Air Dates: September 4th to October 31, 2018 Back to back episodes Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 pm on KBS 2 Director: Lee Jae-Hoon Two episode ratings: 3.7 and 4.4%
Main Cast:
Choi Daniel as Lee Dai-Ii.... Detective at the 'A Few Good Men' agency, also an ex-army sergeant who left due to a scandal
Park Eun-Bin as Jung Yeo-Wool.... new assistant at the 'A Few Good Men' agency who works about five part time jobs and also had her sister die mysteriously
Kim Won-Hae as Han Sang-Sub.... owner of the 'A Few Good Men Agency' that's going bankrupt and a huge Sherlock Holmes fan
Lee Ji-Ah as Sun Woo-Hye.... mysterious woman always dressed in red
Lee Jae-Kyoon as Park Jung-Dae.... young, gung-ho police detective
Park Joo-Hee as Baek Da-Hye.... lawyer who once represented Da-Ii
Park Joo-Hee as Baek Da-Hye.... lawyer who once represented Da-Ii
Rarely finish recapping Korean dramas due to how long they are so can't tell you yet if I'll be doing posts yet for all 32 shows or sixteen recaps in all. If it's a solid series probably will finish it, after four shows it's up in the air how good it's going to be. First episode was a bit slow and there wasn't enough of Eun-Bin but the second show did pick up and it left us with quite a cliffhanger. Above is a short promo clip for the second episode.
Those top two screenshots are from the scene that opened the show but it's also the scene that ended the second episode, that'll be explained at the end. Almost the entire first episode focuses on the duo of Da-Ii and Sang-Sub who is the owner of the 'A Few Good Men' inquiry agency. You may remember Won-Hae from the 2017 drama "While You Are Sleeping" and he was so superb in the series. From what I've gathered from watching the first four shows in Korea a private investigator is not allowed to call himself a detective nor can they use that word in their company's name which is why they're always referred to as an inquiry agency much to the anger of Sang-Sub.
The other half of the team is Da-Ii who is in his young thirties and had a checkered past with the Army though we don't learn about it until the next recap. He's the brains behind the pair or at last has more ability when it comes to solving cases which the company doesn't have many of as they're struggling very badly and are about to sell some of their possessions. Sang-Sub is also a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and we often see him smoking a pipe plus wearing his trademark hat.
As the pair were moving out their prized sofa they were visited by a lawyer named Baek. She's played by the ultra attractive Park Joo-Hee and may have to do a post or two for her. Baek wants to hire the pair to investigate the kidnapping of two children that were in the same kindergarten class. The seven year kids weren't taken at the same time but it happened within thirty minutes of each other on the same day, Baek says she wants to hire them as the police have gotten nowhere.
To Da-Ii there's more to the crime than the two missing children and as he says above there's one more child that had been kidnapped. Baek was surprised Da-Ii knew that but he seems to know so many things which haven't been made public. He's right about a third child being kidnapped and the little girl was also from the same kindergarten class. Baek says she can't go into all of the details as she's just representing the girl's father, with that comment Da-Ii says he needs to step outside for a minute as he has a plan in the works.
Outside Da-Ii meets up with the CEO Lee who was sitting in his car. It's his daughter that was the third child kidnapped, because of his position he has to keep the affair silent and couldn't go to the police. After checking his car out a bit Da-Ii has surmised that his driver has a part in the mystery but to Da-Ii he isn't the kidnapper. Lee had given his driver the ransom money for his daughter's release but quickly disappeared after that.
Lee eventually makes his way into the agency office. There he told the duo that he purchased the building that morning, if the pair can find his daughter Eun-Ha then he would never charge them rent for as long as they stay in their office. That's fantastic news to Sang-Sub but the problem is finding his daughter, he's worried but deep down Da-Ii knows he can solve the case and he gets cracking right on it.
He visits the playground where the first seven year old abductee was taken from. It was a crowded place at the time so Da-Ii wonders why the mother and others at the park didn't notice someone taking the girl. Da-Ii discovers a few pieces of evidence but doesn't quite know what to do with them. One piece was a little earring found in a small tunnel, a seven year old could fit in there but not an adult. But there's also signs that a dog had been at the scene which is a bit mysterious to Da-Ii, naturally a dog couldn't have done the kidnapping.
