A beautiful coming-of-age series
A show that is surely good enough to recommend. This gets an 8.5/10.Every episode will hook you up. This drama is so good that I finished it in just three days. The friendship of all the KNPU students and the way they bond is so heartwarming. The plot is nice, with no draggy scenes. A lot of the characters are new to me, but they manage to be memorable, and they did a great job in their acting, especially Um Hyuk (Lee Joon Woo).
Though I find this drama good, I can't say that it is an extraordinary drama. Not much of a thriller, I find myself looking forward to the KNPU students bonding more than the action. And the main leads don't have good chemistry; the only "couple" that I find cute is the tandem of Gi Hanna and Yoo Daeil. In my opinion, this series could be a 10 if there was no romance involved.
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Watch if you like profession-based with romance and youthful passion
Did not expect so much from this! I thought would just be like Police University but this has a different magical touch. Reasonable pacing, I did not feel a thing, I just watched it non-stop within 48 hours. So good debut drama for Daniel and partnering him with Soo Bin add so much flavor, an actress who can do any roles with justification without exaggeration. The couple you did not expect to fell in love with. Worth to watch!Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Shout out for Cheon Young Min
There are many very eloquent reviews that I agree with, so I won't repeat what is already out there. I just wanted to give a shout out to/for Cheon Young Min (as Shin Ah Ri). She is super pretty and her acting was awesome. She put a ton of energy and expensiveness into her role and I think she stole the scenes she was in. Loved her and hope to see her as a lead in dramas to come!Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
A drama that will remind you of your friends and college days
Rookie Cops is a drama that I expected to be like other high school or college dramas, that can get lost somewhere halfway the run, but that is not the case with Rookie Cops. It is a drama with comedy, romance, suspense and action blended effectively together. A funny scene can turn into something more serious, but it doesn't feel out of the place. The plot for cases and the students investigating them felt a little far-fetched at times, but the actions (even the action scenes!) of characters felt realistic to me, as that is what you would expect a freshman to behave as, whether from a police university or not. It is a drama where strangers become friends and they go on become close companions to each other.During the first couple of episodes, Kang Daniel's character and acting felt stiff and cold to me, but soon you can see the improvement in both. Chae Soo Bin was lovable and relatable as a character as usual. I enjoyed everyone's acting.
The music wasn't too obvious and something that would stick with me, but I found it to be entertaining and suitable for the scenes.
Overall, I enjoyed this show (better than I expected).
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Messy downhill ride
Honestly, it started off quite well setting up the characters, stories, only to ruin the whole show for me.What I liked:
The music was decent.
The show opening.
Friendship.
Colourful setting, pretty faces...
What I disliked:
The show TOTALLY failed to integrate the romantic & campus vibe with the crime aspect of the drama. While watching, each half, felt like a different drama with similar actors(honestly, even Police University did better at this one). Honestly, it should just have stuck on one side & made the other a complimentary.
The acting sucked, for most of the time, esp. Daniel(hate me or not, that's my opinion), he obviously needs more experience if he ever considers taking on more main roles or it would just be a waste with his face & opportunities.
No character development, the characters just remained blunt, like what they learnt went through one side of the head & went through the other. Plus it felt like a huge percentage of the characters were thrown off the show(shadowed) as it progressed.
The main couple, no chemistry, like things just happen because the writer has pen in his hands & dictates the scene. They should have just stuck with the other couple & limit the rest to friendzoned or whatever...
The deal breaker, Dae II's death; honestly you don't go & kill off the most lovable character in the whole crappy show just to create a sad environment & try to evoke emotions from the viewers & confrontation basis to the villain.
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A prototype story meant to cause frustration through repetition before the final pay-off
Well, that was a rollercoaster ride!Rookie Cops is a prime example of a show that has a structure that frustrates me throughout the entire story, and serves as a prototype for other shows that exhibit similar story telling.
Don’t get me wrong, the show was good, and I’ll talk about the good stuff in more detail later, but it was frustrating to watch nonetheless.
