K-drama Hometown: Minari actress Han Ye-ri stars in unique police-procedural series hampered by muddled narrative and MeToo controversy

A series of strange murders with supernatural overtones grips a small town, and a detective (Vincenzo actor Yoo Jae-myung) sets out to solve them

Despite strong performances and compelling elements, the plot is dense – and a recent real-world controversy concerning its writer has turned many off the show

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Han Ye-ri in a still from Hometown which, despite strong performances, has been marred by a recent real-world controversy concerning the K-drama series.

Published: 6:30pm, 7 Oct 2021

This article contains mild spoilers.

2021 has given us a lot of big police-procedural thrillers – many of which, like Beyond Evil and Mouse, have found new ways to expand on the popular genre. Korea’s latest addition, gritty tvN period drama series Hometown, goes a step further, with supernatural overtones and terrorists strengthening a grim tale of serial slayings.

Hometown has a tricky narrative structure, which begins in 1999 with detective Choi Hyung-in (played by Yoo Jae-myung of Itaewon Class and Vincenzo) being interviewed about a bizarre investigation that took place some months earlier. The bulk of the narrative concerns that investigation, with significant flashbacks to 1989.

Taking place in a small town, the main story of Hometown begins with a paranoid middle school student living with her mother in a dank flat. She fears a presence lurking in the bathroom and, in a scene that gives a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror The Shining, she takes a peek behind the bathroom curtain. The girl’s screams attract the attention of her mother, who approaches the door and reaches for the handle.

The next morning we see Detective Choi again, who works violent crime cases with his partner Lee Si-jung (Jo Bok-rae). They have a particularly nasty scene to investigate as they enter the pair’s flat – the mother has been brutally murdered and her daughter is nowhere to be found.