Vampire Detective K-Drama Review
Director: Kim Ga-ram and Lee Seung-hoon
Episodes:12
Cast: Lee Joon, Oh Jung-se, Lee Se-young and Lee Chung-ah
Streaming: Prime Video
Synopsis:
Yoon San (Lee Joon) a private detective suddenly becomes a vampire. He tries to solve various cases while also trying to uncover the
mystery surrounding himself.
Vampire Detective K-Drama Review:
First, a little heads up. If you really enjoyed Vampire Detective or you like vampire series even if it is the worst of the worst, I would recommend skipping this review as I have almost nothing positive to say about it. And this is a rarity for me.
If you’ve read many of my reviews, you’ll know I tend to be very forgiving toward flaws in dramas. My number one criterion for drama
enjoyment is to not be bored. As long as I’m entertained, I will overlook plot holes, sloppy writing, illogical behavior, unbelievable situations, etc.
I’ll usually mention them in a review, but many times they don’t hinder my enjoyment of the drama. Not so with Vampire Detective. All of the things I frequently overlook are glaringly obvious in this drama.
Vampire Detective is officially the worst drama I have ever watched to completion. I’ve dropped dramas I liked far better. In case you’re wondering why I didn’t drop this one if I was so miserable, there are two reasons.
The first is that I was doing reviews for my own benefit to improve my writing skills as a Screenwriter. The second is that the drama did set up an interesting premise, and I was always just hoping at some point it would actually address the back story as well as San (Lee Joon) being a vampire.
But for the most part, it never did. The drama sets up our story by showing San’s pre-vampire life, 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.
Also, Read My Secret Terrius K-Drama Review: A fun enough story that mixed elements of romantic comedy, family, and spy action
Then as she flees, he witnesses her car explode with her inside. It was a nice setup, but aside from tiny snippets here and there, this backstory was horribly underdeveloped with not nearly enough attention given to it throughout the rest of the drama. Yes, there were a few (very few) moments of good sprinkled around. The acting was wonderful, and our team sometimes gave us some moments of humor.
But with every aspect of the story working against them, the characters of San, Gu Hyung (Oh Jung Se), and Gyeo Wool (Lee Se Young) were not utilized at all. Their potential was wasted both individually and as a team. Yo Na (Lee Chung Ah / One Dollar LawyerFame / The reason I watched this series) was the best part of the drama for me and was particularly good as our main villainess.
Out of the entire drama, I was most interested in the episode that flashed back to her origin story. It had many elements that I like in a drama including romance, angst, and well, a cohesive story! And it actually showed how difficult becoming a vampire was for her and how it changed her life.
These were all things that should have been shown in our main story with San, but for whatever reason, they were almost completely omitted. We jumped right into San having these new abilities, but we don’t spend any time with how he feels and is coping with the changes.
For the most part, he just goes on as if nothing happened with only a couple of passing mentions of it and a few brief glimpses of his supernatural powers. San is still pretty much just a regular detective for the most part.
Also, Read Mad Dog K-Drama Review: “Might not be everybody’s cup of tea but If You’re a K-Drama Lovers, Then this is for You”
There are a few mysterious glances between San and Gu Hyung implying that they are aware that something’s up with him as well as San needing this “blood inhaler” that he was given by the doctor, but the show neglected to clue the audience on just what they know.
I just feel like the execution of the drama was a mess. Seriously, you just don’t leave the viewer trying to piece together things that are common sense to address.
There’s a certain amount of backstory and information that you need to give viewers to keep us in the loop, but this drama just gives the absolute bare minimum and frequently does it in a way that leaves you just wondering what exactly does everyone know?
This all results in a serious lack of vampire elements throughout the drama. Aside from the little bit of back story and brief displays of power, this drama almost didn’t even need to include vampires in the narrative. If you want to watch a vampire story, I would pass on this in favor of practically any other vampire drama you can find.
As I expected, nothing with the back story was explored in depth until the last few episodes, and even then the story was pretty underwhelming with very little new information given. In the end, many questions are left completely unanswered. It felt like such a waste and was such a disappointing series.
Verdict: Vampire Detective K-Drama Review
This drama had all the right ingredients for a fantasy-crime drama but strangely could not decide what it wanted to be and wasted whatever potential it had thanks to an incoherent script that fails to give what audiences want most — badass vampire action.
