Nine Puzzles

A High Quality Mystery With A Unique Female Lead

My 4 categories are Acting/Cast, Writing, Direction/SFX/Music, Entertainment Value.

I typically don’t like detective dramas. They tend to be very cliché and/or formulaic. I decided to watch this one because I was reading comments about viewers liking the "crazy" female lead (it's rare to see those types of female leads) and I like Son Seok Gu (손석구) who plays the male lead.

Acting/Cast: I liked the leads a lot. The other police officers and characters were fine. I didn’t like the psychiatrists. I don’t like Park Kyu Young (박규영) as an actress. She always plays the same roles…emotionless, stoic. I don’t like any actor that only plays those types of roles. As for the other psychiatrist, I like the actor from other things I’ve seen him in, but this character’s delivery felt a little cheesy. 6.5/10

Writing: This is a well-written drama. I like the unconventional female lead. She’s very much intentionally a Sherlock type character. I don’t really like Sherlock too much, but I thought this association was endearing and cute (her outfits and behavior). The mystery plot is engaging, although, I loosely figured it out pretty early on. I was hoping I wasn’t right because it’s such a cliché… Fortunately, this predictability didn’t completely ruin the drama for me, and this is because the ending is impactful. I liked the enemies to partners aspect between the leads and the focus on their dynamic for most of the drama. However, the biggest issue I had with this drama is the change towards the end (episode 10). The focus is no longer on the dynamic between the two leads, but shifts to the serial killer. Now, the strong, well-established personality of the female lead is abandoned for 2 episodes or so. It also feels like the relationship building between the leads is a waste because they aren’t working together on anything. It’s actually dumb. They’re both figuring everything out at the same time, but through different means and not as partners. So why does it even matter that the male lead has to learn to trust her? Anyway, I read that people either hate or love the ending. For me, the ending saved this drama. It was actually kind of beautiful in a macabre way, which is what the writers were going for. They also set it up for a season 2, which could work because the relationship between the leads felt unfulfilled in the end. Just don’t do a repeat of Queen of Mystery 1 & 2 please. Queen of Mystery is a good detective drama, but the slow burn romance never comes to a conclusion. There’s no romance in Nine Puzzles (although I think there potentially could be), but I’m talking about the bond that the leads are developing. If they keep splitting up and doing investigations alone, then what good is this bond? 6.5/10

Direction/SFX/Music: This is a very high quality drama regarding the writing and the production value, such as the drama Death’s Game. I think that’s what ultimately made this drama work for me when I typically don’t like detective dramas. I felt like I was watching a Hollywood style movie (a good one, I mean...I know Hollywood is terrible these days). 8.5/10

Entertainment Value: I was really into this drama until episode 10; I had gotten through those episodes pretty quick. Then, I was turned off by the change in direction. However, the final episode was good and gave meaning to the drama as a whole. This also kept the predictability of the drama from alienating me, leaving me with positive feelings about the drama. 7/10

Overall, I gave this drama a 7/10. A score or 6 or higher is in my ‘would recommend’ zone. I don’t know if I would recommend this to someone who loves the detective genre because it is predictable. But, I’d recommend it if you want to watch a good story with interesting character writing and a high production value. This drama made me interested in criminal profiling. I actually bought an introductory college textbook on the subject.

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Unfortunately, it really shows that this is a Disney+ production.

Lack of clues and details to build theories:
Over the course of 9 episodes, there’s not a single hint that makes the viewer want to come up with theories or even guess who the villain might be.
Do you think the death of the main character’s parents has anything to do with the story? Nope.
Do you think the classical music theme matters? Not at all.
Do you think the fact that the main character lacks some social skills plays a role? Nope.
What about the male lead being stuck in the same position for 10 years because of an unsolved case — think that’s important? Nope.
Basically, any detail you think might be connected to the murders before episode 9 becomes totally irrelevant, because for 9 whole episodes, they only give you one suspect.
And surprise — in episode 10, they tell you that nope, he’s not the antagonist after all. So all your theories are basically pointless. Only if you watch a lot of K-dramas like this, you probably caught the phrase “construction company” and maybe figured out where the story’s heading.

Cast:
The producers of this K-drama clearly have no idea how to make the most of their cast’s potential. Honestly, if any other actors had done this show, it wouldn’t have made a difference — they use so little of the actors’ range that it feels like they never even watched their past performances, whether lead or supporting.

The antagonist:
The antagonist in this story apparently has super strength or psychic powers or something, because there’s no explanation or detail about how they kill. People just show up dead, and that’s it. The only death that’s actually interesting isn’t even caused by the antagonist — it’s done by a side character.And the worst death is the final one — Puzzle 8 — because you literally have to use your imagination to make any sense of how the body ended up way up there with no help at all.

P.S. For some reason, in the episodes around the second murder, there’s this weird POV shot of the main character’s hand gripping the car keys. I have no idea what they were going for with that scene — it’s just odd, and to make it weirder, they only use that POV once. Just that one scene.

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