thoughts: Special Affairs Team TEN (Korean) -- first impression follow up

To finish off my thoughts for Episode One of this series, here is a short and sweet rambling of what came to be.

There will be few SPOILERS, but to ruin the entire experience with ANY form of big giveaway would be cruel, in my opinion. So proceed with caution, but I assure that the ultimate conclusion to this first murder case will NOT be discussed in this article. This is assuming that I give anything away at all.

It's beyond my own expertise or even my own abilities as a blogger to even start forming my opinions about how ingenious this entire first episode fell together by the end. So this is a fairly crude throw-together of some thoughts I managed to come up with.

I'm under the assumption that this will be a one case per episode type of series. So, for one, I'm glad that there will be multiple criminal mysteries to follow through; and secondly, I'm at the edge of my seat in anticipation for the next episode and its accompanying crime thriller mystery. Oh... here's a plead to those who can make things happen to have English subtitles for this series appear quickly for my own excited pleasure! Because after polishing off the rest of Episode One's murder mystery, I'm just taken aback by the insanely gripping, edge-of-my-seat excitement that the rest of the series is promising.

There's little I can really mention about this particular murder case without completely giving it away (which would be cruel even for spoiler standards). But I will say that it was a truly thrilling and wonderful experience for me to be able to guess and think as the entire case unfolded itself before my eyes.

The story opens up (to add onto what I've mentioned already in the first impression article) with two murders and a missing persons case.

Case #1:
A man has taken a dive off a cliff where a sign stating "Suicide Prohibited" hangs ominously (and uselessly, I might add since, really, what's the government gonna do to someone already dead if they break that law?) as police crowd around to work the scene. Detective Baek Do Sik immediately clues in that this was not a suicide, but a homicide and so let the investigations begin.

Case #2:
A woman is found dead in her own apartment, a murder mimicking a case that had taken place nearly seven years prior. Her hands and her face has been taped by common industrial-use green tape and her fingers have been cute off as she lays in a gory pool of her own blood. This case is being reviewed by a board of law enforcement as it brings into play what they have dubbed the Tape Murder Case. Yeo Ji Heon, an expert professor who used to be a detective with undeniable ability has been brought in to help investigate the case, partnered up with rookie Park Min Ho.

Case #3
A woman has gone missing, reported in by her fiance. Detective Nam Yeri is brought in to find this woman, and using her expertise in psychology, begins her investigation. What she learns is that things haven't been going too smoothly for the engaged couple and that the missing woman has been conducting some secret activities out of character from her normal dealings.

When all three cases begin to converge together into one, and all three sides realize that they might be looking for the exact same person, the ultimate intrigue begins to unfold. The murderer of victim number one, the murderer of victim number two, as well as the missing woman from the third case... all the evidence starts pointing at an obvious connection between the three cases.

What's going on with this scenario? Where is this new evidence leading me? Maybe this is what happened? Each new truth had me dropping gasps and excited deductions about the murder case. And then there was the deeper emotional stigma of what had been going on behind both the victim's and the murderer's eyes. One sister dead, one sister missing; a set of twins separated after being adopted into two different families. A darker secret about their origins than would have been expected. There were lost speculations about motive and even new, heartbreaking discoveries about the sisters themselves.

The dead woman in Case #2 turns out to be twin sister to the missing woman from Case #3. The dead man from Case #1 happened to be the step-brother-slash-sexual-partner of the dead woman in Case #2. Everything starts to fall together and we start to wonder what might have happened to the missing woman from Case #3. Is this really part of a serial murder case of the Tape Murder from years before? Could it be a copy cat case? Did the other twin sister kill both victims?

How does the death of the step-brother come into play? And what about the scene of the sister's murder? Why doesn't the re-enactment add up? What are we missing? And what kind of darker secrets does she hold that might have propelled the entire mystery in the first place?

How could a simple, two-hour episode touch upon something so delicate, and make you feel so much from repulsion, to anger, and even sadness?

As the case developed, I found myself enraptured in the fact that my own speculations might be right. And when they turned out the way I thought they would be, I was so giddy with excitement. However, when the ideas turned out different, I was still amazed at what ended up being the truth.