We finally saw Eun-Bin as Yeo-Wool at about the twenty minute mark, took a while but her character has the second biggest role from here on out. The scene took place at the local police station where Yeo-Wool was delivering health drinks, she has about five part time jobs. At the station was one of the little girls from the kindergarten who thought she had a clue for the kidnappings which was the school's dog Bo-Ri.
The pair of detectives who we'll be seeing a lot of dismissed her claim though as you can see above Yeo-Wool believed her. The pair of detective's names are Jung-Dae who is a young while the other is played by Bong-Sik. As funny as it sounds don't know his name through four shows but will find it out plus the sites I checked referred to him as the detective. We see Yeo-Wool again quickly as her next stop was delivering food to the kindergarten.
At the time Da-Ii and Sang-Sub were there posing as building estimators, the owner/principal is selling the school because of the bad publicity though only one disappearance happened at the school. The pair check out just about everything and do notice an empty dog house with the name Bo-Ri on it. The duo also interview the school's maid Lee Chan-Mi who they become very suspicious of. She had dog hair on her shoes which Da-Ii noticed, the maid then replied that the dog had been missing for days which was a lie.
The maid continues to be the prime suspect to Da-Ii and we'll get to that semi conclusion soon. First off Yeo-Wool arrives unexpectedly to his office, appears the meeting may have been set up by his partner Sang-Sub. Yeo-Wool was there to interview for an assistant's position, that threw Da-Ii for a loop as he didn't realize they were hiring anyone new. We don't see the actual events of the interview until the next recap but there was no ad for a new assistant, however during their interview Da-Ii was impressed enough with Yeo-Wool to bring hire her on a trial basis.
Yeo-Wool passed the first test easy enough as she was able to talk the security team at a building to see their footage from August 20th, the day before the kidnappings. Da-Ii had learned that the students had taken a field trip that day and was looking for any kind of clue on the video. The trip was led by the class teacher but the maid Chan-Mi was nowhere in sight, Da-Ii feels the maid had an accomplice so was the teacher the one?
That's something we still haven't leaned through four episodes but one thing we did learn towards the end of the second show is that Chan-Mi was definitely the kidnapper. She sleeps at the school and has two of the children taped up in boxes while the third is tied up in her bathtub. Da-Ii isn't a quiet man but he is when it comes to revealing what he's learned about a case, He seemed to feel that the three children were being held at the school which he was 100% correct on. However he's going to save them single handily and to Yeo-Wool's dismay he sends her home much to her dismay, she had a strong feeling of what Da-Ii was up to.
Coming close to the end as this will be the final part, quite a bit happened in the final five minutes.
Da-Ii broke into the school's basement where he found the school's dog Bo-Ri who for the moment is very sedate, But Da-Ii discovered more than the dog, he also found a pair of taped up boxes and in them he found the young boy along with the CEO's daughter Eun-Ha. Da-Ii sent them away to safety and now the hunt was on for the third kidnapped child. Da-Ii reentered the school, this time going to the mini living spaces of Chan-Mi where he finds the third kidnapped child tied up in her bathtub.
Before Da-Ii could take any action he heard a loud yelp, turning around he saw the dog Bo-Ri about to pounce on him which the dog did. The pair had a violent struggle, Da-Ii had to bite the dog to subdue him, don't know if the bite caused it but the dog did die. But there was one more obstacle to overcome which Da-Ii couldn't which was of Chan-Mi entering the room. She smashed him over the head with a large object, Da-Ii tried to fight back but couldn't as he passed out.
During that scene we saw a brief image of a mysterious woman in red who was also in the bathroom. Not much is known of her yet but she appears all of the time at a killing scene and disappears before anyone can identify her. With Da-Ii passed out Chan-Mi dragged him off to a secluded field where she digs a large hole or should I say his grave. Da-Ii is thrown in the hole and Chan-Mi started to fill it up with mud as Da-Ii lay there unconsciously with his death rapidly approaching. But as you saw in the first two screenshots Da-Ii regained consciousness and was able to free himself from his grave, he started to wander off covered in mud as the second episode finally came to it's end.
Korean dramas are so much more interesting than Japanese shows which is why I prefer them but it also creates a slight problem. That's of these recaps which end up being quite long due to so many events and details which need to be explained, takes much longer to write one recap for Korean shows versus Japanese series. But these were the first two shows and the recaps are always a bit longer as we're introduced to the main characters, plots and stories. So the next post which is right below this one should be shorter or at least all of us are hoping it is. Kind of a slow start but the second show did end on a thrilling cliffhanger which as mentioned will continue on in the next post.
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