Crime and Mystery Asian Dramas with Caitlin

S2 E18 / Caitlin from NoSleep4Dramas podcast and blog joins me for a crime and mystery Kdrama deep dive! This genre doesn’t get as much attention as some others, so we’re shining the light on our favorites. And, boy, do we have a lot! 

🎯 We explore our crime tv-show roots, giving shout-outs to shows like Criminal Minds, Bones, and The Mentalist as well as our recs for current western crime shows: 

• Caitlin: Only Murders in the Building, Criminal Minds, and Broadchurch
• Sara: Art of Crime (French), Astrid (French)

🔪 Then we delve into the very rich world of Asian crime dramas. 

✅ Mostly spoiler-free episode. Some minor spoilers, but we usually just mention the set-up and don’t go into the whole drama. Enjoy! 

⏱️ Timestamps

[00:00:37] Meet Caitlin

[00:02:35] Currently Watching

[00:08:33] Cailin's Kdrama Origin Story

[00:09:59] Favorite Western Crime and Mystery Shows

[00:16:01] Favorite Asian Crime and Mystery Shows

Currently Watching: 

• Caitlin: Time Between Wolf and Dog, Buried Hearts, Lover or Stranger
• Sara: Is Love Sustainable, Turn to me Mukai-Kun

Dramas mentioned: 

• Lover or Stranger
• Boys over Flowers
• Under the Skin
• Queen of Mystery (Tubi)
• Terius Behind Me / My Secret Terius (Tubi)
• Beyond Evil
• Memorist
• Like Flowers in Sand
• Oh no, Here Comes Trouble
• Cheat on Me, if you Can
• Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle?
• Law School
• Hyena
•  Juvenile Justice
• Touch Your Heart
• Stranger
• May it Please the Court
• Usotoki Rhetoric
• Taxi Driver
• Flex x Cop
• Unnatural
• Tale of Nokdu 
• While You Were Sleeping
• You are my Spring
• Quartet
• Awaken
• Item
• Miss Night and Day
• Suspicious Partner
• The Victim’s Game
• Signal
• Tunnel
• Voice
• Through the Darkness
• The Raincoat Killer
• The Bad Kids
• The Long Night
• Green Door  

Caitlin’s podcast: https://www.nosleep4dramas.com/podcast 

Caitlin’s blog: https://www.nosleep4dramas.com/

Other episodes mentioned: 

Chinese Crime Dramas: https://www.nosleep4dramas.com/post/favorite-chinese-crime-dramas

Like Flowers in Sand: https://howimetmykdrama.buzzsprout.com/2435348/episodes/17072535-spotlight-like-flowers-in-sand

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

This is the How I Met My K-Drama podcast, and it's all about K-drama origin stories and recommendations. I'm Sarah Rosette, and today Caitlin from No Sleep for Dramas Podcast is here, and we're doing a special crime and mystery edition of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello. I'm good. I'm good. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

So excited to talk about mysteries and crime and suspense stuff. Yeah. But before we do that, tell a little bit about yourself and maybe a little bit about your podcast too.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Sure. I have been watching dramas for almost 20 years. I have a criminal justice background. So, like me being into crime stuff is normal. I also grew up watching a lot of crime stuff. My mom is a very big mystery reader. We always watch crime stuff together. I started a blog during the pandemic to talk about Asian dramas. Before that, I was really just on social media talking about it. And then that has transitioned into a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, social media, all you can think of. And then I like guests on other people's podcasts as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

So it's basically like probably filled up all your spare time, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yep. It's like my number one hobby watching watching Asian dramas and then podcasting about them.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Yeah.

unknown 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

I love your podcast because you talk about a lot of dramas that maybe a lot of other people aren't talking about. Do you focus sometimes on the crime and mystery a little bit more? And so I enjoy that.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, that's fun. Always been the goal of mine because I have realized over the years that a lot of people like romance ones. And not that I don't watch romance dramas at all. I do. I'm just very particular about them. And I tend to drop a lot of them. So I tend to like the highlight, the ones that people might not know about, might not be watching, like the gems that you might find, especially coming from other countries. Like a lot of people watch Korean dramas, but might not necessarily watch Taiwanese dramas or things like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Because the options are huge. Like when you get outside the US and Brit box and acorn and you find out all these other things throughout there, it's like, oh, there's a lot to look at.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah. Before we get into all that, what are you currently watching? Do you have anything that you're excited about or interested in?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So I am currently binging a show due to a podcast recording I'm doing tomorrow. So that is literally everything I've watched this week. And I am not a binger. I'm notoriously not a binger. I usually watch six to eight dramas at a time and just kind of like bounce around. Um, but for some reason I always tend to be binging stuff that I need to finish by the weekend to record. So currently, my entire week this week has been watching a older K drama called Time Between Wolf and Dog or Dog and Wolf. Let me look. I think it's dog and wolf. It's one of that. It's a 2005-2006 drama, a really old Korean drama. Going way back. Uh yeah, that I've like never seen, but I have heard about. It's one of those like classic ones. And I'm doing a review on it on my own podcast this weekend. So I needed to watch it and watch it in a week. It's difficult pace. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Well, I am a binger. I like to binge if I can, especially the older dramas.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Used to be. I used to be a binger, but then I got into watching a lot more of the airing dramas. And then I liked being able to only watch one to two episodes and then hop a wrap because I have found that if I binge, unless I'm really liking a drama, which is very rare nowadays. So I tend to watch two or three episodes and then have to hop to something else, and or I'll get bored. But yeah, other things I'm watching currently, I am watching the only other K-drama I'm watching is Buried Hearts. I'm trying to finish it. I'm really behind. And then I'm watching a ton of Chinese dramas currently, right now. Love Like the Galaxy, which is a rewatch for me. I've watched it already. Um, and then a crime one called Lover or Stranger, which is a quick synopsis, is a it's about a woman who gets in an avalanche accident with her fiance in Japan and loses her memory, and now doesn't know who her fiance is and if he actually is a good guy or not, and is suspicious of him, uh currently, or even is she the actual real person to of who they lost in this avalanche as the same time because she had to get like plastic surgery, and so interesting.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

That sounds very cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I like that. I'm also a big lover of the crazy Machjong ones, like the bigger, the crazier, the better for me. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Yeah, I like that when it when I know it's going there, when it suddenly goes there unexpectedly. I'm like, I didn't know I signed up for this, but sometimes I can go with it and it's fine. Yeah, yeah. What's the name of that? The last one again?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

