIO:

Lead Male (Moo Jinhyuk “Mad Dog”): A veteran detective from Serious Crime Unit, being demoted as a leader of Golden Time Team under Emergency Call Department.

Lead Female (Kang Kwonjoo “Kang Center”): A profiler who has super hearing ability, The chief of Emergency Call Department.

second lead male Main Antagonist (Mo Taegu “Mr. Mo”): CEO of Sungwun Express, an upper-classman. Psychopath.

PLOT:

Main: To catch the criminal who has murdered both Mad Dog’s wife and Kang Center’s dad and who also committed several crimes.

Sub: To save a life who is in crucial danger from their emergency call.

OFFICIAL ENGLISH TRAILER:

youtube

REVIEW BY GENRES:

1) Various Crimes: There are Serial Killer, Kidnapping/Abduction, Child Abuse, Gangster, Illegal Immigrant, Stalker, Human Organ Trafficking, Corrupted Company, Corrupted Police--so complete. The series touches from individual crime to organizational crime, from marginal society to upper-class community. And the gruesome of crime scene places us in reality how horror the real crime is, why they are deserved to be censored in blur like News do on TV Channel (although it’s bothersome to me who use to see gore scenes in The Walking Dead and violence in any US Crime TV Series). I like how Golden Team looks so smart along with Kang Center herself as the profiler and with a hacking skilled officer to get any information. Though, there’s one staff whose multi-language ability is seriously wasted because what she did most times are similar to the hacker, as she also seeks information through internet. However, because our protagonists come from Emergency Call Center, we see how Serious Crime Unit are always outsmarted, making us wonder if they’re a bit competent in investigating while this one should be their expertise. For example, there’s no forensic or CCTV investigation ever shown here but somehow it makes sense because all of the victims who died here are under the main antagonist’s control who could ask to be covered while Golden Team successfully rescues all victims who made the emergency call.

2) Horror Elements: A part of the success of any popular scary movie is the perfect killer. There’s no other character more interesting in the show rather than the killer himself and I can guarantee Mo Taegu would steal your attention in every of his appearance. Let me explain it: A man wearing a black raincoat with face covered behind hoodie but his devilish grin is walking closer in calm steps, a sinister voice with a gravel-like quality of his jaw cracks then strikes the fear of a tormented fresh-faced woman before brutally murdering her--that’s your first impression of him. But, it wasn’t just a typical random unfortunate person whom a serial killer encounter in the dark street with certain modus operandi, nope!! More the killer is introduced, you realize he’s a type who could appear right in front of your door or behind the window creepily, making a hiss like a dinosaur to enter your room whether he decides to kill or just intentionally scare you--we’d find he did it at least 4-5 times in the series!!! (and my fave is when Kwonjoo met his eyes behind the lookout lens of her door) And behind the mask, there’s a rich, smart, and classy-typed businessman wearing an elegant suit with charming face who enchants everyone--so charismatic. Well, there is one episode that doesn’t really makes sense when he’s brutally murdering Madam Fantasia off-screen. The body is nowhere to be found in the building while he clearly didn’t have enough time to hid it in his car unnoticeable, laundry his suit (I mean, look at how much the blood he spread on floor and wall while he killed her not under his raincoat), peeking on Kang Center who has arrived 10 minutes after the phone call only to see her reaction finding his crime scene, then come back to meeting room he left before. But fuck off the logic, once again, this is horror show; let’s enjoy every killing scene of every bone he’s crushing using his kettlebell, or grotesque art of blood he painted on the wall citing Bible quote, or when he keeps the body wrapped in his house then doing bloodbath like Elizabeth Bathory, it’s all horrifyingly entertaining. Don’t forget that his victims also made a bad move tropes to meet him and give us a death flag. As if it wasn’t enough, Taegu also has some hallucination things, how creepy it is when he stared at the policeman in the car like a supernatural horror and when he’s being murdered on his mind like a zombie scene. Although those all aren’t enough to scare me, I’m sure there are some audiences who maintain to keep watching this show with eyes peeking behind their fingers but you can’t leave it yet to see who he’d murder next and who’d be survived. You’d be surprised when it reveals he commits more crimes through his company and more number of murders he had done for years with many different sizes of his weapon that will freak you out!! And with high status to work with gangster and a certain police to cover it all whom he could just eliminate as his next murdering target if he wanted, I’ll say “Welcome to Sungwun City, Mo Taegu’s World.” He is too complete to be a psychopath, an extremely powerful evil case with intellect brain to know what he does. He could be starring his own horror movie if Voice ever made a prequel. Maybe the only thing he hadn’t done yet (or ever shown) is cooking and eating the victims' meat LOL. But seriously, as the citing bible, doing bloodbath, and keeping body or organs, comes from nowhere (that is kinda different persona from the mysterious killer in eps 1-3); the writer even can add if he was ever cannibal too.

