Tunnel is about a violent crimes detective (Choi Jin Hyuk ) from the 1980’s who is trying to catch a serial killer. He then time travels through a tunnel to present day Seoul where he partners with another detective (Yoon Hyun Min) to solve the crime and return home.
Tunnel was a very nice crime drama with a side of time travel. It has an interesting overarching story as well as very engaging characters. Anyone who is a fan of crime dramas should definitely give this one a look.
Choi Jin Hyuk plays our time traveling detective Park Kwang Ho. He’s an upright and kind man, but he’s also a bit of a hothead. For reasons unknown, his search for the serial killer lands him in 2017. It was great to see Choi Jin Hyuk bring the intensity, and I really enjoyed his character.
Yoon Hyun Min plays Kim Sun Jae who is a detective in 2017. He is prickly and extremely intelligent. He’s good at his job and doesn’t like anyone getting in his way. Of course, he butts heads with Kwang Ho right from the get go and is less than thrilled to have to team up with him as his partner. I always enjoy Yoon Hyun Min, and this time was no different.
We then have Shin Jae Yi (Lee Yoo Young) who is a psychologist with a special interest in serial killers. She works with our detectives on their hunt for the killer. I found her character to be quite strange and a bit creepy. She was so aloof that I was never really able to connect with her. But she does slowly open up as the drama progresses.
Of course, one of my favorite things was the bromance between Kwang Ho and Sun Jae. They don’t get along for quite awhile, but it was great seeing them slowly begin to soften and trust each other. They ended up making a great team.
There’s also a really fun dynamic between Kwang Ho and Sung Shik (Jo Hee Bong) who was a rookie detective under Kwang Ho is the past, but in the present, he is Kwang Ho’s team leader and now older than him.
But they revert back to the way they knew each other in the past with Sung Shik calling Kwang Ho his sunbae and speaking formally to him and Kwang Ho talking down to Sung Shik. Of course, this gets some confused reactions from those around them! It’s all quite fun.
We round out our detective team with Min Ah (Kang Ki Young) and Tae Hee (Kim Byung Chul). They are a fun pair, and they add a nice bit of humor to the drama. I actually would have enjoyed seeing more of both of these characters.
Tunnel did well at delivering interesting characters that you feel for. It’s fascinating to peel back their layers and also see how they fit into the story. Tunnel offers a few twists along way to keep things exciting too.
Although there is a very good overarching story, I did think it felt like it was a bit on the episodic side, which is something I don’t prefer. But luckily the cases were pretty engaging, and they helped to further the development of our main characters as well as the main story as Kwang Ho works to get back to his time by solving the serial killer case.
I would have liked to have seen the time travel utilized a bit more too. Maybe a bit more going back and forth between the two times as well as a bit more fun with Kwang Ho having to adjust to 2017. I also thought the drama lagged a bit in the second half where things just felt like they were moving a bit slow.
But overall, Tunnel did a solid job as a crime drama with its interesting story and engaging characters. The mystery was presented well and the time travel element added a little something extra. So in the end, I was very pleased with it.
My Rating: 7/10
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