It's called Lover or Stranger. It's a Chinese drama from I think 2021. Yeah, 2021.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Okay, that sounds good. Okay. It's good so far. Yeah, that's you kind of have to caveat things because sometimes you don't know it may go off the cliff at the end. Yeah. I've been watching, I'm into J dramas now. And so I love J dramas.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I wish more people I wish I watched more J dramas.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I think they're sometimes a K drama that's 16 or 20 episodes, that can be a lot. And since you allow it to binge, if I'm watching airing dramas, that helps me not like up till two in the morning. So that's good. But J dramas are a little bit shorter, and I just like their pacing. Usually they're exactly like 45 minutes, maybe an hour each episode. So it's worked out good for me. But I've watched it's a rom-com one called Is Love Sustainable on Netflix. And it's just so funny. It's about a man who is a widower, his adult daughter is in her mid-30s. She's uh left the rat race to focus on yoga, and she wants to open her own yoga studio, but she moved home with her dad to help him kind of transition, and so she's saving money. So she's but she's very career focused, she wants to do well and have her own business, and then the dad signs them up, both of them, for this dating service because he wants her to get married, and he's okay. If I get married, then that will release her to let her live her own life and stuff. And it's funny they both you get both their stories, and then it has just some really heartfelt moments too. I enjoyed it, I thought it was great.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

So I love Japanese rom-coms. That's like the one country I usually navigate towards comes to rom-coms because it's unique, they're always unique compared to Korean drama or things.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, I've watched several that I've been really impressed with, I really enjoyed. So I will be down that rabbit hole, I'm sure, for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

What I like about them is they always tend to have some social commentary along with them. So it's not just like a slight social commentary. Yeah, it's more than just exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yeah, I watched one recently too, Turn to Me Mook Kai kun, and it was like that. It had rom-com, funny moments, and but then it had some very thoughtful, almost philosophical like why do we get married? What is this relationship? This is uh and I liked it, I enjoyed it. And then let's see, I also I just started nine puzzles, and I've watched I need to watch it.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

I've just watched two episodes, so I'm they dropped six, I think. They did, yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, I think it's 11 or 12 episodes in total.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah, so it's good so far.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Did you like the first two episodes?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Yeah, I really like the main character and it's interesting. It's though they're cutting between scenes, they're doing that, where at the end of one scene, somebody will pick up the phone and then it immediately cuts to somebody else, and it takes you a moment to go, okay, we're in a different uh storyline now. This is not it's like you it's like you can't really you have to really be paying attention or you get a little lost. But I'm enjoying it.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Okay, that's okay.

Cailin's Kdrama Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Okay, so let's go back to how you got into K-dramas. What was your face first K-drama if you remember the questions we ask everybody, and then we'll go into the crime and mystery.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, sure. My first K-drama was Boys Over Flowers, a classic K-drama. I found it randomly on YouTube, caught up into a bajillion pieces on all one playlist, so it was like five minutes of video for every episode.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

So you were like really dedicated, you're like, I'm watching this.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Thank God someone made a playlist. And I don't even know how they even just I don't know how you chop that up into five minute segments, but they did, and I watched it all in a weekend or something because yeah, I that was 2008. That was my first like 2007-2008, I think, when I watched it. And at the time, obviously, you didn't have streaming service like you do now, and it was you had to find what you could find on YouTube or Blockbuster at the time, or maybe the library. And sometimes you'd find I lived in luckily, I lived in a city in the Midwest in Wisconsin, so there were ways that like I could either find maybe an Asian grocery store or a convenience store that, but back then it wasn't as prevalent as now. Yeah. People nowadays have eaties.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Oh, yeah, we're it's so easy now. Yeah, that is so interesting. Let's talk a little bit about mystery and crime, but not just like Asian stuff, but what did you grow up watching? What were some of your favorite mystery and crime shows?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So I grew up watching like all of the American procedural crime shows, like Bones, Criminal Minds, and CIS, like all of the primetime things. Eventually that rolled into HBO things like True Detective and things like that when I was older. But that's pretty much what my family watched while we were eating dinner. Like we'd be watching a Bones episode while we were eating, and yeah. So yeah, I grew up watching a lot of that type of show, yeah, mostly with my entire family around. Yeah, me too. Then that transitioned into Asian crime dramas, really.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yeah, me too. I watched Bones was one of my favorites. I love The Mentalist. Did you ever watch The Mentalist?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yes, I watched The Mentalist, yes. That was one of my favorites. Um, and then my dad eventually, this was more high school. My dad eventually joked I was supposed to be born in Britain because I watched all of the crime British shows. I was super obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. I binged Midsummer Murders, which I think is still on the air. I think so. Um Broadchurch is one of my favorite crime shows of all time. I was in super into Agatha Christie and like all of those old classic detectives as well. I read a ton when I was younger, not so much anymore, but when I was younger, I read all of those stories and classic stories as well. Yeah, but it was that was basically me growing up, as I was always had my hands in some type of British mystery or and eventually it did move into Asian content, but it was a combo of due to the lack of availability, I was always watching other American stuff or British stuff along with the Asian stuff until streaming sites came along.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah. I did the same. I did the American TV. Do you remember when USA Network had like their blue sky shows like Psych and Burn Notice was like one of my favorites? And those faded out and I couldn't find anything after that. It seemed like kind of things dried up. Like Castle was at the same time from two.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And then after all that dried up, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

I went British and watched a ton of British shows. And then I think I was on Acorn and I watched Candace Renoir, which is like a French show, and then I got into all these French and German detective shows, and they were just they were lighter than some of the stuff that was on in the US. And so I so I camped out there for a while, and then I found Asian dramas after that. I think it's once you realize there are shows outside the US, there's like just so many, and it's just so interesting to explore the different countries and how they do their crime shows. They're very like the scandy shows are dark and serious. Oh, I love the Scandinavian shows.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I love the Scandinavian crime shows. Yes, definitely. Wall under and things like that. Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Do you have any since we're doing a show with Rex, do you have any Western or crime or mystery TV shows that you would recommend people watch now that you're enjoying now? Or are you talking about it?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Well, the only real like Americ the only real American crime show I'm keeping up with is Murders in the Building. Okay. Only Murders in the Building. So I'm behind. I'm on like season three and it's on like season five or six now, but that's hilarious. I always recommend Broadchurch. That was one of my favorites when I watched it. I love David Tennant in general. I'm also a huge sci-fi fan, so I've seen like all of the Doctor Who, for example, and I was like a Star Trek kid, like my dad was a Star Trek kid. And then obviously Classic is like Criminal Minds. I that's probably one of my favorite Western crime shows.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Yeah, can't go wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

