Hidden Identity (2015)

Phew, that was fun! And I'm sad to see it ending so soon. It made for a refreshing change from previous spy dramas like Spy which were nothing but romantic stories with a spy-ish flavor. Not that I hate romantic side-stories - I love them, but only as long as they stay on the side.

Story: This drama focuses more on events rather than characters - at least that's the impression I got. It has its pros and cons - there are times you feel a character is dispensable and there are also times when you're not sad when a character dies coz you never felt one with him/her. It focuses on investigative Team Five - "We hide our identities to catch criminals. We don't exist in any records, not even police records." The concept is nothing new - it's been tried and tested over and over again. But its a worthwhile watch. There is a teeny-weeny bit of romance in the flashback scenes, but it doesn't interfere with the story. For those who think that with a young man and woman in the team, romance will bloom eventually - think again!

Acting/Cast: I like how equal importance is given to almost all of the team members. Frankly, I prefer this rather than the hero-worship of one or two persons with everyone else sidelined. I've seen most of the actors in some drama before (but hardly remember) and they did justice to their roles. Most of the times they are seen sporting stoic expressionless faces, so I'm not sure if my judgement is proper. I remember Lee Won Jong from The Girl Who Sees Smells and kinda miss his humor here.

Music: Great OST - loved it.

Rewatch: Why not!

Concluding Thoughts: Nothing new about the story, nothing new about the execution. But if you're a fan of spy/police/investigative dramas, you can try this once. It's better than many others I've seen in recent times.

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I like police procedurals and this one did a good job with it. As has been said, no romance except a past one motivating several characters, which made the focus more on the team working together against the bad guys. But that's fine, since it's rare w/KDramas. I do prefer well-rounded characters w/fully developed personal lives, but in a suspense thriller police who-done-it that's not necessary for me to enjoy the story.
The plot made sense, without many holes, and noone acted so completely stupid that I yelled at the TV. So often in these police/spy dramas, you're just going 'call for BACKUP! Tell someone where you're going' etc - but not so much in this one - maybe one incident. But I have to give creds for tight, consistent, logical story-telling :D
And for really awesome fight scenes! Especially Kim Bum fight sequences, but Team Leader there had awesome moments, and so did our lone girl detective, who was blessedly no push-over!
So I recommend this drama to those who prefer action & suspense. Also, this is one to get your male friends/family to watch if you want to show them KDramas are NOT all soaps LOL

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I could give this drama four out of five stars, but I'm giving it five. There are a couple of things that this drama may have been missing, however, overall, I really enjoyed this drama. For a drama with no romance, yet filled with so much ongoing action & suspense, it was amazing. This drama mostly felt like a long & never ending movie, but it was worth it. The amount of content given from this drama entertained me so much, that I already miss the suspense from Hidden Identity. For Kim Bum to not have been acting in a drama for two years, this was definitely a thrilling comeback. At first it was different seeing him with facial hair, but he played Cha Gun Woo so well that the time that I needed to adjust to Kim Bum's appearance was so little to nothing.

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A series with lots of actions and no romance, but yet they figured to include lots of drama. The first part of the series started off great, but the series was degrading in quality over time. It was still good, no worries, but I think a season of 12 episodes would have been just fine and would have resulted in a higher note.

Like a previous person said, they seem to focus more on the events rather than on the backgrounds. We do learn a bit about Gun Woo, Jang Min Joo & Jang Moo Won, but Choi Tae Pyeong was left as a blank character which was a bit disappointing to me.

The ending was fine I guess, though I would have sticked to the dark ending as it would have been perfectly fitting for this kind of series.

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So this came out in 2015 and I didn't start watching Korean action dramas until 2020. I keep hitting slumps when it comes to a action drama with no romance in it.

When I saw that the ratings was only 7.7 I decided to watch to see if the ratings should stick. It shouldn't. It should receive a higher rating.

I mainly watched this because of Park Sung Woong and Lee Won Jong. These two have done dramas together and they meld really well. It's just something about these two that makes the dramas click. I like Woong's demeanor. Ever since Rugal I will try to find anything he's in.

