I've been making the rounds here on IMDb offering up reviews of Korean TV shows over the last year or so (because they're sorely lacking), and tonight it's review time for City Hunter. This show aired in the summer of 2011, and it's not half bad.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I see four other people have reviewed this series already (to some wildly ranging opinions). I watch these shows all the time, and have a pretty good handle on them, so perhaps I can be of some help in providing a more balanced review. Basically, this show is standard fare for the genre; it's neither ground breaking nor spectacular, but it is mostly watchable and worth checking out if you like this sort of thing. It's pretty decent overall.
Here's your story: It's late 1980's or early 1990's, and North and South Korean tensions are mounting. A group of hardened South Korean marines are tasked with infiltrating the North to kill a number of prominent military leaders at the behest of 5 South cabinet members and high ranking officials. During the raid, the 5 South leaders who masterminded the plan reverse course for political reasons, but it's too late to stop the mission. As a result, they must now eliminate the team they sent north without a trace, and they must do so at all costs in order to preserve national security and peace between the 2 nations.
The South Korean leaders appear to be successful in eliminating their own marines. One member of the team survives the onslaught however, thanks to his long time friend in the squad who saved his life. Obliged to fulfill the wishes of his dying friend, and fearing that his friend's entire family may also be killed, he absconds with his friend's newborn son and goes on the run. This surviving team member is upset (to say the least), and he's not a man to be trifled with. He disappears into the Golden Triangle where he raises his friend's son while he rises to power & wealth in the drug supply trade. All the while, he plots eventual revenge on the 5 leaders back in Korea who killed his comrades in the past, and, he plans on one day using his "adopted" son to help him accomplish this goal. As such, the adopted son is essentially groomed from birth to carry out this plan in the future.
Flash forward to 2010 or so. The son he raised is now fully grown and inserted back into Korea. He's rich, well educated, good looking, and armed with all the training he needs to ruthlessly take revenge on the people who caused the death of his father. The 5 men he must dispatch have since risen to great power and are now well entrenched politically and financially, and one of them is now the South Korean President. Undaunted, father and adopted son set about their task to eliminate these evildoers one by one.
Some problems arise though; the son is not the ruthlessly driven killer his adopted father is, and he starts to question and waiver on the task at hand over time. He also takes a liking to a pretty young girl along the way, who turns out to be an up and coming secret service agent in charge of protecting the president (i.e. the main target). Ahhhh!...this is a staple of KTV melodrama...everybody is somehow involved with somebody else, and all story lines & plot points intertwine & intersect with one another somehow. And every character is a rival to someone else; old against new, weak against powerful, good against evil, father against son, son against love interest, etc. How will this particular show play out these themes in the end?...Watch and see for yourself!
There's a god bit to like about this show. It's often quite entertaining and fairly interesting, but it does get bogged down a little bit during its run time. It would have benefited from trimming its 20 show format down to about 12-16 episodes or so, but, I've been over this same ground too many times with other similar shows I've watched & reviewed; it's just the nature of airing KTV dramas, and, you're just going to have to get used to it if you endeavor to watch them.
Bottom Line: I liked it for the most part, and it's certainly watchable. It is not deserving of its current lofty 8.4 rating, nor its two glowing 10 star ratings from the previous reviewers. But it's certainly not a 3 star rated pile of crap either. It's worth checking out if you have 20 hours to kill and are looking for a Korean style love story/melodrama fix with a decent enough amount of action & intrigue.
7 out of 10 stars!