I listened to your podcast about, I think it was Chinese Mysteries and Crime Show. That was the most recent, one of your recent ones. And I was gonna tell you and everyone else, my recommendation for current Western shows, one of them is called The Art of Crime, and it's a French show. Oh and it's I haven't heard of that one. Okay. It's so good. It's about a man who hates art. He's a police officer, he's not interested in art at all. He gets assigned to the art crimes unit in Paris. And of course, since he knows nothing, he's paired up with this curator from the Louvre, and she's all bubbly and happy, and he's very grumpy. There's like grumpy sunshine. And each episode is related to a French painter. So there's one about Monet, and there's all this stuff about his paintings, and then it kind of has this magical realism thing where it like the woman, she will imagine she's discussing the crime with the famous painter. And so it's that maybe it bridges too far for some people. That may be like, I don't remember, but I liked it because it was all about the art. Because there was one that you said you'd enjoy that was more about art and art.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yes, that was under the skin, the Chinese drama. Yeah, and that was really in it's like the same combo. You have a painter who's really a sketch artist, a person who, if you give a description of a person, a perp, but really he will be able to sketch them out from description, and then you have a cop, and then they don't necessarily always investigate an art crime, it sometimes is a murder or is a theft or something. But once in a while he'll be brought in because it's an art thing, because he's also an art professor as well. Yeah, yeah. And that was really interesting when that came out because there was really nothing like it ever made, really, especially in the Chinese drama department, but in Asian dramas in general, like you don't usually see that combo. I know, I want which is why a lot of people were very interested in it.

Favorite Asian Crime and Mystery Shows

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah, and I want more of that. I want more art crime because it's a huge problem and there's art crime everywhere. There's plenty of material there, so hopefully we'll send that out to the universe and get some art mystery crime shows. Yeah, okay. So now we're gonna go through just a list of topics and bounce off each other and talk about some of our favorite shows in these. I broke down some rough categories. So for Asian crime dramas, what are some of your favorite like odd couple sleuth pairings? And it can be any type of genre, you know, subgenre.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

So the one that immediately came to mind when I saw this one was one you've already mentioned called Queen of Mystery.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Oh, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, I think if you're a huge fan of murder she wrote, you will love Queen of Mystery. There's two seasons of it, and it's essentially a housewife who wanted to become a cop and just was not able to take the test or do anything due to her in-laws and her family. She's just nosy. So she's obviously like murder she wrote, where yeah, anytime she pops up anywhere, something seems to happen, usually a murder. And then the joke is she's always around, and then this cop, this grumpy cop, comes in as you're here again. Oh my god, what the heck? And then so they eventually team up because she won't leave him alone until they figure out the murder. And then they then he realizes that she actually does have a knack for thinking outside the box and know somebody in the neighborhood because she's a housewife, so she knows everybody in the neighborhood as well. So that immediately came to mind just because is a odd pairing, really.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, and they're so fun together because he's such a yeah, like they just have a really good energy. I like that one, and uh yeah. So I watched season one.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And it's also the one where, yeah, I've also only seen season one. Season two was not available in the United States for a very long time, but it's also one which is a classic thing when it comes to crime dramas, where there's no romance, even though they have really good chemistry, there's no romance, and it's like the tension that keeps people tuning in, I think, to because they want them to get together, but you can't let them get together because then it changes the whole dynamic.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

That's like the philosophy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Yeah, so for this one for me, I was thinking of this one that I've watched uh recently. It's an older one, it's Tereus Behind Me or My Secret Tereus. If it was be like a Mr. Mom paired with Jason Bourne type thing, it's a spy show. Right. So the spy is in this domestic setting where he's trying to protect this woman and she doesn't realize what's going on, and they have a great rapport, and he's dealing with these kids. The kids win him over, and so they're very opposite. She sees that he's not just gruff and tough and reserved. That's one that there's no romance, but they're very different when their goals are very different. Right. But I enjoyed that one, so that yeah, there's so many, it's hard to pick in this category.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, yeah, or there's so many that are like the same type, like especially when I was trying to think of this question of like different occupations going together, so like example would be under the skin, for example, but there's so many that are like partner cops or forensic doctor and cop or something along those lines. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

What about do you have a favorite like cop show that or that's focused on investigation show? Like a procedural, yeah, or it can be, it doesn't have to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

So the ones that I wrote down again came off the top of my head was Beyond Evil. It was a Korean drama. I'm a sucker for small town like crime dramas. Um so uh as I said, I like Miss Marple and things like that. This is a small town dark crime drama, it's about a cop who is forced to move to this small town. He's transferred to this small town, and he meets another cop who's been there for a really long time. So it's older cop, younger cop paired together. They hate each other, and there's a serial killer that starts going around, and the younger cop is suspecting the older cop might have something to do with it. So they are teaming up, but also suspicious, or the at least a younger cop is suspicious of the older cop, and so they have to find who this serial killer is. It is dark, gritty. The two partnered together have very good chemistry, it's just a really well-thought out written crime drama where everybody's a suspect, like you really don't know who the culprit could be until they actually reveal it. That's good, yeah. So that was one that came immediately to mind. And then the other one I had was Memorist.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Oh, okay. I have a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

So that's a Korean drama, and immediately, like from the preview, you think it's gonna be a comedy, which at first it is, and then it just takes a hard left to dark, like dark crime drama. And it's about a guy who I can't remember because this was a couple years ago. I can't remember if he touches something or if he just has to be in the area, but basically, he gets like visions of crimes that will happen or crimes that have happened, depending on who he's touching and whatever. And he has become like a semi-star because of it, because he's he's solved these mysteries, and so and he's also like super rich. So he's not technically a cop, but because he has this ability, he has become a cop, but he doesn't really need to be a cop, so he makes fun of it and he's very arrogant, and then he gets partnered with this cop who is a woman cop who is very by the book and takes is very straight laced by the book, and then they have to pair together. Um and then he they obviously again encounter a serial killer, and it becomes really dark because you are you don't necessarily see the serial killer, but you see what he's doing to his victims in the serial killing setting through this guy's visions, but also seen. Within the drama. And so they obviously have to figure who out who this person is, why they're doing it, whatever. They eventually become targeted themselves. So it I it's not like a hard left turn, but it's definitely not what you're expecting when you have a couple episodes where he it's literally slapstick comedy to then really dark stuff. But it's it was a surprisingly good drama because I just it was just not expected really.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Okay, yeah, because I've seen the the thumbnail for that, and it looks dark, so it is. If it if I started it, I'd probably be like, Am I watching the right the same show? Yeah, so that's good to know. Yeah, my recommendation for this is completely opposite, and I know this is one that you really like, like Flowers in Sand. I love the investigation in the small town, but this one it's more, it's also got very strong amateur sleuth vibes to it as well, because it's and you've done you've talked about this one. I did an episode about it, so we don't have to go into it deeply, but it's just a small town mystery investigation into crime from the past. And the characters are just so fun and so interesting. I thought they did such a good job of capturing the feeling of the town, all the characters you knew, they were all very distinct and the mystery timeline in the past and the present, like what they were doing, the present in the past. It was very seamless, it was just so well done. I was never thinking, oh, I don't want to watch this scene because I don't care about the flashbacks or whatever. Sometimes I'm like, ah, enough of the flashback. Let's get back to the present timeline. But this one I just enjoyed it all.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, yeah. I was actually pleasantly surprised with that because I did start it really because of the male lead, because I love him as an actor. I probably have seen everything he's ever done. He actually got his start in acting by becoming famous from stopping a crime. I can't remember what it was. I think it was a theft in a convenience store or something, but he was all over the news and like an agency casted him. Yeah, I can't remember what it is, but that's how he dreams. That's how he becomes an actor. Yeah. And so I originally started it because of him, because I basically just watch him in anything. And I did like the crime part of it, but what surprised me was it the sporting part of it is really something I had never known about. And so I like learning about the sport as well. And then I'm also a sucker for found family, yeah. Uh it's of course a really good found family, as you described in your podcast episode from the family itself and the villagers itself, but also within the group of people that they have gathered together to solve this, like the amateur detective group that they have.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, yeah. It's such a good show.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

