Vampire Detective Korean Drama - Lee Joon

Episode 12 of Vampire Detective wraps up our drama.  San and Yoo Jung finally get to have a few moments.  There’s a scene where San and Yoo Jin sit down to talk.  She comments that he is able to walk in the sunlight.  He finds it confusing too.  But then she abruptly says she understands he doesn’t want to talk about it, and nothing more is said.  Haha! Right to the end I guess we as the audience aren’t supposed to understand anything about what happened to San, what he knows, and what he feels.  Ridiculous.

Gu Hyung is held hostage by Tae Woo who uses him as bait to get Yoo Jin and San to do what he wants. Both of them end up tied up and at Tae Woo’s mercy.  Tae Woo forces San to choose between shooting Gu Hyung or Young Kwang, but both have their faces covered, so San is shooting blindly.  If he doesn’t, Tae Woo will turn the UV lights on Yoo Jin and kill her.

San does shoot, but it turns out Yo Na is one of the two with her face covered.  She has already taken down Tae Woo’s men and then shoots Tae Woo.  Gu Hyung  and San are freed, and we get a battle between San and Tae Woo.

During the struggle, Yoo Jin gets the UV switch and kills herself and Tae Woo.  A distraught San then goes missing.  The episode ends one year later as the team is back together and head out to find San.

So yeah, the conclusion didn’t do much for me.  It was a long road to get here and all the way to the end, not much came of the journey.  Overall, Vampire Detective felt like a really pointless drama that had no clue what it was doing.  Lots of plot holes, unanswered questions, and a severe lack of story development.  It was a mess.  I’m glad it’s over with.  I’ll still be doing a series review as usual, but I’m definitely ready to put this series to rest.

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13 responses to “Korean Drama Impressions: Vampire Detective Episode 12 Review”

  1. joybran2015 Avatar

    At least we can congratulate ourselves for having made it through to the end. Worst. Drama. Ever. Or at least the worst that I watched all the way through. I gave it a 3/10. And to think that I had such high hopes for it. Lee Joon! Vampires! Kickass leading lady! What could possibly go wrong? How about everything, starting with the fact that we got so little of any of those three things. I learned a lesson about committing to watch a drama as it airs week by week.

    Except I’m still going to watch Scarlet Heart: Ryeo as soon as it airs. And hope I don’t end up saying Lee Joon Gi! Time travel! Sageuk! What could possibly go wrong? hahaha

    1. Kay Avatar

      We should get some kind of award for making it through this one, lol. Yep, definitely the worst drama I have completed. I give it the terribly low score of 2/10 (1 point for good actors & 1 point for decent production).

      After all of that, I’m still left completely baffled by the writing and that no one in the production seemed to see just how awful it was. I can’t imagine anything ever unseating this as my worst drama ever, because there is no way I would sit through something so terrible again all the way to the end.

      I think we’re much safer with Scarlet Heart though, lol. Although there’s always a chance it could end up mediocre (which would still be a massive improvement over Vampire Detective), it has so many positive elements that I can even see from the trailer. There’ll be action, drama, romance, and some sort of cohesive story about relationships and vying for the throne.

      It’s when someone thinks it’s a good idea to make a drama about vampires and skips most of the vampire stuff (plus bad writing) that you have a problem 😉

      1. joybran2015 Avatar

        Yes, I feel safe with Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. Good source material, good writer and PD, beautiful cinematography, and all those pretty princes. Plus Universal Studios money.

        At the same time I was horrified by Vampire Detectives’ terrible writing, I was disappointed with Jackpot, which I had also been eagerly anticipating. The story was crazy, but Jackpot still had some real pleasures with the performances of Jang Geun Suk, Yeo Jin Goo, and Choi Min Soo. They were wonderful to watch, whether the story made sense or not. The worst thing about Vampire Detective was that it totally wasted the talents of the actors by giving them nothing to do. I can handle lapses of logic that give the actors excuses to portray extremes of emotions (like Jackpot), but I can’t handle a narrative that omits any action or knowledge that might give the characters a reason to feel anything. Poor Lee Joon never had a chance to express anything about how a person might feel about becoming a vampire.

        1. Kay Avatar

          I’ll be happy if Scarlet Heart is at least decent, but of course I’m hoping it’s amazing 🙂

          Hehe, I probably liked Jackpot way more than I should have. I have my review typed, but I still need to proof it and put the pictures in. I should have it ready later in the week. I definitely saw all the flaws, but I ended up really loving it. I was so enthralled by Jang Geun Suk and Yeo Jin Goo’s story and relationship. And the performances not only by them, but almost everyone in the amazing cast was wonderful.

