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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Park Bo-gum, Kim So-hyun, Lee Sang-yi
Latest Nielsen rating: 5.3 per cent
As any athlete will tell you, warming up before exercise is essential to avoid injury. Stories need to warm up as well, for a similar reason – let’s call it narrative whiplash.
Good Boy, a new action series featuring Park Bo-gum (Record of Youth), Kim So-hyun (Love Alarm) and Lee Sang-yi (Bloodhounds) as a group of sporting medallists who join the police force, is very careful to limber up before getting into the meat of the action.


But when the action only kicks in 80 minutes into a meandering 90-minute premiere episode, we have to wonder: what happens when warming up takes precedence over exercise?
It’s not unusual for K-dramas to use up one or even two whole episodes to compress characters’ backstories and get them to starting positions we already know about from their marketing. This is partly true here, as Good Boy’s opening episode ends with the formation of the police unit that assembles the protagonists.
However, the series begins with its protagonists already in the police force, their sporting careers behind them and dim prospects ahead. Surely the real backstory is how they got into police uniforms at all?
In time, the show will undoubtedly fill us in on all their stories, but without that the start of their Special Criminal Investigation Team lacks the punch the production is clearly aiming for.

Park, back shortly after his heralded turn in the acclaimed drama When Life Gives You Tangerines, plays former boxer Yoon Dong-ju, named by his mother after the celebrated Korean poet of the same name.
Dong-ju was an officer in Seoul, but after laying beat-downs on some corrupt fellow officers, he was demoted and transferred to the fictional Insung Metropolitan Police.
Though down on his luck, he has a bright disposition that becomes even more surprising when we learn that his sporting career ended in disgrace following a doping allegation.
If Dong-ju is the brawn, then Ji Han-na (Kim) is the brains. Han-na is a former ace sharpshooter who is now a glorified pencil pusher in a police uniform.
Owing to a wave of unfair criticism in her sporting career, Han-na has become withdrawn, but despite keeping to herself, she remains sharp and dreams of following in her policeman father’s footsteps.

Lee plays Kim Jong-hyeon, a retired star fencer who has had a better time on the police force so far. He is a sergeant in the audit team, wears a sharp suit and is occasionally accosted in the corridor by fellow officers for his autograph.
Besides their sporting backgrounds, this trio is also linked in a classic romantic triangle.
Han-na and Jong-hyeon used to date, while Dong-ju is unable to hide the huge crush he has on Han-na. He often escorts her up the dark road that leads to her home and even takes it upon himself to harass the city planning department until they fix all the lights along the path.
Also joining the team is the gigantic Shin Jae-hong (Tae Won-seok, The Player 2: Master of Swindlers), a former discus athlete who at one point flips over a car trying to run him over by hurling a manhole cover at it.
Leading the team is the struggling Lieutenant Go Man-shik (Heo Sung-tae, Squid Game), a former professional wrestler looked down upon by all his colleagues and forced to grovel at the feet of his superiors.

Though these characters are all in different departments, they all suffer from the same sense of isolation after entering the police force through a special programme for former athletes.
No one really gives them the time of day until they all end up playing key roles in the takedown of a drug gang.
The new unit is their reward, or so they think. They arrive in their new office, ready to tackle crime, until it dawns on them that the police brass is only interested in their PR value.
With no real cases assigned to them, they need to go and find some for themselves.

Unfortunately for Dong-ju, opportunity comes knocking following a hit-and-run accident. He tries to track down the driver of a car that rammed him after leaving a body in a ditch, at first using the grille-shaped bruise the car left on his behind as evidence.
Soon a man is arrested for the crime, and he is none other than Dong-ju’s friend Lee Gyeong-il (Lee Jung-ha, Moving), who is forced to take the fall for the crime by crooked customs officer Min Ju-yeong (Oh Jung-se, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay).
At least this gives the team a real case and an opportunity to prove themselves.
Good Boy is streaming on Amazon Prime.


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Korean drama series that follows a police task force comprising former medal-winning athletes gets off to a slow start


Korean drama series that follows a police task force comprising former medal-winning athletes gets off to a slow start.


Amazon Prime K-drama Good Boy: Park Bo-gum plays a former boxer in police action-comedy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Korean drama series that follows a police task force comprising former medal-winning athletes gets off to a slow start

Korean drama series that follows a police task force comprising former medal-winning athletes gets off to a slow start