You know that feeling you get when you're just holding your breath waiting for that new twist to inspire you to keep watching and wondering? And then when a new development occurs, it hits you so hard that you're actually silly ecstatic about how things turned out? And then you sit back and literally clench your fists because you know that this isn't the end and that more secrets are yet to be revealed?

This is how I felt watching the entirety of this first episode, the first murder case. The copy cat Tape Murder Case, if you will, that takes what seemed to be a simple crime mystery and turns it into a much more intriguing psychological battle of reasoning, wits, and deduction.

I'm just sad that I cannot form anymore words on this mystery lest I completely ruin the experience for anyone else.

Nonetheless, the story telling and the criminal case wasn't without its faults; the episode wasn't completely perfect, really. There were moments when enough evidence was given so that you had an idea what was to come in the end even before the characters could find their resolution. And then there were certain aspects that required a bit more suspension of disbelief. There were moments that made you wonder how it contributed to the overall murder mystery or even to the series itself. Each new turn, however, DID manage to keep you guessing.

I had immense fun just watching these first two hours of the series and I hope that the rest of it will follow in kind.

The team will be forming next episode, I assume, and what I love more than a gripping story line is the character relation dynamics. Four completely different types of investigators coming together to solve the most perplexing, brutal cases known. I know I mentioned that I'm not too keen on unnecessary side plots for a series like this (since it would take away from the fascinating criminal mysteries), but now that we've set up a pretty good direction and foundation for the series proper, I wouldn't mind seeing how our team of four, newly formed detectives will go about among each other. If they worked together so well without even meaning to, coming together from three different starting points, how well will these guys work as a unit, focused on one destination?

I am totally, totally excited! (I've no other way to describe this series, sadly.)

Here's crossing my fingers and hoping that things continue as smoothly as they are now.

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Related articles:
first impression: Special Affairs Team TEN

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first impression: Special Affairs Team TEN (Korean)

This series will be finishing up its broadcast with ten episodes soon (according to sources), but very little of it has been subtitled for us non-Korean speaking viewers. So I hadn't been planning on watching it yet until more episodes became available with English subtitles for my own understanding. But when I came across it one more time at Viki, I couldn't help but to give the first episode a go.

First of all... well, I don't even think I'm experienced enough in any type of media story telling (K-drama or not) to give a proper critique of the beauty that totally wow-ed me with just the opening credits. The series opens up with a random musical montage of a random woman (whom all viewers probably suspect will be a murder victim soon), and then immediately dives into two murder cases and a missing persons case. All three cases are tied together and we aren't even given any inkling that this is the reason except that the three investigations are taking place at the same time. A gut feeling (as well as the way the story unfolds) pretty much tells us that we're just waiting for all three investigations and all three of our investigators to fall together by the end of this first episode.

There is no dilly-dallying around with filler detail or random trivial moments. We get right into the main point; there's nothing flashy or distracting to deter our attention either. This is important in mystery crime thrillers because if we start getting complicated side plots and relationships that are unnecessary, then that takes away from the power of following the criminal mystery. This is what I totally loved about the first episode alone (or rather, the first half of the first episode) -- because I walked into it expecting a crime mystery and that is all that I want to see.

Sure, we've got a few side thoughts and some random scenes that aren't related to the criminal cases, but they are incorporated so naturally that you don't really mind. It's a very realistic way of conveying the investigations; once again, none of that CSI flashy and commercialized fun stuff that people have become addicted to in recent years. The facts roll out slowly, we get a lot of interesting problem-solving methods and reasoning, and no one simply looks at a piece of evidence and says "Okay, I know who did it!" It gives us, as viewers, the chance to really think about the mystery along with the story characters. And so I love how the story is unfolding bit-by-bit without some random clairvoyant detective who seems to know exactly what to do and what to look for.

Okay, maybe one guy, Yeo Ji Heon (played by Joo Sang Wook) seems to be moving along with his instincts. But he's investigating a case similar to one that he'd already worked on years ago which was unresolved. There are certain things he knows to look for (which totally shows in experience rather than just luck and intelligence). So I buy it, because it's not like he's pointing fingers at things and retelling the crime scene with a few blood stains and some magical evidence.

