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Short and FUN
I dropped the K-drama Suspicious Partner after 10 of its 40 30 minute episodes. It felt to me like the female lead had no agency, I found the male lead's behaviour patronisingly possessive to the point of being borderline creepy – which is saying something given that the lead was played by JCW. I was interested to subsequently learn that many reviews on MDL from people who liked it still complained that the drama got draggy, bloated and lost its way for much of the middle third to three-quarter mark.
The 2025 Japanese remake is almost certainly not to everyone's taste, but no one could accuse it of being bloated or draggy. At a total run time of just over 4.5 hours as opposed 20 hours for the original, it's an amuse-bouche. I chose that phrase quite deliberately because there was a lot of amusement in it. The overriding impression I got of this drama was its creative team opted to focus on fun.
75 to 80% of the drama was light and frothy and there were a lot of laughs. The laughs were comical, not simply comedic. By that, I mean that the humour could have come from a comic. There has been discussion on bluesky recently about the influence of anime and manga on J-dramas and to me the humour in this J-drama was a very good example. It was slightly absurdist and silly, quite knowingly and deliberately so, and gave a clear impression that the last thing it intended to do was take itself seriously. This made me very happy, since that ability to laugh at itself is vanishingly rare in K-dramas.
Since I abandoned the original only one quarter of the way through, I can't comment on how the storyline is unfolded, but in the Japanese drama the serial killer was kept in his proper place — a significant element of the story but not the prime ingredient.
The female lead was a little too much like the stereotypical J-Drama romance female lead, but as the story progressed she stood on our own feet, made her own decisions, and it was great to see the male lead allow her to do so.
If I had any major complaint about the drama, it might be that it is a little too short. If the 12 episodes had been 30 minutes instead of 24, there could have been a little bit more character development, more chance for the female lead to outgrow the kawaii doll phase of the early part of the drama, and a less rushed, more cohesive conclusion. But overall, a surprisingly pleasant short treat.
The 2025 Japanese remake is almost certainly not to everyone's taste, but no one could accuse it of being bloated or draggy. At a total run time of just over 4.5 hours as opposed 20 hours for the original, it's an amuse-bouche. I chose that phrase quite deliberately because there was a lot of amusement in it. The overriding impression I got of this drama was its creative team opted to focus on fun.
75 to 80% of the drama was light and frothy and there were a lot of laughs. The laughs were comical, not simply comedic. By that, I mean that the humour could have come from a comic. There has been discussion on bluesky recently about the influence of anime and manga on J-dramas and to me the humour in this J-drama was a very good example. It was slightly absurdist and silly, quite knowingly and deliberately so, and gave a clear impression that the last thing it intended to do was take itself seriously. This made me very happy, since that ability to laugh at itself is vanishingly rare in K-dramas.
Since I abandoned the original only one quarter of the way through, I can't comment on how the storyline is unfolded, but in the Japanese drama the serial killer was kept in his proper place — a significant element of the story but not the prime ingredient.
The female lead was a little too much like the stereotypical J-Drama romance female lead, but as the story progressed she stood on our own feet, made her own decisions, and it was great to see the male lead allow her to do so.
If I had any major complaint about the drama, it might be that it is a little too short. If the 12 episodes had been 30 minutes instead of 24, there could have been a little bit more character development, more chance for the female lead to outgrow the kawaii doll phase of the early part of the drama, and a less rushed, more cohesive conclusion. But overall, a surprisingly pleasant short treat.
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