3) The high suspense in every episode: While the main villain is horror enough, the co-villains in some emergency cases also could raise the suspension that makes you hold your chair and grit your teeth. This was the most exciting thing because you could see desperate emotions of the victims transported through the call and how The Golden Team is rescuing them, battle in countdown timer minutes by minutes, second by second. Even after the first two cases that you become to feel every rescue is predictably success, you won’t lose the suspense. Voice is directed in plot-driven like a formula one’s car and once you’re seated there, you can’t stop ‘til finish line. My fave case is the child abuse, we feel so pity and hopeless because the one who makes a call is a little boy hiding in washing machine and bleeding. The least suspense is the rescue of bus passengers as the last rescue case in eps 15, probably I’ve been pretty surfeited of the repetitive rescue (but the case is important to show how crazy Mr. Mo runs his business).

4) Full Packed Action: Well, a premise of a lead male seeks revenge for the murder of the person he loves is cliche and standard in action movies; this how Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo’s confrontation has been lead since the series prolog, we know their final battle should happen. Jinhyuk himself wouldn’t be called “Mad Dog” without reason if this genre were absent. Look how his action is performed throughout the series, especially when he beat up all the gangsters in the meat house—so intense and brutal!! Don’t ever ask his nonstop energy, this is how action genre treats the main hero. Then, I expect a same intense hand in hand combat scene as to how action movie’s climax battle should be handled, main hero and main villain are equal although it’s predictable who’d be the winner in the end. Both Mad Dog and Mr. Mo are canonly brutal, you can see the same of them staring terrifyingly and intimidating when they talked to Nam Sang Tae in different scenes; you see how strong they are. Instead, we just get a short gunfighting?! I don’t complaint the gunfighting, but I mean, can they also make a duel with Jet Kun Do vs Tae Kwon Do as the two actors have the martial art skill for real? The director could make they ran out of bullet, then fight brutally, then the cops stop them to arrest him. It’s a wasted potential because the director even had given Mad Dog’s fight against a South East Asian assassin for two episodes! However, Taegu’s ending in the rooftop scene is still satisfying. Maybe the concept of Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo kinda like Batman and Joker. Despite being evil, of course Joker is powerless compared to Batman’s strength if he ever challenged him in combat. The purpose isn’t about which one is stronger. Same as Joker provokes Batman, Taegu also enjoys provoking Jinhyuk to kill himself even by telling him how he killed his wife, to prove he’s just another monster like him. And although we see how Jinhyuk doesn't hesitate to shoot Taegu four times in the rooftop brutally, he didn’t kill him at the end as he pities his enemy. But audiences would know later how it punishes Taegu in a very cruel way unexpectedly compared to what if he just died in Jinhyuk’s hand as he wishes. And of course, he deserves it.

5) The Drama is about The Victims: As well as how the credit title is presented, it tells us that this show is about the victim’s voice in asking help that used to be abandoned by slow police procedural--including our hero and heroine’s beloved one. But not only that, the profiler’s approach to seeking the Criminal’s motive then trying to calm them, making them tremble, and feeling sympathy really reminds me of Criminal Minds; criminals can be born because they were a victim too in the past--trust me, even you’d pity Taegu in the end!

6) Almost Zero Romance:

Tbh, I don’t like the cliche that the lead male and lead female eventually hook up in the end (although I’m okay with the possible idea) so I’m glad it doesn’t happen with Voice. Even though they start to work together as a team professionally, they didn’t have to fall into an affair like duo Mulder and Scully of The X-Files. Their relationship is amazingly platonic ‘til the end as you watch them developing trust, teamwork, bond, and care to each other.