It's been a while since I last took my Forensics classes, but I can clearly say that the way that TEN is going about the murder cases is a lot more realistic than I've seen in a lot of other television series. And also, it's kind of refreshing not to see police officers jumping over cars and blowing things up. Despite the series being shot in a very western-ish, movie-like quality, at least the sequences aren't trying to sell nonsensical action. What we've got here is a lot of detective work based on problem solving and reasoning.

I especially liked the little time-line tree that Nam Yeri (played by Jo An) had set up during her investigation of her missing person. A lot of time and effort goes into something like that and it shows that she's not just looking at random papers and making hypothetical yet also magical guesses that work in her favor. She's constantly documenting, taking pictures, shooting videos, highlighting statistics, going through listings... It's just refreshing to see something so much more meticulous than pretty.

And speaking of The Pretty, I wanted to make mention of the resident maknae of the impending team, Park Min Ho (played by Choi Woo Sik). His first impression on me was kind of amusing because he was the young newbie who would follow with the more seasoned now-professor "detective" Yeo Ji Heon who was tasked to take on the Tape Murder Case. Trying to get all chummy with the professor wasn't really working for him, but it was cute nonetheless. The kid's REAL calling came when he was actually doing more reasoning work and questioning a known witness about murder events -- THEN he just seemed even cuter and pretty slick and cool and not simply The Pretty maknae. I'm looking forward to seeing what else he'll impress with in following episodes.

Kim Sang Ho is the only name I'm familiar with in this series so far, as the detective with about 24 years of experience under his belt (as summaries supply), named Baek Do Sik. We are, of course, familiar with his Shik Joong ahjusshi role from the crack-tastic City Hunter earlier in 2011, so there's no refuting his skill as an actor. As a detective, he fine-tunes things really well and I'm glad that we're incorporating a top-notch detective into this team who shows his years of experience rather than just letting the story narrate it.

All-in-all, I think that when I can finally watch the entirety of this series, I'm really going to enjoy it. Unfortunately, I wish there was a way I could understand Korean just a little bit better, because while the subtitles are decent, it still feels like there are a lot of things I'm missing out on just by not knowing the language (the same feeling I had when I was watching the first episode of Joseon X-Files). Already, while I had an inkling of what was going on, there were a few things that I think got lost on me by the end of the first episode (which may require a re-watch if I REALLY want to analyze this series by detail, which I don't, thankfully).

This series has given me a big "Awesome!" factor already. The camera angles are done excellently, the lighting is amazing and natural, and even the background music isn't distracting or trendy, but sets the right mood. It's a very simplistic form of filming for a series and I'm totally digging it.

I guess this might be the beauty of cable channels in Korean television. I know I'm totally buying the murder cases since we are seemingly sparing no forms of conservative shooting: realistic blood pools and corpse deformation and the like really help set the suspension of disbelief.

Finally, the mid-episode "crossing paths" slow-mo (I guess, symbolic) scene wherein our three investigators are in the same place at the same time for the first time in the series was actually done really well. As the police van passes by the other two investigators, I just held my breath. You would think that something as tactless as setting up a "fated encounter" sequence would turn out kind of tacky, but in this case, it really worked. When the scene came to an end, I really just let out a breath and said, "Nice!" And that was as simple as that.

So if the rest of the series follows the same form, direction and telling as the first episode, then I'm totally riding this one until the end. And I'm going to have to update my Favorite K-dramas list too.

As a final note, during the writing of this particular article, I hadn't realized that this series was actually broadcast as two-hour episodes in originality. And so the first episode I ended up watching was actually just the first half of the first episode. Even so, it was still excellently done and had me wanting to continue (I guess since the episode isn't quite finished, but whatever) onto the next. And so that I don't spoil my own thought process, we'll leave this first impression article as is and throw in random thought articles where necessary (especially if I have something to say after actually completely watching the entire Episode One).

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Related articles:
thoughts: Special Affairs Team TEN -- first impression follow up

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