          There were definitely some extremes, logic lapses, and of course the repeated escapes of Lee In Jwa in the latter third. But I enjoyed it all the way through and found it very fun and intense. I also saved up for it since I hadn’t watched a sageuk in 6 months (well, I did watch Three Musketeers a few months back, but it was really short and I didn’t really care for it). So I was just loving the atmosphere of the drama too 🙂

          But yeah, I felt so bad for Lee Joon and the other actors in Vampire Detective too because they were given so little chance to explore their emotions. Mostly just at the beginning and end. I mean I’ve seen some very messy writing, but this was on another level. I’ll be posting my Goodbye Mr. Black review tomorrow which I did think had pretty sloppy writing throughout yet there was a decent story and the characters got the chance to explore their emotions. So I ended up liking it pretty well. Whereas Vampire Detective dropped the ball on almost every aspect of constructing a good story 😛

          1. joybran2015 Avatar

            Although I didn’t totally love Jackpot all the way through, I enjoyed it enough at even the most frustrating points that I never once considered dropping it. I think what I was trying to say was that it would have been a lot easier to ignore the logic lapses and weird writing choices if I had marathoned it instead of watching it weekly. There have been other dramas with worse writing flaws that I managed to love just because I was watching the whole drama in a short time. Jackpot’s wonderful performances would have just swept me along over the rough spots if I didn’t have so much time to wonder why on earth certain things happened.

          2. Kay Avatar

            Well, I’m glad you did like it pretty well. That’s a good point. I can definitely see where having more time to think about things could make some of the flaws more obvious. I watched the first 8 episodes over two days and then 2 per day after that. So I was able to get pretty swept up in it.

            I think watching it in a short time did make it more obvious just how many times Lee In Jwa kept getting away though, lol. But I figured he’d be around until the end, so it wasn’t really surprising…just some of the ways he managed to get away were. The story did get pretty crazy sometimes, but I loved it anyway. All of the performances though, amazing! Jang Geun Suk and Yeo Jin Goo definitely lived up to my expectations, as did most of the rest of the cast 🙂

  2. Timescout Avatar

    Yup, total waste of time. Good riddance! Had it been more than 12 epis I’d have allready dropped it by now.

    1. Kay Avatar

      Yep, a waste it was. I think I would have dropped it if it was more than 12 episodes too. I mostly only kept on because I wanted to do the weekly impressions post to completion. But if it had been longer, I would have dropped it regardless. But I guess we survived 🙂

  3. Linda Palapala Avatar

    In spite of the flaws, I really liked this drama. I don’t mind unanswered questions or ambiguity. It seems like the writers are setting up for a second season and I wouldn’t mind at all if it’s the same team. And San was just as confused about his special abilities as we were.

    1. Kay Avatar

      It’s good that this drama worked out for you. I’ve liked plenty of dramas that most fans disliked. I’m usually fine with some unanswered questions, but not with this one. There were just too many.

      And I think most of the audience just wanted to actually witness San being confused over what he was and the changes he was going through. The show pretty much just ignored what had happened for the most part and went on without addressing it. Which is sad for me because from the beginning I just wanted to experience that with San and never got the chance to. You never know though, maybe they’ll put together a season 2 since there are fans like you that did enjoy it 🙂

      1. Linda Palapala Avatar

        I thought it was made fairly clear in the first few episodes how confused he was. And there was nobody to help him get thru it or explain it. So he had to accept his fate. But then I have a very active imagination and can come up with explanations myself, and really don’t like being spoon fed all the answers. But that’s just me! Plus, it just might be lazy writing too!

        1. Kay Avatar

          He definitely had a few moments of confusion right after the transformation, but after that it was mostly ignored other than a brief passive mention here and there.. Since it was heavily marketed as a vampire drama, I did expect to see more of those classic vampire elements more than they gave us. But even aside from that, I did think the writing was pretty poor. And I’m usually very forgiving us sloppy writing.

          But all of the actors were great and the production was good. It just wasn’t my thing. But we all have different tastes, so as long as you enjoyed it, that’s all that matters 🙂

  4. Linda Palapala Avatar

    One more thought. Your expectations didn’t match the writers.

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