I thought I might try something new and give some insights and a mini review on each episode of a currently airing drama. Vampire Detective seemed like a good one to try since it only airs one episode per week. Also, since detective/crime dramas aren’t my preferred genre, I feel a bit more comfortable tackling a currently airing drama without as much fear that the week to week wait will be too much. I’ll definitely be in more danger of dropping it, but I will give it my best shot.
Episode 1 of Vampire Detective starts out with a nice dose of action and a display of our vampire hero San’s (Lee Joon) abilities. We quickly jump back in time to San’s pre-vampire life and see his early days in training and his subsequent undercover mission.
This all results in an apparent terrible betrayal by the woman he loves, Yoo Jin (Kim Yoon Hye), who ends up shooting him and leaving him for dead. Then as she flees, he witnesses her car explode with her inside.
He is able to survive the gunshot, although he is left with some physical limitations, and we move back to the present time just before his transformation. He is now part of a private detective agency along with his partner Goo Hyung (Oh Jung Se).
When a young woman named Gyeo Wool (Lee Se Young) shows up looking for her brother, San starts to wonder if Yoo Jin is still alive. The team starts to investigate and find what they think is an illegal blood selling ring. But we learn the blood belongs to some type of organization run by vampires and that Gyeo Wool’s brother is a vampire too.
Our detective team ends up in the middle of things, and San ends up jumping in front of a bullet to save Gyeo Wool. As he laying dying, out of gratitude for saving his sister, her brother injects San with a substance that is supposed to cure any disease. Gyeo Wool’s brother then kills himself by allowing the sun to burn him up. San is able to survive, and as we know, will now become a vampire himself.
Vampire Detective had things I liked and things I disliked.
Things I liked:
- Lee Joon as San: I liked his character, his weaknesses, back story, and origin story
- Goo Hyung adds a bit of humor to the episode
- Gyeo Wool’s brother and his girlfriend: I liked the little snippet of back story we get into their vampire lives
- I’m interested in what happened during San’s undercover mission that made things go so wrong
Things I disliked:
- It felt like a typical detective drama
- The drama progressed a bit slowly for me (but if you like detective dramas, the pace was actually pretty good)
- While I liked the main characters, I haven’t yet connected with them
It worries me that this drama will be more episodic with a different crime to solve each week. I want San’s story to have more of the focus as well as more of the vampire stuff. Since it is only episode 1, I’m still very open to what the drama wants to do. Hopefully, things pick up a bit in episode 2.
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