K-DRAMA REVIEW: Tell Me What You Saw

By Yuli Atta

You can also find this review on SOOMPI.

Hi guys, today I'm reviewing a K-drama I finished watching just last night and thoroughly enjoyed. I have copied the MDL description below for those of you who want to know what it's about before watching since I'm bad at summarising stories.

"Oh Hyun Jae used to be a top criminal profiler. He solved many cases with his skills, but one day an explosion, caused by a serial killer, ended the life of his fiancé. After the horrific incident, Oh Hyun Jae vanished and he now lives in seclusion. Meanwhile, Cha Soo Young is a police officer in the countryside. She has a special ability which allows her to remember exactly everything she sees. Due to her special ability, she is selected as a rookie detective who will partner with Oh Hyun Jae informally. Together they work to solve cases and uncover the truth behind the Peppermint Killer, the resurfaced serial killer who murdered Hyun-Jae's fiancé five years ago."

Tell Me What You Saw is a South Korean drama with thriller and crime investigation elements that's directed by Lee Jong Hyeong. While the synopsis given on My Drama List and Viki doesn't make it sound like anything exceptional to other dramas, it's actually a very well-written and executed story with superb acting, that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Before getting addicted to this amazing show, I stopped watching two other dramas with good premises because of a few things that I found annoying- in both of them the detectives lost their wives which was what would drive them to do what they had to in order to catch the killer but they would also ignore anything the main female lead would tell them in order to help them. I was so glad when this turned out to NOT be the case with Oh Hyun Jae who also lost his wife because of the serial killer. While it did drive him to find the culprit and punish him, he wasn't acting irrationally and it wasn't what motivated him to be a good profiler, he was already all of these things and his motivation only made him stronger.

The whole drama is about Oh Hyun Jae (played by Jang Hyuk from Voice) and the serial killer outsmarting each other, while the detectives are catching up. It would seem like the serial killer would be always two steps ahead of the detectives but Oh Hyun Jae would always be a step behind him, sometimes a step ahead and other times it would seem like he wasn't even in the chase. This is exactly the time of thing I like to watch and read about. 

Cha Soo Young is a police officer from a small village and what is exceptional about her is that she has a very strong photographic memory thanks to which she can remember all of the details of her mum's death when she got ran over by a car which later fled the scene and nobody at the time could find the culprit. Her photographic memory is what gets her involved in the Metropolitan Investigation Unit and that's how her work with Oh Hyun Jae and Team Leader Hwang begins. Her exceptional memory often plays a big role in catching the culprits of the crime or putting some pieces of the serial killer puzzle together. 

The actress Choi Soo Young who plays that role does an amazing job of this character, she shows her naiveness, her innocence, her determination and her growth very well, however, I don't really like the character herself. It was explained in the show that due to her memory, her IQ is actually kinda low because that's how the brain works. Which means that at times Cha Soo Young can be very dumb and that was probably the most annoying part of the show. In the beginning, when she was first starting to work with the detectives she would ask stupid or obvious questions or would do stupid things when stealth was required but then in the middle of the drama she stopped and I didn't even notice that she had improved until at the last third of it she began asking stupid questions and behaving in a stupid way a lot. It was very annoying to see because after all that time working at the MIU, one would've thought that she'd improve and learn to think on her own. 

She would often let herself be used by Oh Hyun Jae to help him get the next clue and then pass on the information to the Team Leader. This isn't something necessarily bad since that was her purpose and she more or less agreed to it. What I found annoying was that sometimes she would look confident in what she was doing on her own, especially when she finally found the person who ran over her mother but then, she would go back to being Oh Hyun Jae's tool and nothing else, like she was incapable of thinking on her own. The final scene of the drama showed her as a much better detective and while it was kind of jarring to see her kick a criminal in the face the way she did because it seemed so out of character for her, I kind of liked her development.

Team leader Hwang Hwa Young, played by Jin Seo Yun, was an amazing character as well. However, I don't think I can talk about her much without revealing some spoilers. Let's just say that her character arc is what made her act the way she did and I actually really enjoyed seeing her show emotion, losing herself to the fear and then fighting to get back up. Given the fear and guilt she held, she did an amazing job at the end and I loved the way she was written and portrayed by the actress.

What I love the most about this drama is that the stakes are always high, you never know when the next victim is going to show up or what the serial killer would do. While the team wasn't only working on this case (they had a few different ones in the middle) they focused a lot on that investigation while the higher-ups were trying to do their best to prevent them from solving it. I was actually surprised when I realised that corruption wouldn't be the main theme of the drama and I'm actually glad because I honestly can't tell you how many dramas with this theme I started and dropped. 

I absolutely loved the high stakes because you could never know when somebody would drop dead and the writers of this show aren't afraid of killing off characters. This is something I highly enjoyed but my favourite part was the villain.

The culprit is the kind of big baddie I LOVE watching and reading about. He is scary, he doesn't care who he kills, he LIKES killing, I'm pretty sure he's a psychopath or a sociopath or both. And what's even more terrifying is that he's smart and never leaves traces behind, that's what made him such a scary and thrilling part of the show and that's what kept me watching. Because no matter what they were doing, they couldn't catch him for the longest part and it took them such a long time to start learning things about him until they finally figured out who he was. I totally loved his character and I was lowkey rooting for him. He wasn't redeemed, he didn't become a killer because of a traumatic past or because somebody did him wrong in the past, he just was a killer. I think this is the best type of villain when they do what they do because they want to and enjoy it, and being smart just makes it even better. I loved the actor's portrayer of him, he did a great job and everything was tied up at the end. I simply loved it so much because we got answers for all kinds of questions we might have had. I especially loved the last episode when Oh Hyun Jae and the killer were alone for a bit because it is simply amazing.

 Tell Me What You Saw was an amazing and creepy ride and was exactly the type of thriller I was looking for.