A story can be comprised of smaller stories, which serve as a purpose for character development or the incremental progress towards the main goal. This is exactly the route Rookie Cops decided to take. The students, still naïve, morally guided and always seeking justice, find themselves in various troubling situations, where not everything goes according to plan, if anything at all. During these various encounters with unlawful citizens they find out how awful some people can be and how difficult it can be to catch some of the criminals. Not only that, they also realise that their plans are full of gaps that can be exploited, and that good plans can also have negative consequences.
The extreme justice seeking behaviour, naivety, total disregard for possible dangers and the repetition of such behaviours is the way to get me frustrated. To be fair, I also am extremely concerned with justice, and I often disagree with how people are being punished or treated in relation to how the public perceives the perpetrator and their crimes. Justice, is not the rehabilitation of the criminal, justice has nothing to do with human rights, justice is when the people feel that the perpetrator in question is punished or treated in a way that is equally or more harsh than the crime they committed to the victim. Justice has nothing to do with preventing crime, it has to do with pleasing the population and gaining trust in the system, not with giving certain people second chances.
I find it important to make that clear, because it seems that people really do not understand why prisons exist or why people threw tomatoes at criminals, or paid to watch someone get decapitated in the past. There’s a reason why people lack faith in the judicial system, especially nowadays. While this show does not mention any of the punishments given to any of the criminals, the way they get captured is too light. Think about of Ottomans, who amputated hands from thieves in some severe cases. Compare this to today’s system, where any small injury of the criminal can cause an investigation or punishment to the cop, this is a bad system, and now wonder that so few people actually want to do such dangerous work while barely being able to defend themselves or carry out the work they have to do.
This is why I dislike justice seeking behaviour, because most of it, has nothing to do with justice, it’s punishing criminals, trying to cure them, while treating them with velvet hands. The naivety, disregard of danger and repetition of such behaviour should be clear enough of why it frustrates me.
Because of this, I cannot give the show a 10/10 even if the rest of it was perfect, which it wasn’t, but it was good.
I know that if there’s anything people dislike about the show, it’s the characters. I found the characters to be fine, the male lead is calm, somewhat difficult to read emotionally, but not boring. The female lead was amazing, she played her role really well in all situations. The side characters were interesting in their own way, but Ari and Woo Joo Young really lacked depth that Yoo Dae Il, Kim Tak or Ki Han Na had.
I don’t want to make this too long, so the final thing I want to say is that, the plot twist at the end of episode fifteen was glorious! They face on Jo Hansol when he saw they captured Go Eun Gang instead of their prostitute was so satisfying to watch! The soundtrack that played during that scene and during the credits was great too, written by the male lead of the show Kang Daniel. At that moment, Jo Hansol really didn’t know what to do anymore, he just didn’t have anywhere to go. Anything he’d do would just lead to his demise.
The final episode was somewhat disappointing, as I had hoped the capture of Jo Hansol had taken a different direction than it did, and not knowing what punishment he and the corrupt former officers faced after trial is wasted potential, as it’s a moment where you can really influence people’s feelings.
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Best part: Romance
I'd seen clips of the three couples of this drama before going into it and I knew I'd love it just from that alone. And I was absolutely right — I really enjoyed the dynamic of all the pairings. The main couple in particular felt like such a return to form to classic kdramas, from the very first meet-ugly, to the clashes along the way where they gradually get to know each other. I really liked how they communicated through all their struggles and how we saw bumps in their relationship because of the bigger plot, but it never turned into one of those annoying "break-up" or "noble idiocy" moments. The rom-com was just really fun and cute, with some of the best jealousy and kiss scenes I've seen. The secondary couples have less screen-time but they're really lovable too.In terms of the thriller/"case of the week" portion of the drama, I think they were overall done well. I really liked how we started out with an internal case — how standing up against unfair treatment in police training brought everyone together, and then I liked seeing our main group work together to solve different cases until we gradually made our way to the big one.
I thought the big case was really interesting too, and I actually think the drama did a great job giving it tension and weight in contrast to the more light-hearted scenes of the show. This is the part of the show where you really have to suspend disbelief though; the final plan feels a bit juvenile. Yes, the characters are rookies (it's in the title, after all) but I felt like the main antagonist had been built up to take more precautions that they seemed to really easily get around for plot purposes.
