Think of a brownie fresh from the oven. You enjoy every warm, gooey, sweet mouthful. Then you take the last bite and it’s cold, hard and bitter. There you go… Pride and Prejudice. It was amazingly good right up to the last hour and then something went wrong, horribly wrong. What happened? The last episode was abrupt, confusing, and just plain disappointing especially after watching the 20 engrossing hours before that.
The writer definitely penned a crime story worthy of high praise. This one’s a thinker, people, not one to just sit back and observe. Not only did the writer give us interesting and personable characters to follow but she handed us a compelling and mysterious storyline and unraveled it for us through flashbacks. We learn about events and people only after some guesswork of our own. However, the problem lies in it being 21 episodes instead of just the wonderful first 20.
It’s the compelling story of prosecutors who reopen a 15 year old case and are desperate to solve the mystery of who kidnapped two little boys and murdered one, before the statute of limitations runs out. The characters are all tied together well and we only find out about how they relate to each other a little at a time. The writer did a fantastic job giving us complex characters and the actors did an amazing job making them come alive!
Pride and Prejudice stars Choi Jin-Hyuk (who receintly won the DramaFever Best Actor Of The Year award) as Prosecutor Koo Dong-Chi. He is a brilliant man who had originally intended to go into medicine but decided to become a prosecutor because of something that happened to him just before his high school graduation. He believes in the justice system and has a firm resolve to be a good prosecutor who works within the law.
Baek Jin-Hee is Han Yeol-Moo. She is an intern prosecutor who has been assigned to work under Dong-Chi. Yeol-Moo is tiny and looks innocent but has already seen much sorrow in her 29 years of life. She has had to be tough to get through the guilt and heart-breaking tragedy she has had to deal with since she was a teenager.
Choi Min-Soo plays tough, Chief Prosecutor Moon Hee-Man. I kept going back and forth trying to decide whether he was good or bad. I’d start an episode thinking he was one of the good guys and then by the end of that hour the writer had me believing he was a bad guy. And then halfway through the next episode I had changed my mind again. (There’s no way I’m going to tell you. You’ll have to watch it and decide for yourself, and then see if you guessed correctly at the end.)
Inspector Kang Soo is played by Lee Tae-Hwan. He’s a soft-spoken young man with a kind heart and sensitive nature who has chosen a difficult career path that forces him into dark situations. He takes his work seriously and is someone his colleagues can depend on with their life. Kang Soo loves Koo Dong-Chi and thinks of him as an older brother.
At the 2014 MBC Drama Awards Choi Jin-Hyuk and Baek Jin-Hee won the Excellent Actor and Excellent Actress awards while Choi Min-Soo took home the Golden Actor award.
The romance is a bit shallow but then the show isn’t a love story so I think they did a great job sneaking the little bit there was into a crime show. It would have been nice to have had the two couples who liked each other go a little deeper in their feelings for one another, however, the flirtatious teasing that goes on is very enjoyable to watch. And each couple has their own great kissing scene so I won’t complain too much.
The soundtrack is just perfect for a mystery drama. There’s not a lot of fun, upbeat songs or romantic ballads but the background music compliments the heavy subject matter well.
The drama lacks color but that aids in the weighty feel of the show. Scenes are shot during the gray, empty, winter months, clothing is dull with the characters wearing mostly dark suits, and the offices are bare and uninviting. I think all that dull color helped to emphasize the bright yellow coats the two kidnapped boys were wearing. A brilliant idea on the part of the writer and director.
This Pride and Prejudice brownie is scrumptious! The yucky last bite doesn’t alter the fact that all the rest of it is deliciously enjoyable but it does leave a bad taste in your mouth. Fair warning.
Score: 8
The Good:
Great crime/mystery plot
Interesting characters
Excellent acting
Engaging storyline
The Bad:
Very disappointing last episode
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