Yulich

I agree. The whole "devastating war in an extremely poor country where the children starve and don't wash in months" idea is destroyed in a second when they show frickin Greece lol. And the english speaking scenes in dramas are almost always an abomination xD

In that case you will love it haha. It kinda destroyed me when I watched it lol. I may suggest to watch Bad Guys (also a very chilling detective/thriller, dark, no fluff) and Save Me (which I didn't exactly loved but it perfectly fits your criteria as it is quite possible THE most depressing k-drama ever :D and its overall story is quite original and not overdone, it has even a bit of a horror taste there).

I've been wondering this myself but now I think that it got so popular because both of its leads are extremely popular A-list actors, it got an enormous budget and was shot at the kinda exotic for Koreans location which is Greece. Add a love story with a little bit of patriotism as well and I can see why it got so big at home. What I still cannot understand though how It got so popular with the western audience lol

Korean Signal is the original one. I haven't watched the japanese remake yet so I can't say if it's good or not. All I know is that Signal i watched is just amazing T__T so I'm ready to recommend it to everyone. Also it is one of the few high rated K-dramas that I found to live up to its hype and rating unlike DOTS here.
I have to add though: it is kinda dark and VERY depressing so yeah :D It is definitely not a typical korean drama.

Try Signal, I don't even wanna watch anything else after it. It is a superb thriller/detective and there is little to none romance or some stupid shit.

I don't wanna watch anything else after this, no drama will ever be as good as Signal.

5/10 does not get naked enough

This drama is so STUPID and not in entertaining way unfortunately. I laughed however when the russian gangster's last name was VIKTOR, yeah sure why not, let the dude have another name as his last name XD
The female MC is atrocious, she is way to annoying to care for her and there is no chemistry between her and the main guy.
I started to watch this because of Park Hae Jin, but I'd rather just stare at his photos lol

I loved almost everything except the awful ending. Really what the hell?? The acting was superb though. I also will forever remember the main theme, it plays every 5 minutes or so lol

What are you talking about? The lead actress is amazing! And I'm saying this as someone who thinks that korean actresses are not very good in general.

I honestly feel like I'm the kid at the party where everyone but me is having fun and I just wanna go home lol. This drama is so acclaimed and loved by everyone I came here totally expecting to fall in love with it too. All the ingredients are here: I love detective/thriller genre, I dont care about romance and the actors are very talented. But god damn it is so painfully slow and boring. I watched just the two first episodes and gave up, absolutely nothing interesting happened there. I like something that is more fast paced, and the main case did not capture my interest enough to wait for the exciting stuff.
Another drama where I feel let down by the high rating. Now I'm sad haha.

I love it! I haven't seen the original so I don't know how it compares but I like the dynamics here and the cast is super good. The main character is an extremely likeable man that you want to root for. In fact the entire team of supporting bros is a very interesting bunch of people which I hope we will get to know better soon. I hope there are lots of surprises ahead and it will not disappoint because as of now it is 9/10 for me.

Great drama, highly recommended to anyone who likes action, detective and thriller. It's all here. It has perfect length, I would love all dramas to be around 11-12 episodes because they tend to drag too much.

With a premise like this I expected so much more from this drama. It kinda went downhill towards the end and the ending was super disappointing. I don't think they handled time travel thing well here, for a perceptive viewer there are way too many loose ends that take away from the enjoyment. The main character is really annoying. I understand that he is "a man from the past" and acts accordingly but damn sometimes he was just the biggest dumbass ever and not funny at that. Also I didn't like the female lead. She looked and acted like a dead fish that's why I coudn't sympathize with her despite her story. The most likable character is a Jun Sung Shik, he stole every scene he was in. The antagonist is also reaaally cool and probably the smartest character in the drama.
Anyway the drama is not bad, it just didn't reach its full potential and the main characters could have been better.

This is one of the most overhyped things that I have ever seen in my life. It is style over substance at its best. I coudn't watch past the 7th episode, it is so unrealistic and not believable at all especially to those who know even a little bit about geography lol. The characters are flat, I coudn't connect with any of them. I think it's just way too pompous and pretentious for my taste. I cannot believe and don't really get why it was such a megahit in Korea but what can you do :D
Also it is so cheesy that even serious scenes made me half-laugh through them lol.