There's also a main character death that I think we needed more time with, giving the other characters more time to grieve and recover. I loved how tight-knit the group was before this, and after the character died, it felt like we were sad for a few minutes and then everyone just moved on and started to focus on the case again. The drama just needed some more quieter scenes of grief and introspection, so that the characters and the viewers could sit with what just happened, because it really should've felt much more earth-shattering.
Other than that, though, I really enjoyed this drama overall, and the main OST (Because of You) is SO catchy.
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Slowly getting boring
I really love how the series start, so youthful and fun. However it took 90 degree turns at the middle and becoming depressing. The ML and FL relationship is not as cute as before and somehow it’s like watching a different series. I’ll easily give 9/10 for episode 1-12 but the rest really went downhill. Too heavy if you want to watch something light .-spoiler-
Daeil’s death is so unnecessary! They should just let him live since the series is almost reach the end. And, I hate how they wrote Shin Ari character. She’s selfish and annoying. Always unnecessarily screaming and being mean to daeil. The fact that she didn’t even bother to ask how Kim Tak is doing during their first meeting after a while and still have the audacity to say something selfish like the world only revolves around her. How can she beg to be with him again since every one know abt them so it’ll be embarrassing for her to break up. Definitely a wtf moment watching that scene.
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Quite nice
I wasn't really dying to watch this drama, but decided to give it a shot since I like Kang Daniel & Chae Soo-bin. I also wanted to see more of Lee Sin-young's acting since he didn't play much of a role in Crash Landing on You.I generally enjoy watching light-hearted dramas, and Rookie Cops was no exception. The storyline was well-developed in my opinion. It wasn't too draggy and did not pass by too quickly. I thought the acting was pretty nice, but nothing spectacular.
This drama kind of reminded me of Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo, but with some crime/mini-thriller elements to it. The plot was nice but I wish they touched a bit more on the 2 leads' romance. I also think it was a bit unrealistic that the kids would throw themselves into danger so recklessly, which is why I gave a lower score for the story. Overall, a pretty nice drama with nice OSTs.
In summary:
What i liked - it's a feel-good & light-hearted drama
What i disliked - sometimes unrealistic
Star of the show: I don't think anyone was really "star quality" but honourable mentions are Park Sang-hoon (empty package boy Lee Se-hyun) and Kim Kwon (Jo Han-sol).
Rating: 7.5/10
Watch if you like light-hearted dramas.
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Storyline
I love that the storyline wasn’t focused too much on adults, they focusing more on the students who is studying to become a cop. It’s interesting to see how the students was trained and there’s also some funny scene which don’t even seem exaggerated or too much. The casts are interesting and everyone match their character well. However I’m the type of person who focuses more on the storyline rather than the casting. So far the storyline does look interesting and I can’t wait to watch for the next episode.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Recommended drama so far
Recommended drama so far imo. Im always skip the intro part when i watched kdramas, but not this one. It's so disney like and i love it. I saw few comments saying abt ML acting is too cringey, stiff etc. As his fans and also kdrama lover, i always told myself not to be bias when giving review.He might not be excellant in his acting yet but it's not that bad either compared to other idol turn actor who have been in several projects but still couldnt grab my attention to watch them. I agree that there are part tht a bit awkward in his acting, but i believe it will be improve when the drama progress. And i saw this in ep 3&4. I love his eyes expression the most. He might need something to work on his acting, but is not tht bad to get overly criticize (positive criticism is welcome since that what a newcomers need the most)
Im looking forward for more character development for the ML since what i saw from ep 1-4 the drama are focusing more on FL character.
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So far, so good ?
First off, I love the intro. Besides being cute, it shows the stark contrast between the 2 lead actors.The flow of the story is nice and it has a good mix of comedry, drama and suspense. It touches on family life, growing up, etc. I'm loving it so far. Looking for the romance between the 2 leads soon.
As for the cast, Chae soobin has always been one of my favorites. She's a natural. As for Kang Daniel, besides a few awkward moments, he did well for a newbie actor. I feel he's lucky to be paired with CSB for his first drama. And I love their chemistry🥰
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