Kdrama 2019

Watcher (Kdrama Review & Summary)

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• Genre: Action, Policing, Legal, Thriller, Crime, Cat & Mouse chase
• Date Released: 6 July 2019
• Origin: South Korea
• Kdrama: 16 Episodes

Cast:

• Han Suk Kyu as Do Chi-Gwang
• Seo Kang Joon as Kim Young-Koon
• Kim Hyun Joo as Han Tae-Joo
• Heo Sung Tae as Jang Hae-Ryong
• Park Joo Hee as Jo Soo-Yeon
• Ahn Kil Kang as Kim Jae-Myung (Young Koon’s father)
• Lee Jae Yoon as Kim Kang-Wook
• Kim Soo Jin as Yeom Dong Sook (Commissioner)
• Joo Jin Mo as Park Jin-Woo (Deputy Commissioner)
• Jung Soon Won as Joon Han Wook (Chaebol)
• Park Ji Hoon as Park Si Yeong (Ex Policeman)
• Kim Joo Yeon as Baek Song I

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Episode 1 & 2

This is a really good drama, often taut with tension.

The three main leads are very watchable, but Han Suk Kyu was without a doubt the one that really carries the drama.  He is such a good actor.

Do Chi Gwang, Han Tae Joo and Kim Young Koon are connected to a rather violent past.

Do Chi Gwang was a colleague of Kim Young Koon’s father, who was also a police office.

That one rainy night a few years back, Kim Young Koon witnessed his father killing his mother and Do Chi Gwang was the arresting officer.

Being a young witness, Kim Young Koon was interviewed by a state prosecutor which happened to be Han Tae Joo.

Now, maybe ten years on, Kim Young Koon was a traffic patrol officer, who was good and rather exacting with his job.

He caught Son Byeong-Gil speeding but he noticed that he was behaving rather suspiciously.  He later noticed his bloodied hand.

Son Byeong Gil desperately tried to get away.

Kim Young Koon gave chase until they came into a playground where Son Byeong plucked a little girl from a climbing frame.

He ran off with the girl while holding a Phillips screwdriver.

Fearing for the safety of the young girl, Kim Young Koon shoot Son Byeong Gil in the shoulder who still got away.

Kim Young Koon followed the drops of blood and found Son Byeong into a house.  He was just about to enter the house when he was stopped by the police from violent crime.

Kim Young Koon felt that something was not right and tried to follow but found that the police locked the door.

Kim Young Koon threw himself into the window and found that the police was about to eliminate Son Byeong Gil.

They were dirty cops.  It turned out that they coerced Son Byeong Gil to kidnap the son of a rich CEO who was currently in jail.

And the CEO’s lawyer was Han Tae Joo.

In the meantime, Do Chi Gwang was almost a one-man member of a division who investigates corruption in the police.

One of the cases he was given was the Son Byeong Gi shooting by a policeman.

He found that Kim Young Koon was being violently interrogated with the cameras having been turned off.

He took responsibility for Kim Young Koon and together they investigated what was really happening with the kidnapping.

In the end they got the son of the the CEO back together with the ransom money.

Do Chi Gwang was given carte blanche to create a more prominent department investigate police corruption.  He can choose his team member.

Actually, his first team member was the lawyer Han Tae Joon who would like to make bad people kill each other.

And Kim Young Koon had also been transferred to the department. Their fourth member is Jo Soo Yeon.

Episode 3

Love it.

This episode started with a sleeping Han Tae Joo being woken up by an intruder.

She was quickly beaten up, bound and gagged.  Her thumb was cut almost at the same time as her husband was coming home.

Her husband was beaten and ultimately killed in front of her.  The perpetrator, she suspected was a policeman or someone to do with the police.

This incident happened seven years ago when she was a state prosecutor.

She has been going to therapy for a chat but does not want an all-out treatment until she had made the real criminal pay for his crime against her and her husband.

Now she got a call from a girl who was into petty crimes.  The girl wanted Han Tae Joo to get her out of another pickling situation.