If there’s any romance ever sparking, two Kwonjoo’s staffs in Emergency Call may be hinted. The woman is cool at first while the guy is cheerful and kind of a flirt. An obsessive fan of him is even jealous of her. But as I said, it was just hinted. Their occasional heartwarming interaction may be made for taking a break in all suspense and violent cases. It wasn’t out of place since it’s just a little and eps 9 could give you space to breathe.

Well, this one depends on interpretation, but Taegu seems to have special attraction/interest of Kwonjoo sexually (of course, in a sick mind only psychopath could describe), for example when he stalked her, caressed her bed, stared at her picture, gave her a gift, happy when she found him, claimed that both of them are different from common herd, and show a disappointment that she doesn’t like it. On her profiling, Kwonjoo said why he’s “soft” at her probably because she reminds him of his mother, the only person he genuinely loves. Their chemistry is something the audiences not expecting before, especially in the rooftop scene as their climax. But I'm sure no one complaints [laughs].

Nah, the only true romance no one can’t debate is Jinhyuk’s love for his deceased wife; how he’s broken, how’s he seeks revenge, and then how he finally let it go.

OTHER POSSIBLE FLAWS:

Voice is an easy story and predictable with those action, suspense, and horror elements (although there’s still a twist); the ending is also clear, not open. The main mystery isn’t something that makes you heavily think to guess who is the culprit or suspect someone. Well, it’s enough to thrill for half series because once Taegu’s character is introduced at eps 8, the focus itself actually isn’t about a conspiracy behind the police/prosecutor institution like TvN Signal or TvN Stranger since the mastermind is the person outside it. Some audience may be fooled or even disappointed about it but I’m not (once again, I said Taegu’s character as psychopath fits more in horror tropes). The procedural pace, the variety of crimes, and the plot-driven won’t make you bored that you probably forget to ask for character development and question the logic; though, sometimes the running clock is too long to make us question if the run really happened just in 5 minutes.

The lead female’s super hearing ability is the reason why all the emergency rescues success where the title “Voice” comes from, it’s full an entertaining fiction, we know real life isn’t like that. Still, it isn’t without flaw; for example, she could amazingly hear the boy’s slow tap behind the wall through communication but she failed to hear the hitting sound Taegu made when he’s smashing Daeshik’s head in the basement right when she’s entering his house. And her ability might be useless if the criminals were smart enough to make sure there's no cellphone being kept in their victim's pocket to be able to make contacts.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Voice is definitely my fave Korean TV Series so far. It isn’t perfect but somehow I don’t feel this is a Kdrama at all. Look at those three main characters:

The nuance I feel around the lead female’s department and how she handles the cases is almost like when I watch US TV Series of Police Procedural Dramas (many felt like Criminal Minds mixed with 9-1-1),

the lead male’s fighting scene is like The Raid, Bourne, or John Wick (also the Surim-dong case reminds me of NCIS: New Orleans’s case “Clearwater”),

the main killer’s approach is like Wes Craven’s SCREAM and his personality is like American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman.

With these references, I don’t recommend this series to those who can’t stand to watch gruesome violence. The age rating in Korea's Standard is 19+ and if it was measured to my country's rating standard (Indonesia), it'd be 21+.

I haven’t mentioned yet that the actors and the actresses, both leads and supporting, are amazing. I don’t watch much Korean entertainment (movie and show) so this is the first time I’m introduced to them all, and suddenly both Jinhyuk’s actor (Jang Hyuk) and Taegu’s actor (Kim Jae Wook) are added to my fave list for me interested to watch their other projects. I also like the veteran actress who plays a granny in Surim-dong incident; she could act as three different characters!

I’m looking forward to Season 2 aired on 11th August 2018. Now, without Jinhyuk and Taegu’s characters anymore as their confrontation story is over; I wonder if this time The Golden Team somehow ever fails to save a life like TvN Signal and have kind of a sociopath as main villain like OCN Tunnel. Who knows? I still can’t imagine someone more psycho and charismatic than Taegu yet haha. And with a different director, it’s probably not horror as season 1 anymore, but more thriller. But most importantly, I want to see and know more about the heroine, Kang Center, she’s at least need character development since she was the core of “voice”.

#ocn voice #kdrama #lee ha na #jang hyuk #kim jae wook #review #tv series

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