So we both have, yeah, highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Yes. Yeah. So next up, favorite amateur detective show. Do you have something for that? I'm sure you do.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I do. It's different, it's a little different. This is a Taiwanese crime show. Okay, but it's a supernatural crime show. So it's a it's called Oh No, Here Comes Trouble. And we love the title. And it's not necessarily like it is a crime show, but it's not necessarily always a crime show. So basically, what it is there's this kid, I think he's like in high school. He ends up on a bus accident with I think his father, and his father ends up dying, and he ends up in a coma for a year or something, maybe longer than that. And when he wakes up, he realizes he can talk to ghosts and he can see ghosts. So he now has to help these ghosts cross over. So, not necessarily every one of the ghosts have to do with a crime, but it's essentially him and eventually his two friends that he teams up with figuring out how to cross these ghosts over. And then the overarching mystery is like what actually happened with the bus crash that happened that he lived through. And the stories within each of these episodes with the ghosts are just so much more detailed and profound than what you originally think. And somewhat is some of it is a little scary, depending on the ghost as well. That and then you just fall in love with the trio of people because there is a lot of comedy in it as well. Because guy's dumb, he's not book smart, he might be street smart, but not book smart. So there's a lot of comedy between him and his like two other pals who are a little more smarter, at least academically, where they like slap him on the side of the head of, Are you kidding me? So it's one of my favorite amateur detective ones because it's just either people have seen it and they love it, or they have never heard of it. And I always try to mention it because it just it's very well acted as well. Which and it's a Taiwanese drama, so I always tend to try and talk about Taiwanese dramas a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Give them some love too, yeah. I will definitely look that one up for my amateur sleuth. I was thinking of this one that I saw maybe last year. It's an older show, it's called Cheat on Me If You Can. Have you heard of this one?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Oh, yes, I have heard of that one. Yeah, I don't know. I think I finished that one, but I might have dropped that one eventually. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

I feel like the beginning was slow, but once I got into it, I was very into it. And it was it's about a woman who is a mystery writer, and the whole series you're trying to figure out what it's like, each character you're trying to figure out what they know and what's going on. Because there is a murder mystery to solve, and she gets involved with it, and so she's the amateur sleuth because she's trying to push the police to investigate what she wants investigated. But then I I think every character in the series, you're trying to figure out are they involved? What's their story? And it's very ambiguous with even the police that are investigating, but you're trying to go what's their motivation? And she's the main character is very much a Sherlock character, she's really smart, she and she's very reserved. Like, is she just reserved? Is she cold? Is she super perceptive? But she's not perceptive in this one area. So there's like all these questions about the different characters. So I enjoy that one. And it's not everybody likes it though, because of the ending. So I won't say anything else, yeah. But I liked it. I thought it was interesting, and it was a good mystery. And I and she they have fun with her being a mystery writer because she's one of if she were an actor, she'd be a method actor she's writing about. She'll come out dressed in historical costume because she's thinking about writing a historical, and then the next day she's in this ballerina outfit.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

It's yeah, she likes acts out the scenes that she was yeah, she was writing, and her poor husband has to live through that.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah, and he's got his own issues. Yeah, there were there was a story, one of the subplots in it. I thought it was a little slow, but overall I liked it as an amateur sleuth. I thought it was fun and interesting, and it kept me guessing. So I like yeah, yeah. And then yeah, this one there's a lot that a lot of possibilities for this one. But oh, the other one I was gonna mention here is Japanese drama Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I need to watch that one.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

It's really well done. It's more recent. It's a young woman who her dad is a retired police officer, and he dies in the first episode. So that's not a spoiler, but I love it because it's got the trope of the letter from beyond the grave. He leaves her a letter, and so she's gets involved with all these different people as she tries to figure out what he was involved with. And I liked it. I really enjoyed that one too. Plenty of good choices here. Probably we could we do a whole show about this one, but we'll move on.

unknown 29:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

What about a favorite legal or crime drama or legal mystery show?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

So I had a couple. The first one that came to mind was law school, and it's a it literally takes place in a law school. It's about a bunch of kids, college students, trying to figure out who murdered somebody, as well as either suspecting or not suspecting their professor uh or each other. So, like you, it's one of those again where everybody's a suspect and no one knows anything, and you get revealed the facts along with everybody else finding out the facts. I think that's the best way to write a crime story. Yeah, uh, and it's just so well written and so well done. It's like the what is that? What was that American show with the college professor with Viola Davis? How to get away with murder. Yes, yeah, it's like that in a way. Okay, but that one was a really good one, and then the other two I have there's hyena, which is on Netflix. All three of the ones I'm gonna mention are on Netflix. Hyena is it's a it's two lawyers who team up and who are complete opposites, like the but they're both really wacky at the same time. So there's a really strong woman lawyer, and she runs her own lawyer office very poor, like not one of those swanky lawyer offices, and she is very loud and brash and just bulldozes everybody, but is also a really good lawyer, and then there's the male lead who comes from a prestigious law firm and is very suit-wearing and all this stuff where she wears track suits and type of thing. And they go head to head all the time in the courtroom, and eventually there's obviously some chemistry there and and adult romance, like they're both in their 40s. The actors and actresses are both in their 40s. Um, that's just a really fun one because it's the chemistry is really well done in that, but it's also just them bickering for most of the until they have to like team up. And then the last one I have is juvenile justice, which uh actually stars the same actress from hyena. Okay, and this is about some judges who have to that are in like child court, so they have to deal with minors who have done some very heinous crimes or are victims of crimes, depending. And they actually took crimes from real scenarios in Korea and wrote some of the crimes, and it's again just so well written and so well done, and the woman who plays the main judge of this, she her character like very much cares for what she is presiding over, and you find out eventually why, which is just a whole heartbreaking story. Do a season two of it, and they have never done a season two, but it's not one of those where it like ends on like a major cliffhanger or anything. But I always wanted a season two of it because it's just it's again one of those crime dramas that not a lot of people watched because it's a very dark subject matter, especially when it comes to children, and of course, a lot of people do not like watching that subject matter, which is understandable, but it's just a very impactful crime drama that you see from a perspective of a judge, which you normally don't see a lot of. You see a lot of prosecutors or lawyers, right? So this is and it also takes place in children's court, so that's another perspective that you don't normally see in a crime show.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yeah, yeah, cool. That's a good range of different choices, yeah. Yeah, so for mine, I thought of Touch Your Heart because it's okay, it's legal, but it's very much a rom-com, but it does have mystery in it. It's got the episodic, and I felt like sometimes the rom coms can drag if they're long. So that gave it a little boost, I think. And I liked the found family, and I should say it's about a woman who is an actress and she's trying to make a comeback, and to get the script she wants, she goes to work in a law firm as a secretary while she's there. She's starts off, they portray her as a ditz. And so I almost didn't watch it. But she's really very intelligent and she does work very hard, and she's very good once she kind of gets in there and figures out what she can do, and then her and the attorney they work together to solve some of these cases that come up. So it's but it's I would say that's way more romance than mystery, but it does have some mystery, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

And then of course you have the reunion of the goblin couple, yeah. So that's that was another big seller of that drama, of course.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

It was, yeah, yeah. What about a favorite investigative pairing with great chemistry but no romance?

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Okay, so I I have one that I think you probably have talked about, if not heard about already, and that of course is Stranger. Yeah, or something like we gotta talk about strangers, yeah, yeah. That's again two seasons of that, and even a spin-off, which I have yet to see the spin-off because America doesn't have it, but two seasons of it where there's absolutely no romance and no chance of a romance, and they have probably the best chemistry out there. And it stars Bey Duna, and I always forget who the male lead is because I can never remember his name. I can't think of his name either, but I'll it's okay. I can look it up real quick. So she is a cop and she is very much a loud, somewhat perky. Like she's not happy go lucky, but she's definitely more happy than the lawyer because again, it's like sunshine grumpy. And then you have the lawyer who got a surgery as a kid that basically was a for lack of a better term, a lumbotomy of his emotions because before that he was like acting out and couldn't control his emotions at all. So they took the drastic measure of a surgery that went from a hundred to practically zero. He still has emotions, but he does not know how to process them really anymore. So it went from one extreme to almost the other extreme. He's not cold, he just doesn't, he's very logical, yeah, which makes him an excellent prosecutor. Do you have the name?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yes, it is Choer or Cho. I'm probably mispronouncing that incredibly badly.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, and he's a very famous Korean, older Korean actor, and then of course Beiduna is the other famous one. So yeah, he's a prosecutor and he is a very straight-laced by the book, no one can do wrong type lawyer, and he does not deviate from that all. He's the you can offer him the most bribes ever, and he would still say no and probably arrest you for bribing him. And then he gets teamed up because of a I think the first season was a murder, and then well, at least both seasons were actually murders, but they've they they start out with a murder and eventually go into corruption. A lot of the show is about corruption within the prosecution office or the cop shops that they use, or even obviously some of the cha balls come into play. Um, so yeah, he really he basically teams up with Baiduna and investigates this. The first season is really within his own office, the second season is about the police station, so they vice versa. It their chemistry is just so good, so good. And it's like one of those that you wish there was romance, but it wouldn't make sense at all if there was, um, because he is just he does not understand social cues at all, and does not understand why people would respond a certain way, or you someone might like there was a famous scene where one of the lawyers, one of the prosecutors, is made like chief of the prosecutors, and as custom in Korea, when you are made that title, they're supposed to like all show up and say congratulations and bat everything. And the main prosecutor guy did not do it. He's I don't understand why we have to do this, I don't understand it at all. Very logical, and it was uh, but that's also like the comedy of the show a little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

And it's the bigger deal, I think, like in Korea, because they are they have so many formalities and things, and politeness is a big deal there, and just to be, he's not doing it because he doesn't want to. He like he's not trying to be a rebel or anything, he's just like doesn't it just goes right past him. He's like, I don't understand why we would need to do this, and so he therefore he does not. Yeah, that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

And there's like a fantastic romance as well in there, too. Yeah, yeah, with Jang Jay. Zhang Jay is the character, and then he has his own sp because he's a weasel, he's such a weasel, and yes, he is, yeah, and it's a really good mystery, too.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Like just the whole thing of what's going on is a really good mystery, we're very twisty, definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

And season two, in my opinion, is just as good. Some people won't agree, but I I like season two. Okay, that's good to have.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah, I've been keeping that one in my back pocket in case I'm desperate and need something to watch.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

The other one that I had written down was we had another drama that like not a lot of people talk about is May It Please the Court. It's on Hulu. I don't think a lot of people watched it, I just watched it randomly.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Yeah, I started it, but I didn't finish it. I got distracted by something else, so that's good to know that you liked it.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Yeah, but again, it's it's a woman who has a fall from grace, she's in a prestigious law firm and gets fired. And the law firm basically tells her, like, go work in this lowly prosecutor's office for a year, and then we'll talk about you coming back. And it has a lot more comedy in it, but the chemistry between her and the lead lawyer, which again, there's no romance at all in this, but they have this one rain scene that blew my mind because it was like there is no romance in this, and yet you have this scene in here that is crazy. That's um, but yeah, I really recommend that one as well.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah, so I it sounds like I need to go back to that one because I think I picked, I think I watched a couple episodes and I didn't get to the part where she goes to work in the lowly office, and that's probably where it gets really good. For this one, you may have heard this Japanese drama, I would probably say it wrong. Usotaki Rhetoric. I don't know if you've heard of this one.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

I've heard of it. I have not watched it, but I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Yeah, this one it's set in 1926, and it's about a man who he runs this detective agency. He's a he wants to run a detective agency, but he never has any clients. And so he just subsides by mooching off of his neighbor who feeds him and doing odd jobs to keep his building so he doesn't have to live on the street. And then the other part of it is there's a woman that she has this ability to hear when somebody's lying. She gets this like dissonance when somebody lies. So he meets her and he's like, We would be an awesome pairing. So they pair up and she's got this like for most of her life, people have thought she was weird and creepy because she could discern these things, and he doesn't feel that way. And it's the first time she's ever thought that she could use her abilities to help people. So there's like that that paranormal element to it. And then they get involved these cases, but the cases are not they're very there, there are a few that are like a murder, but most of them are it's the story is more about her, and it's almost a coming age, coming of age for her, and uh the the relationship with the detective and like how he helps her kind of come into her own, and there's a whole lot of exploration of like lies and what lying, why people lie, all the different reasons they might lie, and it's just really interesting, and they have great chemistry because she's very intense and focused. She's like the straight arrow and he's like the funny guy, but other they make a great pairing, but there's no romance at all. But you could see it, you'd be like, Oh, they're perfect, but nothing. So I'm hoping there'll be another season of that one because it is very, it's very, I would say it's charming, it's just very sweet, and I wasn't sure I would like it at first, but then I just got pulled in. And I think part of it was just the low stakes-ness of it. It's not super intense, but you can sit down and watch an episode and you're like, oh, okay, it's all very it's got that murder she wrote feeling to it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

So you know that it's gonna all turn out okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Okay. We can't talk about crime and mystery without found family because that's like that's a huge, huge subplot in most of these. Do you have any favorite? I know you do, crime and mystery shows with found family. What would be your top picks?

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Yeah, most crime shows nowadays have found family because it's basically the team comes to found family. The one that came to mind was Taxi Driver. Um, it's a dark crime drama for one. So just FYI. It's like they handle the worst of the worst from any, it's not just murder, it's like sexual assault, it's like bank robbery, it's a lot of stuff, and it's a violent show because what happens is it's this guy who runs a taxi service, and he eventually hires a guy who drives a taxi around when this when a person comes into the taxi and tells the driver, I have an issue, I want to hire, like I want to get revenge, whatever their problem is. The taxi driver will get. Give them a card, and then they can choose to either accept or not accept hiring this service. So, what the service does is they investigate whatever their problem is, and usually it's a lot bigger of a problem, of course. And then they have to either allow the cops to arrest the guy or get their own revenge, and it can get really dark. And it's a maj podge of people. It's like you have the taxi driver who's really just like the punch guy, he's a henchman guy, very good in martial arts, ex-military, that type of thing. And then you have the two mechanics who handle the and like the taxi is basically Batmobile. Yeah, some flamethrowers and things like that. And then you have the hacker girl who can get into anything, and then you have the other guy who is the owner of the entire taxi service. So it has now it's been renewed for a season three. There's a season three coming out this year, and so it allows for different people to come in every season, but they do have the core cast if they want to. And due to through two seasons, you learn more about the people on the team itself. And there are some personal cases that come into play that you learn about of their past, or like why the taxi owner of the entire company like started doing this service, or why the taxi driver played by E.J. Whoon, what his story is and why he became the way he is now. That was a really big found family, mainly due to just the personal cases and how eventually they do start caring for each other because obviously they're strangers at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people really like that one. I checked it out and then I checked out because it was a little too dark for me for the it was it's very dark. Yes, it is very dark.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Yeah. So for me for found family, I have two. One is Flex X cop, and that's the one with the cha ball who goes to work as a consultant for the police. And it's another odd couple pairing where and it is one I hadn't seen before because he has money and he's willing to spend his money. But the part I liked about it was he wins everybody over in the police force because nobody wants to work with him, and he gradually wins them over, and then the detective he's working with, he becomes a part of their found family with her family, like her parents. So you've got the double, you've got the work family, and then the personal life, and no romance between them either. But I just enjoyed that because of the uniqueness of the setup, and then the found family was just very heartwarming. And and then my other one for this one is a natural, it's a Japanese crime drama.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Wow, also a very good one.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah, it's so good. It's the it's it takes place in a coroner's office, and it's not as heavy on the found family as some Korean dramas, but it does have them coming together to help each other out in the beginning. One of the characters is rude and he doesn't want to do anything. He's the I've done more autopsies than anybody here. I'm not gonna help anybody out. And you grab he's like the Simon Cowell of the Coroner's office. But then gradually he kind of they win him over and the other they become a little found family. So that one I really enjoyed. I and the cases were really good, they're very different, they were more forensic mysteries, so very good. So that was one of my favorites for the found family. Okay, now we have a favorite non-crime mystery show with a mystery plot. So if you had because some shows they a lot of shows work in a mystery plot. So do you have any that's would be quite classified as crime, but it has a strong mystery element that you enjoyed?

SPEAKER_00 47:40

See, this was really difficult for me because I don't know. For example, okay, one I wrote was My Secretarius because Okay, yeah, yeah, it's like a crime show, but it's also um rom coming. Yes, yes, yeah. The other one, so another one I wrote was Tale of Nok Doo. Okay, it's a historical Korean drama, it's about a uh a guy who needs to get into an all-female village to figure out a mystery, so he cross-dresses as a woman to get into this village and find whatever mystery, and it's a rom-com at the same time, and he's probably the most beautiful guy dressed as a woman I've ever seen in my life. It's right, it also starts Jang Dun Yoon, so he's fantastic in it. Um, but the mystery becomes a lot more as you go along, like a lot of the rom com leaves, and the more serious part of it. One of the best villains I've ever seen because you don't know, you don't predict it, and you don't know, and then it's like a switch flipped, and you're like, oh my god, this guy is amazing, very well acted. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a mystery, though. It's essentially is a rom-com of these women in this village trying to figure out this mystery. Yeah, it is it's really good, in my opinion. And then I would say the other two, I would say one was more marketed as a crime show, but it's more than just a crime show, and that is while you are sleeping, which it's a lawyer show, it's not necessarily a crime show, but it's a lawyer show. And on one hand, you have this lawyer who is really goofy for most of the drama, and then he's not, and then you have this woman who is smart within herself, but she has this trauma that happens and she just doesn't do anything anymore because she gets these dreams that end up happening and becoming true eventually, and that has caused a lot of trauma. So she they eventually start dating and teaming up, and they happen to be neighbors, and it's like a cohabitation thing, and also the crime comes into play. So there's just a lot of genres, basically, like none of the ones I'm gonna name are like it was marketed as a rom com, and all of a sudden the serial killer comes in. It's more of a lot of these genres mashed into one, right? They do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the last one I'm gonna name is You Are My Spring. Again, okay, yeah, market it as a rom-com, but you really started it's a dark crime drama, but then you have a romance as well. Okay, that was on Netflix as well.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Okay, yeah, that one's on my list, and I've actually watched a couple episodes in it, and I was I was trying to figure it out. I was like, I think this is a rom-com, but it may be, maybe not. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

I remember I loved it, but I was also the minority of that because again, it was marketed as a rom-com, and then people were like, No, this is a dark crime drama with rom com mixed in.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Yeah, it really does make a difference when you go into it, yes, what you're expecting. Yeah. So that is perfect segue for my answer for this one is, and I selfishly put this one in because I wanted to talk about this show. So this is quartet, it's a Japanese show, and it's a slice of life, it's about four people that come together to do a string quartet, and I thought it was just a slice of life, so I'm watching along, and it does have this really strong mystery element to it, and it really surprised me, and it had some twist in it that I wasn't expecting at all. And I don't know, maybe that was because I wasn't anticipating a mystery, so I was like, oh, but I enjoyed it, and it had just interesting dialogue. It was way more than it was more than if you list it out and say, Oh, it's just a slice of life, it's got all these other elements to it too. It's like these others that you're talking about that it's really hard to define, but I just enjoyed it. It was really good. It was one of those that I was just so swept up in it. I would watch one episode and I'd be like, I'd rather watch the next one, the next one, and the next one, because they're pretty short. I really enjoyed that one. Yeah, okay. So then this one. This may be a long list. I don't know. Worst surprise serial killer subplot in a rom-com or other non-crime genre, or just generally disappointing crime show. So I didn't want to box this in too much here because giving you some room to again.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

I I went with more of the disappointing crime show than the surprise serial killer because usually I like them. So I don't normally one, I don't normally watch rom-coms. Two, if I hear a rom-com has a serial killer in it, I will check it out and probably like it. So I'm not the best person for that type of question. Two came into mind in terms of the disappointing crime show. One is Awaken. Do not watch that show.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Okay, good to know.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

The ending was horrible, in my opinion. And what could have been was a big thing in that like the chemistry just did not go the way you wanted it to, had amazing chemistry, but it just the story did not work with the chemistry very well, and then just the plot went bizarre by the end, just was very disappointing. And then the other one I named this is not necessarily like it's a crime show, but not necessarily a crime show item, it's more of a supernatural. It's about a guy who again has visions and he tries to stop crimes or disasters from happening. And I'm not gonna reveal what happened in the plot, but it made me drop it because the one thing I wanted, and I've spoken about this on other podcast shows, so I'm not gonna talk about it in length, but the one thing that I so when I watch a crime show, because I've watched so many, I can probably predict 90% of what's gonna happen. So when I was watching this, I was like, if they do this one thing, I'm gonna drop this show. And of course, they did the one thing. Uh so I dropped it, and I personally would not recommend the drama. It was good up until that point, and then they did the one thing that you personally do not like. Apparently, they fixed it later on, but I had dropped it by then. So I I would not recommend item either.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Okay, all right, good to know. Yeah, this one was the one that several came to mind because I like mystery too in my romance. I'm like, this is great, let's have a little mystery subplot. But if it's not done well, I find it very disappointing. And I put down Miss Night and Day was one that came to mind because I'd watched it recently because I just felt like the mystery was just so poorly done. And maybe it's because I deal with a lot of mystery stuff, but I was like, okay, there's spoiler, jump ahead if you don't want to know this. But there's really not that many people that it could be because of the timing of what they're investigating and stuff. I'm like, okay, it's got to be this person. So to me, that just feels like it wasn't given the attention to detail that it could have been, it could have been interesting. So I didn't like that one. Let's see, there was another one. I felt like Suspicious Partner, which I enjoyed parts of that, but I feel like the mystery in that was just and I prefer a Who Done It. I want to sleuth the lawn with the story. I want my opportunity. And after it was over, I was like, oh, so basically it was just the way these scenes were cut. We were just not given all the information.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

So I enjoyed other parts of that show. But for the mystery, I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

See, yeah, it's not my favorite either. I would still recommend it, but yeah, I definitely understand where you're coming from on that one.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Yeah. What mystery crime show do you feel is the most innovative or crazy bonkers or a quirky? Just what a unusual show do you would you recommend if somebody wants something that's out of the box?

SPEAKER_00 55:38

So one I came up with, and I think it's just because again, it had I had never seen it done before. To this day, I have never really seen anything replicated by it. Maybe I just haven't seen the show. But it's a Taiwanese crime drama on Netflix. They've done two seasons now called The Victims Game.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

And it's essentially the male lead is a forensics scientist, forensics investigator, but he is on the spectrum. And so when I heard about this drama, I was like, oh my god, they're gonna do it poorly. Like it's gonna be it's just not gonna go over well. You never know. Like, yeah, it's hard to do that well, especially with that subject matter. This show did it as best as you probably could think of. He was amazing in the role and portraying somebody with Asperger's, and just not only in terms of investigating these crimes and the quirks you have when you have that type of like when you have Asperger's and you are investigating these crimes, but also like socially and then with his relationships because he was married at a time, he does have a child, he partners up with a reporter, and he can become he can come off as very blunt or very racisive sometimes, depending, or maybe he's frustrated if he can't express himself. I just thought, excuse me, I just thought how they portrayed him dealing with the crime he was investigating, but also dealing with his personal life along with this crime, because the first season he is investigating a crime that his daughter could potentially have been involved in. And again, it's one of those characters that he's very by the book. It's like stranger, he like does not, and so he is has a dilemma in the first season at least where he's I want to do right by my daughter, but I know it's completely wrong if I hide this evidence or something like that. I just thought it was really well done in terms of just the portrayal of a man with this condition. But then also what was really good is the crimes themselves after every episode, at least in season one. I it's not done like this in season two, but in season one, you get to the credits and you have a three-minute interview of how either an actor portrayed a certain scene in the episode you just watched, or the production team talking about how they wanted to portray a certain scene or the show in general. And I love that insight of it because you got everything from how they made a burned body look realistic to realizing that the subject matter that they were going to be portraying might not be for everybody, and how could they really respectfully talk about this? Because they're again, this is a dark crime show, so a lot of the topics are not a lot of people don't like. So they literally talked about how they almost didn't make the drama because they were worried about triggering victims of actual crimes while watching this show, and I just thought that was very to have that insight on a show as you're watching it was very unique, in my opinion, and in terms I love that type of stuff when you get like the behind the scenes type thing. Yeah, that's the one I talked about.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that reminds me of there's a French show called Estride, and it's about a woman who's on the spectrum, and she works in the records department of the criminal records department, and she handles everything, and she has a great memory, and she remembers just like Attorney Wobe. She remembers what she's read, and she gets involved with this female police detective, and they begin working together to solve crimes. So there's that crime element to it, but then it's also about her learning to trust other people and coming out of the shell, and like her partner learning to deal with her, and they become friends. It's just really well done. And I will definitely check out Victims Game because that one sounds very similar. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

unknown 59:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:57

Okay. For mine, most I went with my most innovative, I think is Signal for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Oh, yeah, definitely. Classic, classic one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Because I had never seen anything done that way. It's the two, it's a dual timeline mystery, and you've got one timeline, and these this detective is able to talk to a detective in the past, and they're working together to solve crimes, maybe change timelines and things, outcomes of things. That was so interesting to me because I'd never seen anything done that way. So classic hand, they're doing a new season of this, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Yeah, after 10 years. After 10 years, yeah. We've been waiting a really long time.

unknown 1:00:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Yeah, there's like a there's a trifecta, at least in my opinion, of three classic Korean crime dramas. If you are a fan, you should watch, and that is Signal, and then there's Tunnel, which is again the same concept where it's a guy from I think the 80s, and he is he walks through, he chases a serial killer through a tunnel, is transported till 2015, whenever the present day that show came out, and so now he has to live in modern day while trying to figure out what actually happened to him, and then finding out all these secrets and everything, and encounters a bunch of people. So that's a really classic Korean crime drama. And then the third I would say is voice, very classic five seasons. I would recommend the first season. Some seasons are better than others, and again, that was innovative because you have a it all took place in the 911 call center, and it was about a woman who has exceptional hearing, and so she gets teamed up with a cop who she hears things through like the 911 call and helps them out. And there's what's fun but also anxiety-inducing is there's a timer on the top like the screen or the bottom of the screen, and they what they have is called the golden hour, so they have to figure out find this person, get to the crime scene, whatever, in a certain amount of time, and find the bad guy, whatever. But again, all of these are like yeah, and all of these are really dark, really classic crime dramas, in my opinion. Yeah, but Signal is definitely one of those three. I highly recommend that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Okay, these are great racks. Okay, so we've got one more question. What is a crime show that you wish more people would watch?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Okay, I have multiple.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Got my pin ready. I'm ready. Go.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Okay, so one I already named that was May It Please the Court. I just had to put it there. So we have the only other Korean drama I wrote was Through the Darkness. It's, I think, 2022. Again, based off of real, a real person, semi-real person, real crimes in Korea. And it's basically the start of the criminal profiling program in Korea and how that came about, and then some of the crimes that they actually investigated and had some really famous murder cases in Korea. And just is it takes place, I think, uh in a span of like 30 years or so. And I loved it. And it's very again, very dark because you're dealing with some real things, but it also shows like the dynamic of politics and gender norms when it comes to what you were dealing with in a cop shop in the third in the 70s, 80s, to what you might be dealing with now. And it was just fascinating sh having a drama show how they took the profiling program from the United States and tried to incorporate that into the crime system in Korea when it wasn't really believed yet, let alone in America. So that was a very interesting take because it's a slower moving crime show because the main focal point is establishing this profiling program, but you still have some crime stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

I think that's interesting. I love the background stuff about how things got started and what why things are done differently in different countries. I didn't realize until I started watching Korean crime dramas the investigative role that prosecutors have in Korea. I was like, that's interesting. And I was like, okay, now I understand why some people are like in the dramas, why some people are so terrified when they meet a prosecutor because they have so much power to start investigation and charge people.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

It's pretty wild. And then also, what was cool about when this drama came out, Netflix also released a documentary, a Korean documentary on one of the crimes. I think it's called The Raincoat Killer. Okay. So I watched that in tandem of like when they were investigating the case in this drama. And so that was very fascinating. I love crime documentaries as well. And then the so I wrote down two really famous Chinese crime dramas called The Bad Kids and The Long Night. They both came out in 2020. I think it started maybe a little earlier, but basically, all of the Chinese networks nowadays have a season which they try to do two or three months of releasing crime dramas. And they're known for this, like they're given that pot. They release crime dramas all year round, but like a certain set of dramas that are like we are a part of this series, and that really some of the most famous ones came out in 2020 that did really well. I think who span of 40 years tries to solve a murder case, and not only it's Him solving the case, but also the story is the toll it takes on him as well, and the acting in that is phenomenal, so good. And I recently watched that like within the last year. I should have watched it in 2020, and I felt really bad I did it. But those are some phenomenal Chinese crime dramas. And then the last one I wrote is like a crime drama, but not really. It's called Green Door, it's on Netflix. And it's about a psychologist who, or no, psychiatrist, psychologist, a therapist, basically. Yeah. It's a six to eight episode, I think. And he one day gets a client and realizes like halfway through the session that she's a ghost. And it's essentially him getting ghost clients and figuring out like what is going on. And then also having some personal issues to deal with. It was at the time, I think this again was a pandemic drama. I watched it in 2020. It was really at the time that I watched it groundbreaking for me because I had never seen anything like it. And it was very well acted and very well shot because you do, given it's a kind of like a psychiatrist drama, it's shot in the way of you can have some mind-bending scenes that are especially dealing with ghosts. That was very that's something I don't usually see people talk about because I don't really think people know it exists, really. I've always wanted a season two of that, but they've never done a season two so far. But again, very well acted.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

Nice. Okay, so these are some great recs. I would say for mine, I would like for people to watch Unnatural just because I felt like it was so interesting. It was well done. Yeah, I think a lot of the J dramas don't get as much attention because people are into South Korean, and it is a switch to go to another country.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

And also you don't like these days, it's a lot easier to get J dramas like early on or through the years, you could not get access to J dramas a lot of the time, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:10

Yeah, and yeah, and even now there's several that I've looked lots I've looked up and they're just not available anywhere where I can watch them. So that's fine. I'm hoping someday they'll come to Netflix. So I'm doing my part to pump up J dramas so that they'll bring more in. But yeah, I just thought that one was very well done. And it is a little bit older, but I like the older K dramas and J dramas. I feel like they have a little sometimes they have a little more substance, I think. Or I don't know, they're just they have a different quality than some of the newer ones. So I would recommend that one. And quartet if you want something quirky but not heavy on mystery, if you just want light mystery, I think it was pretty, pretty fun. Okay. That will keep us and listeners busy for a long time. So yeah. And I know you have way more recs than that, but I appreciate you coming on. So tell everybody where they can find your podcast and find out about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

Sure. My podcast name is No Sleep The Number Four Dramas. You can find it on Spotify at Bull Podcast. I also have a blog with it's no sleep the number four dramas.com, uh, where I have my all my blog posts, but also all the podcast episodes are up on there. And then, of course, I've made a YouTube channel as well where you can find the podcast episodes. And also I tend to do more reviews on the YouTube channel, like one-off reviews, than I might do on the podcast as well. So it's like extra content again under no sleep for dramas podcast channel. But yeah, and then obviously Instagram. I'm pretty much on Instagram, probably Blue Sky.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

Okay. Definitely check out the podcast and all Caitlin's stuff, because there's a wealth of information there. Lots of lots. All right, if you've enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to rate or review it wherever you listen to podcasts. That will help K Dr. Friends find the podcast. And I will see you next time. Bye, everybody.