Review: Heartless City

It's time for another review! I was planning to write about The Full Sun (aka Beyond the Clouds) first, but I couldn't finish it yet (I'm currently at episode 10) so I just decided to write about my favorite drama ever until now: Heartless City. Also known as Cruel City or Undercover, this 2013 drama brought us to the underworld of drugs, mafia and corrupted officers. It was broadcasted by jTBC from May 27 to July 30.

Synopses: When her sister suffers a brutal fate while undercover in the crime underworld, Yoon Soo Min is driven to pick up where her sister left off. But in the shadows, there are no rules and no reason: Soo Min falls for the organization’s king pin, who also happens to be the prime suspect of her sister’s murder.

[caption id="attachment_1042" align="alignleft" width="223"] Ji Hyeong Min and Lee Kyeong Mi[/caption]

Although the synopses describe it as a supposed to be love story, this drama goes beyond it. It begins introducing us to a group of police officers that form a tactical team aiming to catch the leader of a drug cartel, in the middle of this group we get to meet Lee Keyong Mi: raised at an orphanage she believes that being a police officer she can make the world a better place to live, she's currently in a long-term relationship with attorney/ex-police office Ji Hyeong Min and she helps to raise her sister from the orphanage called Yoon Soo Min. The team make a plan to catch Scale (the mafia boss), but what they didn't know is that at the same time Doctor's Son is planing a coup d'état at Scale organization. Kyeong Mi goes undercover in that mission, but everything goes wrong and she gets killed and everybody thinks that Doctor's Son is her murderer. Believing that Doctor's Son killed Kyeong Mi, Hyeong Min and Soo Min make a plan to catch him and get revenge for their loved one death.

[caption id="attachment_1049" align="alignright" width="344"] Yoon Soo Min[/caption]

Doctor's Son aka Jung Shi Hyun was born from an addicted to drugs prostitute and was raised in the middle of the prostitution/drugs world. He's now one of the persons in charge of the distribution of the drugs in Seoul, but we find out that in reality he's an undercover police officer that has the goal of arresting Scale and all the cartel. He has by his side two bests friends: Soo, who is right hand man, and Jin Sook, a ex-prostitute who helped to raise Shi Hyun and is madly in love with him.

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="aligncenter" width="439"] Safari, Jin Sook, Doctor's Son and Soo.[/caption]

Another important characters are: Safari, who knew Doctor's Son since his childhood and works in the drug dealer organisation and comes back to Seoul to stop the coup and fix the problem; other important character is Min Hong Ki a high scale police officer who planted Shi Hyun as undercover and the chief of the tactical team.

Rating

• Story: 9/10.

I must say that it's really hard to find dramas with such a great plot as this one. I really loved how they mixed everything here (romance, action, crime, mystery, etc) as the result was better than what I expected. I remember that when I started to watch this drama I was in a drama slump time, nothing was pleasing me and I was really unhappy; I picked it to watch when only 4 episodes were out and the next weeks became a torture to me: I got really addicted! I do agree that somewhere in the middle the story become a little WTF, but overall this drama has a great development and the characters here are really great. This drama is about choices, it's a dark drama with people who had/have to live in a world that is more hard than ours and how this world molded them. It was not a 10 for me, just because there are some parts that are a little overboard.

• Acting/Cast: 9/10.

If you know anything about me is that I L-O-V-E Jung Kyung Ho, he's my favorite korean actor and this was the drama that made me fall in love with him: Jung Kyung Ho as Doctor's Son is perfect. Being able to portray such a deep character and show every kind of feeling is not for any actor.. NO! I'm not over biased, I really love his interpretation here, I love how can I feel everything that Shi Hyun is feeling just by looking at JKH eyes; he just shone  really much at this drama. I do have some problems with Nam Gyu Ri, as she's very inconsistent at her acting, but overall he did a great job here as Yoon Soo Min. It's not really easy to find great kisses in korean drama, almost all the time the lady seems to be a dead fish: but here we had an amazing kiss, one of my favorites kiss ever. I have mixed feelings about Lee Jae Yoon, at the end my problem is not with the actor but with the character Ji Hyeong Min (he pissed me off a lot here). Kim Yoo Mi was great too, I found her sexy and a very strong woman.. I guess all the cast was really well picked and all of them made a decent job, what made this drama very good.

• Music: 8/10

Overall this OST of this drama is really good, but there's one song that stands out and that I listen till now: Hurt by Kim Yong Jin (here: youtube link). 

• Rewatch Value: 10/10

After three years I dunno how many times I watched this drama, actually I'm currently rewatching it right now ><.. Just missed it.

• Overall: 10/10

This drama really blows my mind up to now, every time I rewatch this I understand why I like it so much: this drama has everything and a little more. BUT I don't think that this drama is for everyone, it's a drama for those who are prepared to deal with a lot of things happening really fast and for people who can deal with the borderline between being good and being an evil person. This drama introduced me the other side of Jung Kyung Ho acting skills, since I had already watched him at Smile You and Time Between Dog and Wolf, and I miss him doing this kind of characters. This drama, I mean Jung Shi Hyun was definitively made for him. This is a must watch show for those who like crime/action dramas, be prepared to be frustrated, angry, sad, happy, to be hooked up and to want to break your tv/pc down (HAHAHAH, ><).

[caption id="attachment_1079" align="aligncenter" width="500"] I love how powerful he looks here :3[/caption]

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Dear chingus, how are you? Sometimes I feel like I should write more and more and I'll definitively try! This week I'm starting a new specialization at blonde hairs, but I intend to write a review of my favorite drama of the year that is ending this week (I'm really unhappy about it): W and to bring to you guys my Top 5 chinese actors! Hopefully I'll get to finish all those articles! I'm so happy that I got a great response for writing here and now I'll start to write in portuguese too, I'm really happy that there are some brazilian chingus interested in my blog. Thanks for coming! Kissus.