Gwitsongmal

Whisper is a corruption-focused K-drama where a set of characters use various ruthless methods to reach their goals; the good guys want to uncover murder & corruption, while the bad guys individually seek to avoid trouble. There's occasional shifting alliances, but it's usually the two leads against everybody else.

The rapid pace of twists and turns keeps you on your toes, and the 'competent protagonist' is sure neat, though ultimately he's mostly the female lead's stooge throughout the majority of episodes. There's little he does that's not done to help her.

Sadly half of the time it looks like a cheap soap opera because of the way it was filmed - maybe it's mostly the framerate that has that effect. The camera work itself is occasionally obviously bad & even comical. I've watched some 25 Asian drama shows, and none had me laugh at the overdone zooms, silly angles, or poor cuts this often.

As many other viewers have noticed, you have to be able to stand "convenient" plot points, like how characters receive every phone call with millisecond precision to affect conversations they're having (and there's hundreds of these phone calls).

*SPOILER*: Several hours of plot development or rather lack thereof from the middle could be cut out because the end of Ep 11 renders them void. I found that really cheap and underwhelming.

I came to watch this show because I liked the two leads when they played a couple in the 2012 drama My Daughter Seo Young. So a part of my enjoyment is from a fan's perspective following these two leads' interaction. Are they on the same or opposing sides? Will they help or betray each other? Will they fall in love or out of love? Will they prevail or destroy each other at the end? No spoiler here but I'll say it's lots of fun.

If I try to review this series more objectively as a thriller, I'd say it is extremely fast paced with twists and turns at practically every episode. Almost everybody is a villain and nobody is blameless, even our heroine detective who breaks the law many times to try to save her dad, including one very morally questionable tactic. To be honest, I was initially put off by the number of successive twists at first as there's no breathing space. After several episodes, as all the main villains are sufficiently introduced and we begin to understand the complexIty of their relationship, I began to more fully appreciate the dynamics of their power play and constantly evolving motivation. The show became an intricate multi-player chess battle where alliances can swiftly change as each character adjust his/her actions to counter the latest trick from their opponents.

At the end of the day, this is good entertainment though, in my opinion, the viewer experience could be improved by slowing down the pace, taking more time to expand on some intrique, removing some unrealistic maneuvers and giving some villains a more nuanced personality. As is, despite the character flaw of the good guys, it's still a tad too cartoonish for a "serious", thought-provoking thriller. Nonetheless it is enjoyable and both leading and key supporting actors did well. In particular, I find the actor Kwon Yool's performance absolutely fabulous as the devious and tormented villain. His scheming and betrayal with his lover almost reminded me of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth...