The Search (2020)

Meh

It had a decent start setting up the atmosphere. The drama was shot nicely too, try to grab the UXN 4K version if you can. The action was good although it was scarce. There was a lot of downtime between each event which almost ruined the drama. It was clear they had an abundance of free time that they started supplementing it with slice of life/comedic moments which were straight up bad and unfitting. The story wasn't as engaging as it was at the start, it somehow lost its direction midway through. Too many plot holes to count even when excluding the supernatural elements. The drama lacked a meaningful connection between characters. The least you would expect from a military themed drama is some comradeship which this drama failed to show. It's a hard watch since the drama doesn't have much to offer other than a good cast.

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Can't stop thinking about this drama months later

I wasn't going to initially leave a review for 'Search' but I couldn't stop thinking about this drama months later. I keep wanting to return to it time and time again, and while I haven't watched it for a second time yet, I probably will soon.

First of all, you might be wondering why I gave it a 9/10 and I'll state right here this isn't a perfect drama. Are there some things I'd change? Certainly. But my criteria for myself is... if a drama is so fun that I can overlook its flaws and want to return to it, it deserves a 9 so this is a personal score for me.

But the truth is... I couldn't stop watching it. I was gripped by the mystery of this monster-suspense genre, constantly wondering what on earth was going and what the hell was going to happen next. I really enjoyed the plot and it was definitely something that I hadn't watched before, but I'm a sucker for a monster hunt drama/movie and if you are too, this won't disappoint.

I think though that truly propels this drama to as high a rating as 9 is the cast. Everyone was simply outstanding in their roles imo and I found all of their stories really compelling, like I could understand the motivation of everyone involved and that's so rare sometimes. There's not much more I can say on that without spoiling the drama but I thought every character was great and I enjoyed watching all of them on screen.

And I'm a serial "skipper" of scenes I don't like since dramas do have a tendency to drag on something that could be said in 2 lines, so I just skip ahead 5-10 secs (thank you Netflix!) at a time to get the plot going, but I don't remember ever skipping 'Search'. Maybe because it's already a rather short drama or maybe I just enjoyed every second of it.

I have to say though that while I came into this drama for Krystal, I came out of it a huuuugge fan of Jang Dong Yoon. He was the most perfect reluctant hero. He was charming, goofy, tragic, capable, loving, proficient, and kind. Something about his performance in this drama has made me an overnight #1 Fangirl. Truly a great actor. Also cute guy + cute dog? 10/10.

Anyway, I'd highly recommend if you are a fan of: cute dogs, action, mystery, monster hunts, suspense, military operations, badass women and tragic backstories.

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This is so crazy!

This is analysis with copyright Instagram @cinedoramas


As I mentioned above, Search had everything to have a little more history in addition to its 10 episodes.

In addition, the plot was not there these things, but in my view was too rushed.

Throughout the plot I had a few moments when I didn't understand much of the context of the scene in specific episodes; Three and six. (I won't say why, because this is not the spoiler club, this is just an analysis).

- In short, Search presents a story with good suspense (say in passing, it gets to be funny how it stands out in this genre, being that it was more comical than everything), military context and without novels. The set design, the techniques of filming and character development are good.

Overall, there were some mistakes: The weak script, stories that were told in the first 3 episodes, but that did not develop, the events that were released, and cuts /jumps in time that made those who watch, stop and try to understand what was happening.

(Ps: In my view, in the first episodes it became evident that I WOULD HAVE MAYBE a novel, but the same did not occur).

That is, watch the kdrama already aware that there are no novels.

- In the first episode, Search arrested me. Watching the night a drama that is highlighted as 'mystery, suspense and terror', did not scare me at any point.

Everything was going well, until episode 3 was a little confused... Episode 4, I felt that they tried to repair* the error of the previous episode.

And then this drama only got me back in episode 8.

That is, overall it was too DULL to follow this drama.

There's not much to comment on, because as it only has 10 episodes, I can give without wanting many spoilers, so I'll stop here.

*Analyzing the characters*
Yong Dong Jin:

Dong Jin introduces himself to the public, as a military and dog trainer, who counts the days for his dismissal. His personality was the most attention-shaded to me: considerably he does not know how to 'listen to his superiors', that is, 'an order'.

- Fact: There's a hole in his and Son Ye Rim's story, both of which seemed to have had some relationship in the past, but that to which, we'll never know what really happened. That is, they presented the probable relationship of both, but simply did not develop it.

Son Ye Rim:
The most interesting female character the plot tries to build. His cold answers and crossed glances at Yong Dong Jin made it clear that some sort of romance could come later... It was just achismo even!

Song Min Gyu:
Let's go to the part that held me the most in the plot... Yes, the main character who is a villain and very proud. What makes Search a bit good, was to see the unfolding of this. It wasn't bad or something chopped, on the contrary, it made me want to watch the next episode.

Min Gyu introduces herself to the viewer in an authoritarian, meek, totally proud way and who thinks he is superior to his colleagues. It is the typical character who always seeks the easy way, only it is not the right one.

- Perception and Critic:

Many ideas, a lot of time in the air and two writers who tried to put together both stories, but who in the end knew how to have the right attention and organization. I don't have to come here and talk about how a beginning, middle and end story should be made, right?

