Not For Everyone, But . . .

Bad Guys is a korean mystery/thriller series that works off this premise: what would happen if you took a disgraced, almost deranged police detective and put him in charge of a team made up of an assassin, a gangster and a psycopath in order to solve a serial murder case? That's the story in the beginning, but this series goes from there to a lot of other dark places.

After the murder of his daughter, Detective Oh Gu-tak (Kim Sang-joon) follows a downward professional and personal spiral into ruin, at least until his old boss comes and asks him to head up a team in order to hunt and stop a prolific killer. Gu-tak demands three members for his team, all seriously dangerous prisoners who are offered reduced sentences in return for their help.

When they agree, the convicted bad guys -- gangster Pak Un-cheol (Ma Dong-seok), hitman Jung Tae-soo (Jo dong-hyuk) and brilliant psycopath Lee Jung-moon (Park Hae-jin) -- are all given ankle bracelet trackers and two are briefed on the case. The third, psycopath Lee Jung-moon, decides to ditch the assignment and go see his ex-girlfriend, who was responsible for sending him to prison (he's also my favorite character in this series.) The team tracks him down, of course, but from there you begin to realize things aren't quite what they seem. The bad guys also prove remarkably effective as detectives.

I liked Bad Guys because it was so different, having basically everyone be a villain right from the start. The four journeys of redemption for the guys include a lot of complications and entanglements, but I found them very convincing. All the actors were superb in their roles. For me Park Hae-jin played the most complex character, and as the psycopath had the most heart-wrenching story; I was completely caught up in his storyline. Some of the fight scenes were unrealistic, but exciting to watch all the same.

I don't feel the series is something for everyone, as the violence and bloodiness are constant and sometimes fairly graphic. That said, I felt most were appropriate to the story, and the use of blurring during the most violent scenes helped. Available on Netflix in the US.