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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Hello Monster" Episode 3

The culprit apparently apprehended, the police team comes up against a very serious problem- there's not much real evidence. For Hyeon that doesn't pose a problem. This isn't because Hyeon is a super detective who can pull evidence out of nowhere to bring criminals to justice. It's quite the opposite really. Hyeon's interest in crime is directly proportional to how interesting the crime is. And sadly, Hyeon simply isn't impressed by the current villain.

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The generally antagonistic attitude between Hyeon and the actual detectives is one of the biggest highlights of "Hello Monster". Ji-an pretty much has to desperately scoop up at whatever crumbs of deduction Hyeon leaves lying around in order to come up with a halfway decent idea of what actually happened, and why evidence is so difficult to come by when by any reasonable metric they should have the culprit dead to rights. Ji-an is nearly able to get thar far herself, but keeps falling short.

And so Hyeon ends up "solving" the case. Quotation marks are necessary there because Hyeon doesn't play by the rules. I don't mean that in the standard unconventional detective way. Hyeon literally does not respect the fact that detective stories are supposed to play out in a satisfactory, methodical fashion. Hyeon simply identifies the one part of the culprit's plan that is obviously stupidly flawed and dumb, and uses it pack the crook away like a total chump, somehow managing to simultaneously making Ji-an's team look bad in the process.

The scripting in "Hello Monster" is really, really good. My compliments to writer Kwon Ki-yeong. Hyeon generally has his own generally weird brand of logic that only makes sense to him, and Seo In-guk is very on point in his performance as the man who thinks everything is a waste of time unless it can be made immediately interesting somehow. Hyeon is a deadpan prankster who manages to be infuriating precisely because he's so good at looking smart.

This wasn't just a one-off case though- Hyeon figures out that the situation is a tad more complicated than just the guy with the purple flowers. Although as per usual he sees little point in tipping off the dunderhead police about it. At least unless Ji-an can convince him otherwise. I wasn't so sure before but now that there's more of a direct focus on the mystery "Hello Monster" is definitely shaping up to be a genuinely intriguing product.

Review by William Schwartz

"Hello Monster" is directed by Kim Jin-won-I and No Sang-hoon, written by Kwon Ki-yeong and features Seo In-guk, Jang Nara, Choi Won-young, Lee Chun-hee, Park Bo-gum, Min Sung-wook and more.

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