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Pierce Conran

This article contains minor spoilers.
2/5 stars
Lead cast: Park Bo-gum, Kim So-hyun, Lee Sang-yi, Oh Jung-se
Latest Nielsen rating: 8.12 per cent
Despite the promise of action and athleticism at the beginning, Good Boy featured little of either in its early stages, focusing instead on the mishaps of a misunderstood squad in the police force without ever digging into what made the lead characters tick.
In its final stretch, the series made good on its promise, delivering tonnes of action set pieces during which our five protagonists – including those played by Park Bo-gum (When Life Gives You Tangerines), Kim So-hyun (Love Alarm) and Lee Sang-yi (Bloodhounds) – face off against their opponents.


But, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
Good Boy is the story of former athletes who, following the professional disappointments of their sporting careers, join the police force, where they are looked down upon by everyone in the department.
Nevertheless, these neglected officers persevere in the name of justice when they go up against the sadistic customs officer Min Ju-young (Oh Jung-se, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay), who secretly runs a drug cartel.
Unable to gather enough evidence against Ju-young, who has leverage over several people in very high places – whose pockets he lines with his seemingly limitless reserves of cash – the squad is forced to go at it alone in their attempts to derail Ju-young’s enterprise.

Most of the time, this involves former boxer Yoon Dong-ju (Park) barging into hidden locales with flailing fists, although half the time he is the one who gets beaten up.
Dong-ju takes so many punches that he develops punch-drunk syndrome, a neurological disorder that arises from sustained head trauma, which boxers are prone to developing.
Despite going blind for part of the show and repeatedly blacking out – among other concerning symptoms – Dong-ju never stops investigating with his fists, and no one around him really tries to stop him.
By the end, Dong-ju finally gets his man, diving off a boat after Ju-young and dragging him onto a beach and cuffing him.

The series ends with Dong-ju once again on a beach, running with his dog and smiling as the sun sets. The show closes with a line of narration: “Remember the day when everyone burned with passion.”
This line, which echoes several similar thoughts expressed by Dong-ju during the show, celebrates the act of doing the right thing, which is a reward in and of itself.
Dong-ju was named after the celebrated Korean poet Yoon Dong-ju, who, as a member of the Korean independence movement against Japanese colonisers in the first half of the 20th century, gave his life to the cause.
The Dong-ju played by Park is presented as an equally pure character, albeit one duking it out against evil with his brawn rather than his brains.

Yet beyond this loaded historical parallel, how does Dong-ju fare as a character? He ends the series in triumph, having beaten the bad guy and being recognised for doing so.
But this Dong-ju is little changed from the Dong-ju we met at the start of the series. Through 16 episodes and countless beatdowns, he has never evolved as a character, which has made him a frustrating protagonist.
What has changed for him is his love life, since he and former athletic sharpshooter Ji Han-na (Kim) are now an item.
This is far from a satisfying K-drama romance. Despite Kim So-hyun’s status as a major K-drama name, Han-na is not significant as a character, and Dong-ju’s relationship with her is merely an afterthought.

Though the show has been narratively frustrating throughout, there was always the hope that it would make up for that with a colourful array of fun action beats and some engaging banter among its central crew.
While the action does finally kick into high gear in the last few episodes, more suddenly becomes less, as the show begins to cycle through repetitive fights that feature familiar choreography, grating comic asides and low stakes, each utterly indistinguishable from one to the next.
Similarly, the band’s banter never really takes off, thanks to flat caricatures that struggle to spark, no matter how often and hard they are thrown at each other.
For all its talk of burning passion, Good Boy felt sterile and inert, relying all too often on Park Bo-gum flashing a blood-stained smile, distracting the audience each time the story ground to a halt.
Good Boy is streaming on Prime Video.


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Despite a surge of intense action at the end of the series, Good Boy’s flat narrative and lacklustre characters fail to ignite any passion


Despite a surge of intense action at the end of the series, Good Boy’s flat narrative and lacklustre characters fail to ignite any passion.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Despite a surge of intense action at the end of the series, Good Boy’s flat narrative and lacklustre characters fail to ignite any passion

Despite a surge of intense action at the end of the series, Good Boy’s flat narrative and lacklustre characters fail to ignite any passion