K-drama Review: Suspicious Partner

This K-drama has it all: romance, comedy, suspense, mystery, legal drama - and it introduced me to Ji Chang-wook. Highly recommended!

English Title: Suspicious Partner (2017)

Writer: Kwon Ki-young

Director: Park Seon-ho

Length: 20 Episodes

Tropes: Enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, wrongly accused, shared childhood trauma, found family

My Score: 4/5

Description: Eun Bong-hee (Nam Ji-hyun) is a fish-out-of-water trainee in the prosecutor's office, working alongside the ex who cheated on her. When her ex turns up dead, she's accused of murder and the prosecutor interrogating her is none other than her own boss, the cold, introverted (and very much disliked) stellar prosecutor, Noh Ji-wook (Ji Chang-wook.) When his own circumstances change, Noh Ji-wook opens a small, private legal firm and hires Eun Bong-hee. Working together and living together (and pursuing a serial killer together) they slowly develop feelings for one another - and also discover the shared past that has left them both scarred.

If you enjoyed this show, then watch: Healer (same lead actor), While You Were Sleeping, Touch Your Heart, and Business Proposal (by the same director)

Unfortunately, I watched Suspicious Partner immediately after While You Were Sleeping, another legal drama centred around prosecutors, and this one suffered by comparison. It's not that Suspicious Partner isn't a really great show, just that While You Were Sleeping immediately cracked my list of Top 10 K-dramas ever. If I'd had more of a gap between the two, I think I'd have enjoyed this one even more. Suspicious Partner definitely has its own charm, is well written and a great production, and it's sufficiently different from While You Were Sleeping, with more comedy, so well worth watching.

A personal pet peeve of mine is that I dislike romance novels which start with every possible bad thing happening to the heroine in Chapter One. If she unfairly loses her job, comes home to find her boyfriend is cheating on her, then unfairly loses her home, there's a very large chance I'll stop reading before Chapter Two. Rather than sympathising with her, I feel like I'm being manipulated by the author - because it's so obviously an author trying to create conflict and make us feel sorry for the poor woman. Not only does it feel like I'm being manipulated, but it doesn't feel realistic to have every bad thing happen to a person all at once. Suspicious Partner should have given me that same "Ugh - all this unfairness is stressing me out and it's so unrealistic" feeling - but it didn't. Yes, this female lead (FL) has the worst luck imaginable, even ending up framed for murder by the end of Episode One, yet it never felt like too much. She still felt relatable and engaging and kept me on her side rather than rolling my eyes. Why? I had to spend some time sitting with that question...

In the end, I decided that there are three things the writer did that kept me watching:

• We meet and get to know the FL first, before bad stuff starts happening to her.
• She's likeable - bright, bubbly, and principled, and a little clueless at the story's start, rather than just being introduced to us as "Woe is me! My life is a mess!" This is an extension of the first point, because, unless the writer has taken the time to get us on her side before the bad stuff starts happening, we're not really going to care what happens to her.
• The lighter touch in the opening scenes. There's a touch of screwball comedy mixed in with the serious, making her misery feel less heavy-handed. Your opening scene sets the book's tone for the reader, and if chapter one is just one long pity party, it's going to be hard to convince a reader that the rest of the book is a RomCom. Ensure you set the tone right in your opening pages.

Suspicious Partner is good enough that, despite getting stressed with the suspense, at 3am I was still telling myself "Just one more episode." Yes, I have the typical ADHDer's zero respect for tomorrow but not every show has me this engaged!

What were some of the things I loved about Suspicious Partner?

• For a story with such a dark hook (with the FL arrested for murder) the story has a lot of comedic moments. I really enjoy the emotional rollercoaster created when comedy is used to break the tension.
• The leads have great chemistry.
• I loved the assortment of oddball characters who come together in the new law firm and their feeling of found family - and their chaotic meetings!
• One of my favourite moments was at the end of Episode 6 / start of Episode 7: The FL confesses her feelings, and the viewer sees the male lead (ML) move his hand to caress her - then his hand drops away. We know, but she doesn't. I love these subtle moments that show us the characters' feelings and their internal conflicts - and it's a very moving moment. What makes it so moving is that push and pull between the leads - the bad timing, the missed moments, which keep the "will they or won't they?" tension going for episode after episode.
• In episode 15, the ML distracts himself from his thoughts by deep-cleaning his kitchen, the fridge, etc. I love seeing men doing domestic work voluntarily!
• I liked the way the show's main villain was written. He wasn't a stereotype, and it wasn't too obvious that he was the serial killer.
• Ji Chang Wook. This was the first drama I'd ever seen him in and now I'm a fan. I'd watch him read a grocery list! Seriously, there are a lot of good actors in this drama (and I loved this female lead, Nam Ji-hyun, in both this show and 100 Days My Prince) but he's worth watching all on his own.
• Intentionality: Despite many K-dramas (especially the older ones) being written during production, the upfront planning is evident. Nothing is left to chance, and I love how intentional and thorough these writers are. For example: the opening scene is the "meet-cute." On the surface, it's just a funny misunderstanding in which the FL mistakes the ML for a pervert feeling he run on the crowded subway train. But that scene is not accidental and the writer doesn't just leave it there and move on. The subway pervert shows up again later, and in episode 11 he provides a major clue for the suspense plot and criminal investigation. Even if you're a pantser who doesn't plan these sorts of connections ahead of time, I highly recommend that, during your revisions, you look for ways to weave in these connections so that the story feels intentional.

Ji Chang-wook as Prosecutor Noh

What didn't I like so much?

• It's a pet peeve of mine, but I get annoyed when characters in TV shows get stabbed or shot, then another character arrives on scene and, instead of staunching the blood or calling an ambulance or the police, they shake the victim, crying over and over "Don't leave me" (or in this case "Wake up!") If this were real, they'd be doing more damage and possibly even killing the person!
• Another, albeit more minor, offence is when the cops find evidence at a crime scene and, instead of securing the evidence, they run off after the suspect. Yes, I know a chase scene makes for far more exciting viewing, but when my credibility is stretched, I'm momentarily pulled out of the story and, as a result, the tension and suspense is lost.
• Finally, the twist (that prosecutor Jang influenced the ML's identification of the suspect in his father's murder when he was a kid) was revealed too early for my liking. I don't really consider that a spoiler, since it is revealed so soon. I believe the revelation would have packed more of a punch if the viewer didn't already know what happened several episodes before the ML realises it for himself. And the way the initial revelation scene is edited, it wasn't entirely clear whether this was the ML's memory or Prosecutor Jang's, which muddied the plot a little for me.

One final observation I'd like to make is how K-dramas combine genres. In fiction writing, we tend to be very conservative when it comes to genre. Two genres is considered a crossover while more are viewed as a "mash-up" (and that's not meant as a compliment.) Some genres are considered polar opposites. For example, comedy is associated with cozy mysteries but not with not suspense. But Suspicious Partner mixes high intensity suspense with legal drama with romance and some slapstick comedy. While You Were Sleeping has a similar combination and adds paranormal too. Tale of the Nine Tailed combines horror, romance, fantasy and even throws in some comedy too! These may seem like unlikely combinations, but they work, and I think novel writers should watch these shows to see how the genres are mixed and balanced to give viewers a varied emotional experience. Ask yourself: How does a drama like this one get the balance right, and keep the story focused, unlike The Girl Who Sees Scents?

Have you watched Suspicious Partner and if so, do you agree with my thoughts, or did your experience differ? If you haven't yet watched it, I'll tempt you with this cute scene which shows how this K-drama balances romance, emotion and comedy: