Crime Puzzle (2021) Review

Crime Puzzle was a drama I had my eye on, but when no one picked it up when it started airing back in October, I figured it would have to be a drama I let go of. Thankfully, Viki grabbed it after it completed airing and uploaded all the episodes without much of a subtitle wait. For transparency, when I watched the drama a large portion of it was at various stages of translation, but as it was over 90% I decided I didn’t want to wait for it to finally get around to being all at 100% before finishing. I had no intention to talk about the drama, so I didn’t take notes nor screencap or do anything I would normally to prep for a review, but after finishing it up I did want to briefly talk about it.

Written by first-time writer Choi Jong Gil and directed by Go Jae Hyun (who previously worked on dramas such as Player and Black) the drama focuses on the arrest of a criminal psychologist (played by Yoon Kye Sang) after the death of a political candidate, and his girlfriend (Go Ah Sung), a profiler and the daughter of the deceased. The story winds its way around what happened in the events leading up to the murder, and things that are happening in the present as Yoo Hee (Sung) tries to figure out why he’s there and what actually happened. It’s an intricate plot, and the drama spends a lot of its time in twists and turns that were genuinely surprising and engaging. It took me a good couple of episodes to really get into it, however, but a turn in the investigation really got me into the story and it continued to be rather engaging.

One of the things that I found most interesting about it was how dark the drama was. I know this is weird to say, but I actually…enjoyed it? It added a lot to the general storyline and added depth to what was going on having it dive a lot deeper into the psyche of murderers and corruption and how truly and deeply unsettling and terrible it is. Not to say that you can’t pull off a drama like this without going as far as they did, but it did make the drama stand out on its own and differentiate itself from other crime thrillers. And when I say dark, I mean dark. The drama was broadcast on Olleh TV, a VOD platform, and had a lot more leeway because of it. Knives didn’t have to be blurred out, a lot of deaths were shown - and graphically. The drama was much more violent and gory than you will find in other dramas that have come out. Squid Game is mild comparatively.

Because of this, I do think that it’s not the drama for everyone. If you had intended to watch, be aware about it before you dive into it. If you do end up starting, the story and clues really keep you into the story. I felt that the acting was strong for everyone in the cast and while there were a few things here and there that I didn’t like, on a whole it was a solid crime drama and was glad I was able to get it in before the end of the year.

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