Psychometry

사이코메트리 (Psychometry; also known as The Gifted Hands) is a South Korean movie with a runtime of 108 minutes that was directed by Kwon Ho-young and released in 2013.

Story: Yang Chun-dong is a rather unsuccessful detective. One day he takes on the case of a missing child but is unable to find her for one month. He is the only one willing to work on it so there is no special task force but alone he is unable to find the girl alive. 30 days later she is found dead at a playground not far from her home. Trying to find the murder Chun-dong remembers an encounter with a young man in an alley. The graffiti painting the men created looks exactly like the playground which of course leads to the man, Kim Jun, as a murder suspect. But since he was suspended, Yang Chun-dong investigates only with the help of Yang Soo. Soon the two know that Kim Jun has a secret but only his highschool classmate Kim Seul-gi can give Chun-dong a hint on what is going on with Jun.

"Psychometry, also known as token-object reading, or psychoscopy, is a form of extrasensory perception characterized by the claimed ability to make relevant associations from an object of unknown history by making physical contact with that object."

When another girl, Yoon Da-hee, disappears, Yang Chun-dong decides to use Jun to find the little girl before she dies.

Cast: So at the very first we have Kim Kang-woo as Yang Chun-dong. I admire this actor in crime series since Missing Noir M and this role is totally different but very well played. The struggle with the past and the determination to find Da-hee while also protecting Jun are portrayed in a way it kept me hoping for the best.
Kim Jun was played by Kim Bum and he is literally my favorite actor since I started watching K-Dramas. So of course I had to watch this movie and he didn't disappoint me at all. His acting involving the psychometry power was a little bit as if he was obsessed - but I have no other idea on how else it could be portrayed so he honestly got even more respect from me now.
Lee Joon-hyuk played Yang Soo and while he personally isn't a very likeable character I think the acting was good, too. It is just that Yang Soo wants money and is responsible for a bad situation Chun-dong is in so that is how Yang Soo gets dragged into this case.
Kim Seul-gi isn't a major character in this series - but I recognized Esom right away and in her very short scenes she also did a solid job but of course as a side character she is not really important and only appears in a few scenes.

And little Da-hee was played by Kim Yoo-bin. She is so cute I was really praying for her safety until the end. It is hard for me to rate her acting but it seemed like children would really behave that way so it was good, too.


This movie. I just hated it on many levels during the last minutes because it was so exciting. I don't quite know why but it has potential to be one of my favorite movies. The supernatural effect, the suspense, the bromance (no, it is not even close to gay and doesn't disturb the movie), the mystery and the thrill - it was a great movie and deserves its rating with 9/10 quite well. I love it and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested either in supernatural or crime or.. both?

Missing Noir M

실종 느와르 M (Missing Noir M) that aired on OCN from March 28th to May 30th 2015.

"사라진 사람, 숨겨진 진실" (the sentence on the poster) directly translates to "Missing People. Hidden Truth." So you might make a guess if this drama is appealing to you just by knowing that.

Story: Gil Soo-hyun (or James Gil) is an extremely intelligent former FBI agent who attended Harvard University at the age of 10. Because of Lee Jung-soo, who only wants to talk to him, he comes back to Korea and solves the first case with the help of Detective Oh Dae-young and hacker Jin Seo-joon. Those three become the Special Investigation Unit for Missing Persons. As they solve cases, they also discover rather personal cases as well as dark family backgrounds and the fact that power can be more important than the law.

Cast: I openly admit not knowing much about the actors and I'll just talk about what I see in this series. Kim Kang-woo as James Gil Soo-hyun is extremely fascinating in this drama. I just wanted to know more and more about him and noticed that there's another drama with him in the main cast I am planning to watch. Anyways, what was the most fascinating except for his well-hidden past is actually his eyecolor. I know this sounds weird. But especially in Ep. 9 I noticed that it's almost a mix of gold and brown and I really find this interesting and beautiful. (This is not intense fangirling though, so please forgive me..)
Well, Park Hee-soon... is it weird that I just noticed I've watched another drama with him before? He looks so different as Oh Dae-young, I never would've noticed that without MDL and/or asianwiki. I love the way he's portraying the veteran detecive (who is a typical character in every OCN series in case you missed it). Long story short, I loved his acting. A lot.
The last person who's around almost all the time is Jin Seo-joon played by Jo Bo-ah. She is really beautiful. That's what I'm going to admit first. Her acting wasn't bad but I felt like her character wasn't shown enough to really judge her as an actress - sure there was one outstanding episode and I loved her in that episode but the rest of the time she's just a typical team member following what she's told to do by her seniors and her acting seemed a bit awkward or.. rather monotonous? Does that make sense to those who are reading this?
Anyway, others in the cast include Kim Kyu-chul as Park Jung-do and Park So-hyun as Kang Joo-young. They both were good in their respecitve roles, and Park Jung-do as a character even managed to surprise me in the end.

Soundtrack: The music in this drama deserves 10/10 without a doubt! This is one of the few dramas only including one song, "자각몽 (Lucid Dream)" by Kim Yun-ah, but this song is great and atmospheric. But as much as I love this, the Original Score owns this drama. The song that really makes me shiver is actually "Was Justice Delivered" by No Hyung-woo but also "Story of the Victim" is a great instrumental. However, if you're not that much into instrumentals and classical instruments, there is a chance you might not like this at all. The atmosphere those pieces (as well as most of the others on the Original Score) deliver still makes me shiver.



So do we need to talk about my rating? It's a definite 10/10 and I'm not joking when I say this is one of the best crime series in Korea as well.

The atmosphere becomes darker and darker, some cases basically killed me inside (I think especially Ep. 5 or 6 did an awesome job living me behind as an emotional mess). The cases are great and filled with suspense so you won't end up bored. Some plottwists seemed individual and I didn't expect some things at all. And you know, this series is probably more realistic than others and not always comes up with a happy ending.
Looking at my notes, the only negative things I wrote down always ended with "But that's SO OCN! I hate them for doing this.." while I still love this channel more than any other. Okay, I still criticize that we only get a tiny little bit of background information about James. And OCN still leaves an option about Oh Dae-young as well. I would've loved more concrete facts but then again we'll probably get a second season and therefore there is a chance we get to know more then. Which leads to the point that I hate waiting for episodes. Especially, if two episodes are directly connected and you just want to know what's going to happen next. Which leads to the next point I more or less criticize - TOO MANY SPLIT CASES. I do understand that not every episode could have a duration of two hours but waiting for the second part drove me nuts (since I've been watching this drama while it was airing). Now all the episodes are up and the problem just disappeared, yay for those who were able to wait.
Just one thing I found to be rather acceptable - there are some English parts when it comes to FBI stories. Which are messed up. It sounds too clear and too simple. But then again it's not surprising - productions from other countries would probably mess up Korean worse so I'm willing to forgive them since it's not complete nonsense either and we can understand it.


Watch this if you like crime, suspense and thriller. It's worth it.

Oh, and the last GIF - that's almost the way I used to sit there after finishing this drama. Severe Post-Drama Depression.