뱀파이어 탐정 (Vampire Detective; Vampire Personal Investigator) is a South Korean drama series that consists of 12 episodes that were aired on OCN from March 27th to June 12th every Sunday.
Story: Yoon San has a police/military background but ends up working as a private investigator with Yoon Goo-hyung after some tragic events. One day he gets involved in a case that changes his life completely and gets him turned into a vampire while looking for Han Gyeo-wool's brother. Han Gyeo-wool joins the team to find out what exactly happened to her brother and so they solve different cases. Doctor Hwang and the nurse Se-ra offer the medical support when needed and support them with connections as well, while Detective Park delivers information based on the data the police collected on certain people or incidents before.
Cast: I think a reason why many people ended up watching this drama is or was Lee Joon as Yoon San. His acting was really good in this series and I believe that he is doing way better as an actor than he was back in his idol days. Also his role in a crime series seems to work well with him in general so while I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning I did enjoy his acting in this series.
Yoon Goo-hyung played by Oh Jung-se got me shaking my head from time to time. His methods are not the common ones and he's not the brightest light around but it works somehow - and he cares for San a lot. The acting itself was good enough to get me into the story and to sympathize with him, especially in one of the episodes that shows a deeper side of his character (I think it was episode 6 but I don't remember that clearly). The actor(s) (since there was Oh Hee-joon as the younger Goo-hyung in that one episode) did a good job portraying the character in his different ways and it all fit together somehow.
Lee Se-Young as Han Gyeo-wool was outstanding in my honest opinion. Very smart and a rebel she represented the kind of female characters I really like in dramas and movies. She is willing to fight and her sarcastic nature makes it even better to watch. As for the acting Lee Se-young definitely delivered a great piece of work and made her character become real.
I was a little bit surprised when I saw that Jei (Kim Jin-hee) of FIESTAR is in this drama. She was the exact opposite of Han Gyeo-wool as Se-ra. Quite honestly I would say she played a pretty but dumb nurse that was mainly in this drama for being able to sympathize with others and to appeal to the male audience. As of now I'm still not sure what to think about idols in OCN dramas since I personally love the idols they choose but hate most of the (female) characters those girls play. Her acting wasn't too bad - she portrayed the dumb but pretty female perfectly. Actually so good that I'm seriously hoping she's a lot smarter in real life.
Kim Ki-moo played Doctor Hwang, a character that just seems to be around for some minor stuff in the beginning as well but not only turns out to be a good friend but also gets his time to show the depth of the character and the behind story. I was quite impressed by the acting and the story build around the character so I couldn't help but appreciate the fact he was part of this drama.
An Se-ha really had a minor role in this movie though. Detective Park mainly eats and delivers information which is important but somehow his role lacked something. The acting also brought a comedic aspect to the series which was a great thing to losen up the atmosphere at times.
Since this already got too long I just want to say that Lee Chung-ah was in this drama as Yo-na, a character that still makes me thing about certain issues. Kim Yoon-hye as Jung Yoo-jin did her part but I think she lacked chemistry with San even though there was something supposed to be. And Jo Bok-Rae as Kang Tae-woo managed to become one of the male character I hate the most - out of all dramas I watched.
Soundtrack: I wish I could tell you more about this but everything is explained by: it's OCN. They are so good in supporting a dark atmosphere with music that I usually love each and every soundtrack. As for this one, I didn't listen to the titles specifically but I can tell that it is a good soundtrack as usual.
So how did I rate this? 8/10. Now many people might wonder why after all the positive stuff I said which is totally legit and I will gladly talk about my reasons for not rating it as good as other people would expect.
One part, even though a really weak reason, is the fact that I'm still mad at OCN. If they don't deliver a damn good series instead of finally finishing the other dramas they have with a last season I do think that it is something I do unconsciously.
I do know OCN can do better than they did with this series. After all I had a hard time finishing this not because it was uninteresting. But once I stopped watching it for a few days I had to force myself to continue - and then watched at least two or three episodes in a row. But it still made watching this drama a little bit more difficult than others.
A whole episode consisted pretty much of past events. It was just too much at once. Having parts of this spread throughout the series would've helped a little bit and the viewer would not have seen everything at least two to three times in this series.
The reason for the whole chaos in my opinion also was pretty much a personal thing that makes people do a lot of stupid stuff but come on - they couldn't come up with anything deeper but it can all be brought down to jealousy?
And in the end the chemistry between Yoon San and Jung Yoo-jin was almost non-existent for me - I think there was way better chemistry between San and Gyeo-wool so I don't quite get it..
After all OCN this one isn't bad BUT OCN does have more exciting and better series. This is by far not bad though and definitely worth a watch even though the vampire-part didn't add much to the story in my opinion.