I didn't too much care for Kim Bum. His facial expressions was the way he acted-disinterested. I know his character was suppose to be going through some pain but by golly, smile once in a while!!

Kim Tae Hoon's character was weak. I don't even know why he was in it. He got captured and beaten so much....his end scene wasn't necessary either. I felt relief when he was no longer in the picture. He was like a unnecessary filler.

It's so funny I could name all the other actors I've seen in several action dramas that played in this. Why do Lee Kyung Young play a bad guy in every drama he's in??

I loved this. It had the right amount of mystery, drama, and action scenes although I can't understand what those Korean men be on that allows them to get cracked on the body numerous times with a pipe or a 2x4 that allows them to be able to pop back up and fight some more. That always baffled me in these action dramas.

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Kim Bum was in it. That's why I watched it

Okay so honestly I wish I could say more about this drama than just Kim Bum was in it, but Kim Bum was in it. You know it's bad when it gets to the end and you're kind of disappointed when Kim Bum doesn't die 😐. I thought the premise was really good, and it started out strong, but it just seemed to drag to me, and like the whole idea behind the villain was very convoluted. There were a lot of moving parts, and most of the time you were just confused. The biggest disappointment of all was Kim Bum's character, which was to be honest pretty boring. I mean, you could definitely tell that he was hurting, to the point where him dying at the end made more sense than him not, but there wasn't much else to him. All we ever knew about him was that he was in love with this girl that died 8 years ago and apparently he just has no family, no friends, nobody else other than these 2 brother & sister duo in the entire world. Also if I had to see that girl, die one more time in a flashback, I was gonna lose it! I really wish they would have filmed more scenes with her and Kim bum so that we could have seen more than just her getting stabbed 5000 times. By the time it finally showed the actual entire scene, you were over it, like we get it. On top of that there is supposed to be a relationship between Kim bum and this Tae-Min character but the problem with that their relationship is not fleshed out at all. Other than the fact that he is the brother of the woman Kim bum loves, we know NOTHING about how they became friends, why their friends, or how long they've been friends. We see no flashbacks of their past relationship or present one. It's all tell, don't show. We're just supposed to assume that these guys were besties, but there's no evidence of that. So when Tae-Min dies and I was more heartbroken, when the they shot my little scientist guy who invented the virus because he was so sweet. He had a girlfriend that was about to give birth to his baby & he sacrificed his life to save them.
I felt more sad when they shot him then, when they prolonged the death of a main character. I just didn't really care about Tae-Min like he's in very little of the show, and we're just supposed to know about his past and deeply care about him. I felt more for Kim Bum because he grieved. There was also no romance in the show, other than the dead gf. If you want me to struggle through a drama put no romance whatsoever in it and I will always struggle just a little to finish it. Romance, just adds momentum and heart. I think that's why I loved the scientist guy cause he was the only one that had a romantic relationship in the entire show. The other characters were pretty basic. You liked them. You didn't love them. If they had all died at the end, I wouldn't have been that upset about it because sadly, you get to know these characters on a professional basis only and you know very little about their personal lives, the girl is the only one we delve into a little bit. But at that point, her character has been set up as so uninteresting and kind of bland that you don't really care.
There was little to no humor in the show. The one guy that brought in the humor was probably my favorite character.
Also, something that I absolutely despised was that they got the chance over and over again to kill the man who killed his woman and a million more people without remorse and they couldnt because that'll make you as bad as he is, and all that crap. I hated that! I hate when characters who are incredibly evil and have done unspeakable unholy things, the good guys just refuse to kill them. I hate that so much, so that was annoying. It could have saved us so much time in so many lives, honestly, including Tae-Min, he would have lived if he killed him when he had the chance. I thought the drama was fine. It was very much Mrs. Cop, esque, but not as good. Because Kim Bum was a good guy, whereas in Mrs. Cop 2 he was the bad guy, so he gave the drama a cat and mouse game that made it worth watching. All in all if Bummy is the love of your life and you just need to watch something with Kim bum. Here it is, he was in it. Of course, he was amazing as he is in everything. But unfortunately, I feel like because this character is just constantly depressed and just angry at the world all the time, he didn't really get the opportunity to stretch his acting chops a whole lot except in very few scenes. Obviously I watched it for the Bum, I love him; the show however I feel like I just finished it and I've already forgotten it. Which is a bummer, but you have those every once in a while. It was just not for me. I feel like it lacked the family bond that they wanted us to bank on, it lacked heart, It lacked depth, it lacked variety and of course it lacked romance, which is always upsetting at the end of the day. It was just kind of a basic political drama, with enough shockers to keep you going. The little shocker endings were the only things that I found myself looking forward to cause they were usually pretty decent.