With her connection, Han Tae Joo quickly found out that the girl, Hyo Jung was confined in a private suite in Seyang Hospital to donate her kidney to Shin Oh Sung, the CEO of Oh Sung Capital.

Oh Sung had been heavily involved in organ trafficking among other things.

The help of the Investigation Team, Han Tae Joo managed to get Hyo Jung out of the hospital.

Hyo Jung told them that the person representing Shin Oh Sung was Prosecutor Lee Dong Yoon, who is their real target together with Mr Kim, the henchman of the prosecutor.

The arrest of the prosecutor has a rather personal reason for Han Tae Joo.  It was Lee Dong Yoon who tried a low-life criminal for the crime dealt her and her husband.  Somehow he knew who the real assailant was and Han Tae Joon wanted the name.

The investigation team set up everything to get Lee Dong Yoon, to get a confession from him as real evidence but in the end, Hyo Jung seemed to have blabbed to Lee Dong Yoon that it was all a set up so he could be arrested.

Love this drama.  Very intelligent and well-acted.

Episode 4

Hyo Jung justified blubbing to Lee Dong Yoon as being very profitable.

The CIT was powerless to do anything.

Meanwhile, a criminal offered to talk if he gets caught but e was killed before the team got to him.

There was a baddie/killer who seemed to be always a step ahead of the Criminal Investigation Team.

The killer was still on the site when Young Koon found the dead criminal.

Poor Young Koon who had received battering throughout the day now faces the end of the barrel.  But as luck would have it, the killer let him see another day.

During the forensic of the dead criminal, Young Koon said that the killer was a police officer because his gun was a police issue.

This tweaks Han Tae Joo’s imagination and went quickly to check for the dead criminal’s thumb which was unsurprisingly had been cut off.

The kidney transplant is one big plot.  Apparently Hyo Jung’s kidney would ultimately kill the one who Lee Dong Yoon client because she was not a compatible donor.

Kim Young Koon almost got Lee Dong Yoon, who was pushed from the rooftop to his death by the mysterious baddie.

Episode 5

Kim Young Koon got a letter from his father, who was in prison.  He had not been in touch for the past fifteen years.

Kim Young Koon went to see his father, who told him of a case, which if he wound up will clear his name of his association with his convict father.

It was about a prisoner who stole from a third-generation chaebol which included a bribery list.  His father said that if Kim Young Koon could find the list, he will bring down all the top-end corrupt officials.

Episode 6

The story is getting more convoluted.

It looks like Kim Young Koon’s father cannot be trusted after all.

Oh Sang Do manage to get away from Kim Young Koon.

The chaebol son said that he saw Do Chi-Gwang going to the chairman.  He told this to Han Tae Joo who now a bit suspicious of Do Chi Gwang.

The female commissioner ordered Do Chi Gwang to ‘kill’ the chaebol son.

Han Tae Joo went to see Kim Young Koon in his apartment.  She told him of her suspicion that Do Chi Gwang could have killed his mother because he was the first one on the scene and arrested his father.  Han Tae Joo said that Kim Young Koon did not really see Kim Jae Myung actually killing his mother.

Kim Young Koon promised Han Tae Joon to help her solved her case of her murdered husband and who cut off her thumb.

Episode 7

There were badly decomposed bodies they had found in a makeshift grave.  One of the victims had a cut thumb.

They found the sister of one of the victims.  She was Baek Song I who confessed that someone called her the day her brother disappeared.  She was told to take over the business.

So the team found out that someone was controlling the families of the murdered people.

Episode 8

Kim Jae Myung had been paroled and allowed out of prison.

He and his son had to learn to live together again and it was a very poignant scene.

Park Si Young had started calling Kim Young Koon.

The Deputy Commissioner asked Kim Jae Myung the ledger at CIT which is going to be empty.  He would then meet the people who wanted the ledger most.

Kim Jae Myung went to CIT and waited.

Then walked in Do Chi Gwang.  The two cleared the air and both don’t know what was happening.

Do Chi Gwang told Kim Jae Myung that they could not repair their friendship but they should work together to get the bad police.

Kim Jae Myung did not reply, he just left.

