Seoul Busters: Episodes 1-4

by lovepark

An elite captain joins a group of hapless detectives who are more charming than they are strong, but despite their differences, they may actually be the perfect match. Silly and ridiculous situations await our heroes as they set off to solve cases, and maybe this time, they’ll actually catch the criminals rather than trip over their own feet.

 
EPISODES 1-4

Brains, brawn, and beauty. DONGBANG YOO-BIN (Kim Dong-wook) has it all with his special ops experience, FBI training, criminology PhD, and viral promotional video. It’s no wonder the police commissioner has high hopes for him. However, rather than take the expected path of prestige and fame, Yoo-bin wants to return to the field. There’s clearly a chip on this genius’s shoulder, but we still have sixteen more episodes to dive into that.

In contrast, the rest of our heroes are less than ideal cops; honestly, they’re downright terrible. Deemed the worst in the nation, this violent crimes team replaces captains like changing socks, and it’s easy to see why. One quick look at their operation tells a story about a group of hasty and incompetent detectives, each with their own flaws and quirks.

First is eldest MU JOONG-RYUK (Park Ji-hwan), a former boxing champion with a scary face. Thanks to him, the team loses their target because Joong-ryuk doesn’t know how to stop an electric scooter. Next is JUNG JUNG-HWAN (Seo Hyun-woo), a father of four with an active imagination and the quintessential kiss-up. He becomes the victim of a tandem bike mishap and slows down his teammate SEO MIN-SEO (Park Se-wan), a hot-tempered and slobbish detective who lets her emotions dictate her actions. Lastly, youngest member JANG TAN-SHIK (Lee Seung-woo) is as pretty as he is dumb, and during the chase, he hits himself with his own taser. In a nutshell, there’s a reason why they’re last in the nation in terms of arrest.

As punishment for their lack of results, the team is relocated to an abandoned daycare center while their office building undergoes construction. The sign ominously falls as they enter, and the “well-wishes” turns into “f-ing failure” (I guess even the universe knows of their reputation). The place is riddled with toys and screaming children, but that doesn’t stop our violent crimes unit from doing their jobs. Before they even get a chance to fully settle in, they receive a call about a dead body, so Joong-ryuk takes off with newbie Tan-shik to show him the ropes.

Alas, Tan-shik misremembers the address (arguably one of his least harmful offenses), and the two of them trespass into a hungover man’s apartment before skedaddling out of there. Once they arrive at the real crime scene, Joong-ryuk wraps up the case as suicide, but an onlooker questions his flawed reasoning. That man is Yoo-bin (aka, the new captain), and he argues that it is too early to assume the victim took his own life. His reasoning holds merit, and after a game of eeny-meeny-miny-moe, Min-seo volunteers to assist Yoo-bin with his interviews.

The victim is a road manager to top celebrity Kang Min-jae — the star of hit show “Octopus Game” — and the CEO of JMT Entertainment claims that Min-jae treats all his staff well. A little probing, though, unravels the CEO’s lies, and it becomes obvious that Min-jae bullied his manager. News of the actor’s atrocious behavior gets leaked to the press, and journalists mob the daycare center for a scoop. While Yoo-bin dashes inside before the crowd catches him, the others are too slow, so Jung-hwan and Min-seo pretend to be reporters and sell out Joong-ryuk to slip past.

Supporting Yoo-bin’s theory, the autopsy report comes back saying that puffer fish poison was the cause of death, which means the case is officially a homicide. Unfortunately, before the team figures out the killer, another victim appears: Kang Min-jae. He supposedly jumped from his high-rise apartment, but one look at the crime scene makes Yoo-bin doubt that story. After ordering himself some coffee, he stays behind in the dead man’s room to watch a drama, but this odd behavior is all part of his investigative process.

Meanwhile, Joong-ryuk relies on his hunch rather than evidence to solve the case, and an online scammer pings his radar. With Jung-hwan’s help, they arrest him at a convenience store — a whole debacle involving a fire extinguisher and a war scene — but it turns out that the scammer was just a friend. There’s no evidence to suggest that he killed the manager, and Yoo-bin orders Joong-ryuk to bring him proof before making arrests.

Though Joong-ryuk may not be the brightest, he does have his charms, and to everyone’s surprise, his manly sex appeal convinces the CEO’s ex-secretary to come in for an interview. She reveals the strained relationship between her former boss and the bratty star, and informs the detectives that Min-jae was looking around for new management company which would leave JMT in a lurch. All arrows point to one man as the prime suspect, but instead of gathering more evidence, Yoo-bin invites Min-seo to the movies only to disappear for the majority of it.

