Mad Dog

This series is driven by the machinations of 3 baddies, who successfully keep the heroes and ourselves guessing. In particular, Choi Won-young was very good value.

It is a shame, then, that the goodies did not achieve the same success. Although I have seen the actors playing them elsewhere and appreciate their talents, these did not gel in this series. This may be because the writers were more concerned with sparky dialogue than with believable characters and relationships that you can invest in.

As a result it was sometimes hard to maintain the level of interest necessary to follow the convoluted plot.

Nevertheless I have decided that that is better than a score of 5. It's not scintillating but I did stick with it until the end and do not regret doing so.

The story is lengthy and complicated - I think this worked against it because there were far too many characters with small parts to keep track of.

Kang-Woo is an insurance investigator until his wife and child are killed in a plane crash. He then leaves the company and starts one of his own - Mad Dog.

He is joined in this friends, Cheetah, an ex con, Noo-ri, a genius hacker type young man and Ha-ri, a young woman who has been in love with him for a while it seems. Later they are joined by Min-joon - a somewhat arrogant young man seeking to prove that his pilot brother did not commit suicide thus bringing down the plane deliberately and killing many on board.

This part is played by Do-Hwan, and the major reason I kept watching such a convoluted story. Of course there is a major villain played by the excellent. Choi Won - Young. I have to say I prefer him as a goodie, but no goodie would wear a tie in the half in half out of the collar style as he did here - one wonders at what goes on in the heads of designers - and what doesn't go on in the heads of those that wear their efforts. But then South Korean fashions - particularly for women and bizarre beyond belief.

The series is too long at sixteen episodes and the interest is not really maintained when our five intrepid heroes are off screen.

Particularly Do Hwan - or did I mention that !!

Worth a watch - but it does sag in the middle.

The most annoying thing about this drama is the main baddie wears his tie in what is called the "European style" and if you like symmetry once you watched it you will understand what I mean. Anyway the drama centres around a team of people who investigate insurance fraud but there main aim is to uncover the truth about a plane crash which killed their leaders wife and child. It is an interesting story line which is well acted but I failed to bond with the characters and their frustrating relationship in the beginning which led to the deaths of people.

I finished My Country: The New Age on Netflix and wanted to watch something else with the fantastic Do-Hwan Woo in it, and this was something that looked promising. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this show, as the premise initially sounded quite boring. An insurance scam? Insurance fraud workers? How exciting could it be? As I said, I watched this purely for Do-Hwan, who was definitely the main draw as his character was irresistibly charismatic which masked a deeper, darker part of himself. The other characters definitely grew on me, and the story kept me interested enough to finish. I think its worth a watch, especially if you are a fan of Do-Hwan. His cocky attitude and the love/hate relationships he has with the members of Mad Dog are definitely the best parts!

I grew quite fond of Korean crime genre. They tend to provide excellent stories with complicated intertwining plot. What I love about this genre is the never ending give and take and creative schemes from both the fighting parties. Mad Dog is all that and more with shocking reveals and hints of romance between Woo Do-Hwan and Ryu Hwa-young, who really was the undeniable beauty of this series. The ending was really good and a great way to end the series on a satisfying and fulfilling note. It was really cool to watch. A must watch!!!