Four Episodes: Who Are You

I started doing this series way back in 2019 and since then I’ve only done that one initial post and what a perfect time to do that than with a drama that premiered today. The basic rundown of this series is that I discuss my thoughts on the first four episodes of a drama. It’s sort of like a first impression but dives a little bit farther into the series without being a full series review. It’s based on the rule that a lot of drama watchers follow where they watch four episodes before they decide whether they are going to drop a drama or not. While I don’t personally do that (if I don’t like a drama at the first episode, I’ll drop it without hesitation), I do think that this format is a little bit better for writing posts than just the two episode first impressions because you do get a better sense of what the series is going to be and have a bit more to talk about.

Note: Even though this drama has been out for a while, the spoilers in this post will only focus on the first four episodes.

Native Title: 후아유
Release Date: July 29, 2013
Episode #: 16
Network: tvN
Director: Jo Hyun Taek (SKY Castle)
Writer: Ban Ki Ri (Missing: The Other Side), Moon Ji Young (Queen Maker)
Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Horror/Supernatural/Romance
Starring: So Yi Hyun, Ok Taecyeon, Kim Jae Wook. Rest of the cast can be found here.

The premise of Who Are You is pretty simple and even though it is labeled as a horror, it’s really not. Yang Shi On (So Yi Hyun) is a detective who is able to see ghosts following waking up from a coma after being attacked during a case that left her boyfriend (Kim Jae Wook) dead. She sees a ghost, finds out that they’ve been murdered, and then she spends two episodes solving the case with Cha Gun Woo (Taecyeon). Part of the struggle with the cases is that they aren’t really cops. Well…they are but they work in lost and found; Shi On because of being placed in a low stress position after the coma, Gun Woo because he’s a rookie cop. I don’t really know what lost and found cops do, or why they are needed (are they even a thing in Korea?) but it does stunt them in situations because a lot of the time neither have clearance or access to a lot of the information on the cases or ways to protect themselves because they don’t carry guns.

Admittedly I haven’t watched many - if any - crime dramas from before 2016, and so I don’t have a lot of comparison to some other dramas of the genre, but Who Are You does seem to run into similar problems and tropes that dramas in general from that period have with a lot of questionable content. While I can still enjoy them, they really annoy me when they get into the territory of light abuse masked by love and other subjects. Taecyeon’s character plays the over acted screamer, and while it’s nice to see this type of role in the male lead when it’s almost always reserved for the female lead, it does lend to situations that are hard to watch. He yells at Shi On constantly, undermining her as a capable cop (or really human), and for some reason having a temper tantrum of a two-year-old means that he is to be seen as better in the situation and just trying to protect her “absentmindedness”.

Can’t win those suitors with a scar on your arm!

Shi On sees ghost and was in a coma for like six years after watching the love of her life get shot. I think she’s allowed to be a little weird. Should she be in law enforcement? Maybe no, but she was officially assigned to only doing smaller desk work in a department that isn’t supposed to have these types of cases so it’s not really her fault. While she definitely isn’t in a position to mentally handle these murder cases, at least she isn’t purposefully trying to pick up these cases on whims or a sheer determination to push herself. She does it to not be plagued by seeing the ghosts. Which honestly is a nice setup to see, as a lot of time these types of dramas can have leads who are forceably doing things that are outside of their mental capability because they think they are better than anyone, and it’s nice to not have that type of cockiness in the lead. It’s one of those dramas that while labeled as a crime drama, they don’t do anything by the law or correct and expect that the audience has no knowledge to help carry that narrative.

That being said, I did like some aspects of the drama specifically when they did dial back all of the comedy and overacting and started to focus on the cases. It had some good moments, that really could have been great. I think that is what is ultimately the real problem with the drama. You can see where the drama is supposed to go, and how it’s just not there yet (if it’ll get there at all). If the focus of the drama was less about forcing the connection of the two being the obvious set up of a romantic couple, especially during these first episodes, and allowed the stories of the individual murder cases to be the focus, I think it would have shaped up to be a solid start to a crime drama with a lot of intrigue and mystery. I have to admit that despite those faults, I found myself being immersed in the story. The episodes aren’t very long and I think it helped keep me interested in what I was watching as it wasn’t constantly trying to draw out the story line with a lot of filler. I also like the setup of the story arcs and how they are centered on a different cold case each two episodes. I do hope that it’ll continue that way throughout the series.

I’m intrigued enough to see where it’s going for the rest of the series, especially since it took till the last seconds of the fourth episode for Jae Wook’s character to be brought back and we didn’t get much time to understand what his presence in the drama exactly is. With Taec’s character being too misogynistic for me to handle I know that it’ll be grating for me to keep up watching regularly, especially in large doses. For now it’s not a drop, but it is going to be kept on-hold and I may get back to it every once and a while.

The drama is a little hard to find and I’ve honestly not heard anyone talk about it, so if you’ve watched the drama, let me know what you thought (no-spoilers!) and if I should give it more of a try.

+++