Kim Jae Myung got home and notice that there was something not quite right.

Do Chi Gwang followed him.

Kim Young Koon called his father but he was not answering.

When he was by his apartment building, the presence of emergency service was apparent.  He saw Do Chi Gwang being helped into an ambulance.

Kim Young Koon ran into his apartment.

Jo Soo Yeon met him and told him to stay outside but Young Koon ran into the bathroom and found his father dead on the bathtub his thumb cut.

So sad.

Do Chi Gwang was investigated later.

Young Koon went back to his apartment and in the bathroom.  He started remembering things.  He suddenly saw in his mind the killer was Do Chi Gwang and not his father.  Is it reliable?!!!

Episode 9

The funeral was very sad.

CIT had been disbanded.

Han Tae Soon told Do Chi Gwang that she was worried about Young Koon now that he has nothing to do.

Do Chi Gwang said that he will give him something to do.

Baek Song I called Young Koon at the early hours of the morning saying that she saw Kim Jae Myung a day before he died.  She further elaborated that he gave her something for safekeeping and now wanted to give it to Young Koon because she was not comfortable holding on to it.

He raced to her place but she was not answering the door. So he called Soo Yeon and later Han Tae Joo to legally open the door.

Episode 10

The race the ledger is on.

Whoa the innocent Soo Yeon is not that innocent after all.

Young Koon suspected and then confirmed that she has a hidden agenda.

The boyfriend who kept phoning her does not exist.

It looks like Young Koon got the SD card ledger that his father hid in his trainers.

Episode 11

Young Koon was in the middle of looking at the SD card when he heard something in his living room.  He saw a pair of fliers waiting by the bath for him and before he knew it he had a wire noose over his head to his neck and he was tied into the door knob.

He was near fainting when he remember the gun in his pocket.  He pointed it to his assailant but he did not put the trigger for some reason.

Seeing the gun, the assailant which looks like a woman ran away with the ledger while soaking Young Koon’s laptop in the bath.

Jo Soo Yoen’s boyfriend was revealed to be the commissioner.

Episode 12

The turtle was the assailant and Han Tae Joo got him.

The Deputy Commissioner was arrested because Do Chae Gwang planted drugs in his car.

The Deputy commissioner knew what Do Chae Gwang did and told him that he was being righteous using underhanded tricks like what he did to Kim Jae Myung 15 years ago.

Han Tae Joo told Young Koon that she was leaving CIT because she had gotten what she wanted.  She found out the one who tortured her and her husband and cut their thumbs was Kim Gang Wook and was already dead.

A surprise, in the end, it turned out, Han Tae Joo’s husband was not dead.

Episode 13

CIT was suspicious of Han Tae Joo’s husband ho as representing the Deputy Commissioner.

Han Tae Joo’s husband kidnapped both Han Tae Joo and Young Koon.

Episode 14

Han Tae Joo and Young Koon were able to convince the husband to let them to because the people he would be taking revenge with were still at large.

Episode 15

It was revealed that Jang Hae Ryong was the killer, the turtle king.  He hilled Young Koon’s mother.

It turned out that Kim Jae Myung was the one who set up the Jang Society where they became vigilante policemen who get rid of those who did properly punished by the law.

One of the members wanted to leave and might tell on them so Park Jin-Woo killed him and blamed it on Kim Jae Myung who got arrested by Do Chi Guang by planting evidence on his house and blaming him as well for the murder of Kim Jae Myung’s wife.

Episode 16

Jang hye Ryong killed the deputy commissioner which was ordered by the commissioner.

Do Chi Guang found out about it and made the commissioner to transfer to the National Assembly.  She will never be the Commissioner General.

But before she left she created another team to investigate corruption within the police and the team are made up of the old CIT group.

Young Koon told Do Chi Guang that he hoped Chi Guang would not be continuing with his old ways of using legal and illegal activities such as planting evidence to get his man.

Do Chi Guang said he won’t.

Young Koon said that he would because he will be watching him.

The End.

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This drama needs another season. Really enjoyed it.  So much twists and turns.