What becomes boring, is that Search had everything to become a good drama, but that unfortunately lacked organization and listing of the facts.

Back in the past and then coming and going to the present, was one of the points I hated the most. The story becomes shallow, weak and fragile.

Search has more room for a movie than a drama.

To be honest, it was exactly this perception I had when I finished watching it.

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Good acting & poor writing

I think this has really good story line but it is poorly written.. actully they could hv make best drama with this story line.. actors r given thire 100% to this drama.. but plot is written poorly soo it is unfair to actors.. i feel like scenes are not line up well and drama is mess.. 1st 2nd and 3rd episodes make our hopes up and make us exiting, but after tht it slowly start to drop and drop while distroing our hopes.. and end episode not make sense.. when u start to watch it u r craving to know what hond why it happend u want to know every single details but believe me they r not going to tell u wht u want to know.. they r just telling us few things and nit in details.. i am desepointed.. but i gave drama 8 stars becoz effort of cast..

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Good show with great potential, but hasty editing

This show is very interesting and fun to watch. I loved the military stuff and all the action. I also really liked the lead actors and the overall story. However, the action scenes might be a bit slow if you're into intense action. But I found it pretty suspenseful and enjoyable. Unfortunately, the CGI was a 'B' at best. But to make things worse, the editing was pretty bad- like really bad at some parts. There were some very 'rough' transitions and a few scenes even repeated themselves. Hopefully, with time they will correct these but I don't know how if that's possible or not. That said, it was still a pretty good drama. The story was cool, the acting was very good and I loved the military aspects. I wish there were more military Dramas like this.
It is worth a watch if you're into military dramas, and if there were a season 2 I would also watch that too, but I'd hope that they get a better editing team.

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Fantastically paced show, shame that only in the second half.

Honestly, if this series started on 6th episode or if the pace of the action was the same throughout the whole show rather than only during second half, I’d gladly gave it a ten point score. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. For the first half of the show we can observe festival of very poor CGI (honestly, couple of times I had to check when this series was made, because for a moment I assumed that in late nineties) and very two dimensional characters. I call them “one line characters” these are the ones, that you can describe only by one line. For example “This is John, he’s the drone guy”. And we have around five characters like this introduced in one scene. This is luckily corrected on the second half of the show (two dimensional characters, not the CGI, this is poor till the very end) but I felt that it was way too late for that. And shame, because on about 6th or 7th episode this show starts to be amazing. We finally get some depth to the characters, action gets on its track and motives are finally clear.
I’d get back to the beginning of the show once again. Let’s talk about how this show is made. Because for some time we have a plethora of singe scenes that seemed to be cut in half. And there’s like a hour long break between those halves, which results of situations like this:
In first half of the scene enigmatic character enters the restaurant. The owner is suprised, since she haven’t seen him for ten years. We don’t see the face of the character, he doesn’t say a word. Cut.
Second scene, about half of the episode later, we finally see the face of the character, he sits by the table and orders. Brother of the owner explains that this is that guy who haven’t beed visiting the restaurant for a couple of years. We get the name. How it’s relevant to the story? It really isn’t, we get a bit of more explanation at the end of the series, but it’s not so important to make viewer figure out who this guy is for half of episode.
Plus he have a lot of characters to follow, a lot of threads that happen simultaneously (or at least that’s how they’re shown), we have characters from the past and their present versions. I was watching it on Rakuten, where you can turn on comments from the viewers, and trust me, not only me had problems to follow what’s happening on the screen.
The problem is, that if I would have some more of social life or we wouldn’t be in the middle of the pandemic, I’d decide that my time is too precious for this. And that would be a big mistake, because last five episodes are amazing. At this point we finally have some character development (finally we can clearly see who’s who). Scattered pieces of the plot finally come together. All lines are connected. And even silly moments don’t hurt so much (I mean fighting using Samsung phone, because you know, product placement, we need to show how durable this thing is).
To finalise, I can say that it’s either great show with poor beginning or average show with very good ending. I guess it all depends of which perspective you’ll get.

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SHORT AND THRILLING!!!

The plot was interesting every episode was thrilling. The acting was great.
The drama was unpredictable. we don't know what exactly it is a psycho, zombie, animal etc. it makes us stand on toes.
The past and present of the story are related which is only reveled in the end was good.
the role of different military officers during a mission was shown beautifully.
the heartbreak when lost someone in the team was touching.
the living in military zone was shown in a good way.
the people interested in thriller can blindly go for it.
IT'S A GREAT THRILLER AND SUSPENSE

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A+ Story, Acting, Series

'Search' is definitely in my top 5 dramas of all time. I was hooked from episode 1 on the eerie subject, location (DMZ), and suspicious characters. When I began the first episode, the opening theme immediately reminded me of the movie 'Sicario' (another creepy one!).

While stationed along the DMZ, the main character, a South Korean military dog handler named Dong Jin, falls into an unexpected situation when he is just one week from discharge. Something strange is afflicting the land and people surrounding the DMZ. The writers tied that opening synopsis into the ending SO WELL, I nearly cried. Learning all about Dong Jin's past, the 1997 DMZ incident, and how each of the unit's characters fall into play together, kept me hooked. I can't recommend this series enough. I normally only watch romantic comedies, but took a chance this week and picked up 'Search' -- I was quite pleasantly surprised!

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