The last clue Yoo-bin needed to solve this case comes from the forensics team — pieces of paper lodged in Min-jae’s throat — and while it looks like nothing to the average person, Yoo-bin instantly recognizes its significance. He takes off to confront the CEO who, unsurprisingly, bolts as soon as Yoo-bin announces his arrest. This leads to an absolutely ridiculous chase with a muscular granny, unnecessary fence jumps, and downhill tumbles, proving that Yoo-bin might actually fit right in with our band of misfits.

While the two men catch their breath, Yoo-bin explains how he figured out the CEO’s plan, and all those weird bits like watching TV at the crime scene and going to the movies with Min-seo were actually Yoo-bin collecting evidence. The CEO knew about his star’s betrayal, so to keep him tied down, he killed the manager and told the press about the bullying. As for the death of the actor, Min-jae discovered what the CEO did and threatened him, so the latter killed him in a fit of rage.

Dropping the act, the CEO admits to murdering both men and realizes that killing one more means nothing since he plans to leave the country. As the CEO pulls out a knife, Yoo-bin reminds him that he is a cop which means he carries a gun… except he just lost his. Smiling, the CEO lunges at Yoo-bin, but right then, Joong-ryuk arrives and pulls his captain to safety. From the sidelines, Yoo-bin — along with every single passing hiker — watches Joong-ryuk use the exercise machines to dodge all of the CEO’s attacks, and then with one final punch, knocks the perpetrator out.

As it turns out, Joong-ryuk’s hunch came in handy after all, and the scammer proved helpful since he saw the CEO that night his friend died. From the scammer’s simplistic doodle, Joong-ryuk recognized the face, which is how he came to Yoo-bin’s rescue. With their first case solved, the entire team gets some well-deserved rest, including Tan-shik who’s behind the wheel — and the show almost ends at Episode 3 until a car honk wakes them all up.

Things start to look up for the last-place violent crimes crew, and they even capture a criminal they’ve been searching for previously right as he gets out of jail. At this rate, they might actually shed their tarnished image thanks to their new captain, so to celebrate him joining the team, they go to a fried chicken restaurant which happens to be run by Joong-ryuk’s old coach. Though our tough detective wants to look cool in front of his old buddies, his current teammates couldn’t care less about his image and act in their usual embarrassing manner by giving an honest review of the place and scrounging for freebies.

In a stroke of bad luck, Joong-ryuk’s happy reunion turns into a disaster when their next case becomes the chicken restaurant. The place burned down in the middle of the night, and the coach’s daughter was caught inside. Though their part-timer was able to save her, she’s currently unconscious in the hospital. As the team goes over the case, the forensics expert informs Yoo-bin that the daughter was hit over the head, adding support to the idea that the fire was caused deliberately.

The detectives split up to cover all their bases, and Joong-ryuk heads over to the neighborhood gym where the part-timer trains. Seeing the young man reminds him of his past when his coach believed in him when no one else did, and he feels conflicted for investigating a man who essentially saved his life.

As for the others, Min-seo interviews the rival chicken shop owner who was caught on security cameras passing by during the time of the fire while Jung-hwan and Tan-shik head over to the library to meet with the daughter’s friend. Both encounters go as well as you’d expect with Min-seo losing her cool and the others getting yelled at for whispering too loudly.

Joong-ryuk heads over to the forensics department — i.e., the lair of the magical JUNG EUN-KYUNG (Sohn Eun-seo) who does literally everything — to find more clues. With her help, he looks through the daughter’s stuff and discovers something odd in her search history: it appears there might have been a stalker.

With that, the first week of Seoul Busters ends, and like the Korean title suggests, our heroes aren’t a very “strong” violent crimes unit but a charming one. In typical sitcom fashion, the show is silly and over-the-top with a loose plot and a plethora of wacky characters. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, so despite the actual cases being quite dark, the delivery is light and filled with jokes. So far, the cast is fun with Kim Dong-wook and Park Ji-hwan being the clear standouts, but I enjoyed everyone’s antics and their overall group dynamics.

While the pace of the show does feel uneven and not all of the jokes landed for me (not a huge fan of toilet humor, personally), the overarching tone of the show is what kept it entertaining from start to finish. It reminds me of old sitcoms, which makes sense since the writers are both famous for this genre, and I will admit that nostalgia played a very big role in my enjoyment. It feels old yet new (probably the effect of having a bigger budget and a less constraining work environment), and there’s a clear target audience the writers had in mind. I especially enjoyed the bloopers which were portrayed as they did in the past when broadcasting stations used to air them all together, and the added commentaries were the cherry on top. I also liked how the bloopers enhanced jokes in the actual show such as the scammer graduating from art school, and it’s always nice to see the cast and crew having fun while filming.

 
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