Inspector Koo review: Fast pace, deft humour, smart writing make this Korean drama gem of a crime show

Language: Korean

Heroines of K-dramas tend to be demure and immaculate. Not Koo Kyungyi (Lee Youngae), aka the ex-cop and current private investigator after whom the show Inspector Koo is named.

From the very first episode, it’s evident that Kyungyi is not a usual heroine. Her apartment is a dump, infested with cockroaches and empty beer cans. Her hair is a mess (by K-drama standards, that is. Which means it’s a regular person’s bedhead hair) and Kyungyi couldn’t care less about any of this because she’s addicted to online gaming.

Kyungyi seems to be a teenager in a 43-year-old woman’s body. She isn’t the sort of person anyone would trust with a grown-up job. However, when insurance agent Na Jehee (Kwak Sunyoung) needs to improve her team’s track record, she turns to Kyungyi for help to suss out fake claims from genuine ones. Once upon a time, Kyungyi and Jehee had worked together in the police force and Jehee knows that buried under the gaming addict is a razor-sharp detective’s brain.

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Tempted by the promise of a new computer, Kyungyi agrees to help Jehee investigate a high-value life insurance claim that Kyungyi suspects is fake. By the end of the first episode, the man who was pretending to be dead has been murdered before a helpless Kyungyi’s eyes and the former police officer realises she’s landed herself a murder investigation.

Inspired by the British thriller series Killing Eve, Inspector Koo is a glorious mix of serial killing and screwball comedy. Usually, laughs in a thriller are distractions or scenes that provide relief from the central action. In Inspector Koo, the humour is woven deftly into the storytelling so that each madcap incident either reveals something about the characters or transitions from funny to menacing in the space of a beat — like when one set of bad guys attempt to kill Kyungyi and their efforts are shown as a round of a vintage video game like Super Mario.

The murders are elegantly executed and Kyungyi is an endearing mix of clumsiness and brilliance. Matching her note for note is a stellar cast of characters that includes Kyungyi’s arch nemesis. Well before the halfway mark, Kyungyi and her team — which includes a mysterious gentleman named Santa (Baek Sungchul) — figure out who is behind the serial murders, but catching the culprit proves to be a challenge. The chase becomes all the more absorbing when we realise Kyungyi and the serial killer’s paths have crossed before. In fact, Kyungyi is the one who unwittingly taught the serial killer how to get away with murder.

While K-drama is most famous for its slow-burn romances, it also boasts of some of the twistiest of crime thrillers, like Stranger, Beyond Evil, Signal and Flower of Evil (all streaming on Netflix). Inspector Koo stands out in this group because it’s hilarious in addition to being smartly-written crime fiction.

Fast-paced, tense and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Inspector Koo is a gem of a show. The early episodes may feel confusing because of the amount of information packed in them, but the show answers most of the questions it raises and only a few plot points stretch the audience’s credibility. It’s also fascinating to see how director Lee Jungheum has used cinematography and editing to emphasise the common ground between Kyungyi and her arch nemesis. They’re both brilliant; they’ve both been touched by tragedy and grief; others tend to underestimate them; and neither hesitates from bending the rules in order to achieve their goal.

The cast of Inspector Koo is a joy to watch, with Kim Hyejoon (you may recognise her from Kingdom) and Kim Haesook (she played the scene-stealing grandma in Start-Up) delivering stand out performances along with Lee. It’s rare to find crime fiction led and dominated by women characters, irrespective of whether it’s a show from Hollywood or Bollywood. Inspector Koo stands out for putting a 40-something, woman detective in the spotlight and for crafting an antagonist who is sadistic but still manages to tug at heartstrings.

That said, perhaps the most intriguing character in this show is Santa, who uses an app for mute people even though he can talk, and seems obsessed with Kyungyi. If there’s a second season of Inspector Koo, they better solve the mystery named Santa.

Deepanjana Pal is an author and a journalist.

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