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Pierce Conran

This article contains spoilers.
3.5/5 stars
Lead cast: Lee Sung-min, Kyung Soo-jin, Lee Hak-joo, Kim Shin-rok, Jeong Jin-yeong
Season 2 of Shadow Detective wound up resembling its predecessor in more ways than one.


Lee Sung-min’s Taek-rok is still the same grizzled detective and the case he tackles this year once again involves foes within the ranks of the police rather than without.
Both seasons open with salty characters in the atmospheric fictional port town of Geumo, before proceeding into somewhat dreary midsections filled with scheming, twists and reveals within the Geumo Police Department.
Shadow Detective 2: Lee Sung-min dives into grimy city corruption
Thankfully, each season also ends with the kind of bang that makes up for most of the slack along the way.
The case of runaway teen robberies that opens season 2 slowly snowballs into a web of corruption as Taek-rok and his former partners Lee Seong-a (Kyung Soo-jin) and Son Kyung-chan (Lee Hak-joo) investigate.
The early figure presented as the main villain is assemblyman Lee Young-ho (Joo Jin-mo), who is running for higher office, but Taek-rok soon discovers that the real cause of all the death and deceit around him is the secretive Geumjeong Society.

This society connects season 2’s main new cast members: Yeon Ju-hyun (Kim Shin-rok), Taek-rok’s new superior; and Yongseo Foundation chairman Choi Do-hyung (Jeong Jin-yeong), an ex-detective and a former colleague of Taek-rok’s.
Ju-hyun, like Taek-rok, is after Geumjeong. Her desire to expose its members is fuelled by revenge – the society was behind the murder of her father, who was also in the police force.
Do-hyung has a bestselling memoir and a pristine image. As Do-hyung builds political currency for his own congressional run, Taek-rok soon pieces everything together. Do-hyung, not Young-ho, is the leader of Geumjeong, but the more devastating revelation is that the shadowy group is an offshoot of a group founded by Taek-rok himself.

Season 2’s best moment comes at the beginning of the closing episode, which plunges us into Taek-rok’s troubled dreams.
He meets his dead season 1 nemesis Kook Jin-han (Jin Goo) in a dark alley, and as their introspective and regretful conversation unfolds, other Taek-roks run past them, each chasing a police colleague who either died or was badly injured thanks in part to Taek-rok’s actions.
Taek-rok’s determined dashes down streets are the signature image of the show. Such scenes are a motif of every Korean cops-and-robbers film or series. But just as in the celebrated South Korean detective thriller film Memories of Murder 20 years ago, the chases here prove to be circular.
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Whenever Taek-rok catches his man there’s always someone else behind him. This was clearly illustrated in last year’s season finale, when Jin-han was gunned down by a mysterious figure just as Taek-rok finally had him in his hands.
That figure turns out to have been Director Kwon (Moon Soo), Do-hyung’s muscle and a member of Geumjeong.
Geumjeong was built on the ashes of Taek-rok’s BST (be safe today) group, a coalition of detectives trying to look out for each other, of which Do-hyung was a member. Taek-rok’s conciliatory approach and Do-hyung’s trigger-happy style didn’t gel and BST disbanded.

Their opposing ideological stances are most succinctly encapsulated in Do-hyung’s line, “I don’t run away. I know what it means to take responsibility.” Perhaps Taek-rok is always running away, but if the dogmatic Do-hyung is moving in the opposite direction, what is he heading towards?
Do-hyung’s ultimate desire is to gain political power to reform the police and keep officers safe, but with the blood of several officers on his hands, he has veered far from his original intentions.
Cornered by Taek-rok, Do-hyung resorts to even more desperate measures. Several characters drop to the floor in the closing episode, among them Taek-rok after his former friend shoots him in the chest.

Yet, just as Do-hyung’s future in politics is about to be ceremonially cemented, a bloody Taek-rok barges in, a gleam in his eye and a smoking gun in his hand.
The parting shot shows him running once again – to investigate a minor village disturbance. One gets the sense that the moment he stops running will be the moment he ceases to be.
Shadow Detective season 2 is streaming on Disney+.


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Lee Sung-min as Taek-rok in a still from “Shadow Detective” season 2. Photo: Disney+

Lee Sung-min as Taek-rok in a still from “Shadow Detective” season 2 on Disney+. After a bright opening and midsection that gets bogged down, it works up to a riveting conclusion. Photo: Disney+

Kyung Soo-jin as Lee Seong-a in a still from “Shadow Detective” season 2. Photo: Disney+

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Jeon Hye-jin as physical therapist Kim Eun-mi in a still from “Not Others”.

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Choi Soo-young in a still from “Not Others”.

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Jung Woo as Yook Dong-joo in a still from “Miraculous Brothers”.

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As in season 1, an atmospheric start gives way to a dull middle with revelations surrounding the police department Lee Sung-min’s detective Taek-rok works for
But the Disney+ K-drama’s finale makes it worth watching, as a scandal unravels and a murderous ex-cop with political ambitions is exposed in the nick of time


The second season of Disney+ crime thriller K-drama series Shadow Detective, starring Lee Sung-min, follows the same trajectory as the first, with a series of dreary interludes followed by a riveting conclusion.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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