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Kim Bum as a morally ambiguous character might be my favorite roll he's ever played.
I mean, dang that boy can play the player or the flower boy in typical contemporary dramas but this role feels like it was just build for him.
The whole rookie-detective-with-a-dark-past-and-so-I-tend-to-beat-people-and-get-beaten-bloody-and-let-my-emotions-strongly-affect-my-judgement role just fits him so well.
The side characters are all so complex with interlacing story lines all tied around these criminal cases revolving around a mysterious figure named "the Ghost" and the other crimes the team sets out to solve along the way. The acting is brilliant. The fight scenes look real. And gorey.
Which brings me to my point that this drama does not shy away from killing off leads/people you love, violence, extremely dark plot lines, and gore SO PREPARE YOURSELVES YEE OF YOUNG INNOCENT MINDS
Back to the side characters, you will fall in love with every single one of them, no matter how big or small their role. They are all lovely innocent beautiful fetuses and by that I mean badass lowkey-brutal morally ambiguous crime/crime-fighting machines but they're still innocent fetuses to me and I will protect my children
Yoon So Yi's character is unbelievably badass and complex (mysterious, dark past that's revealed slowly throughout the series, and affects her judgement [although less so than the male lead]). She does this role outstandingly well which I am allowed to say with conviction because she plays a somewhat-similar role in Iris 2 (similar personality/character, although her role in Iris is not complex at all. She's just a bad guy. That's pretty much all there is to her in that one.), and she was terrible in that. This one is done SOOoooOOOoooOoOOO much better. I'm specifically pointing out this character because I feel that we all need/are looking for that supa badass independent female I-don't-need-nobody character in our lives. You gotther right here
(also makes you REEEEEEEALLy hope for a romance... which is all part of the fun... but honestly, you don't need one, it is soooooo great without one, but just in case, I'm not going to tell you what happens in that department...Hehe)
If you love plot twists, watch this drama. It always gives off that "there's something else going on here" vibe, and when you think u got it, u don't got it
It will hurt. The plot, the characters, the acting, the twists, the everything. If you cry, multiple times, even, empathizing for those poor innocent fetuses, know that you are not alone. But also, those are my fetuses so back off. JK. But seriously, the hurt is amazing, because the story is amazing.
Kinda at some points makes you wonder, "what kind of sick, twisted, brilliant, talented person could come up with/write this plot??" Spectacular.
I should use words like spectacular more often.
Also, completely random side note, this is the best intro song-credits thinger I have ever seen in my life. From the music choice to the editing OMGGG THE EDITINGGGG to the images and miniature cuts from scenes they use, even to the lighting- it's perfect. I'm pretty sure I've rewatched just that intro about 450,938,862.41999 times
10/10 recommend just for that

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Sinceramente achei o drama fraco, pelo menos esperei mais do drama, por conta do elenco que foi bem recheado de nomes de grande peso, com suas grandes atuações, porém achei o enredo em si bastante previsível o que tirou vários pontos.



Mas o que mais me chateou foram os episódios após o 4° e antes do 10° eles foram cansativos e até chato, tornando quase uma tortura assisti aos episódios em certos momentos. Em contra partidas os 4 episódios finais, foram excelente em comparação ao drama em geral. Ótimas falas, algumas até reflexivas e bem sacadas.



Além disso, gostei da mensagem, quem é o verdadeiro culpado da injustiça que presenciamos?

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