Hidden Identity And My Affinity For Korean Drama

When entering a new artistic medium, be it as a creator or as a consumer, one must change their way of thinking and of perceiving. What you are accustomed to may no longer apply to the new medium. There is no hierarchy of art after all. Each medium is capable of providing something unique that others cannot, however there is none that are “better” than the other, and any who claim otherwise do so through a lens of pure subjectivity. Different is not equivalent to better. In order for one to be open to new experiences they must do so with an open mind and a humble heart.

Soon after my foray into the world of Korean pop music, I knew there was more to the Korean market of arts. However I wasn’t exactly sure how best to find what it was that would pique my interest. Thus began plenty of trial and error. My search for answers began on the since-defunct Korean drama streaming site Dramafever (may it Rest In Peace). The first few shows I ended up settling on were romantic comedies asa starting point, what I came to understand as the lifeblood, or more accurately, the bread and butter of the medium. Mindless serialized melodrama that, what it lacks in genuine quality made up for it with wild and often times quirky and zany entertainment value. Works that stuck to their tropes like a rite-of-passage. Of course I don’t hold that against them, there is a place for all different types of art in any given medium or marketplace to satisfy all kinds of niches. To make an analogy, I know junk food is bad for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to enjoy it on a fully subjective level.

It was after those handful of dramas that I decided I wanted more variety, I knew there had to be. It was just a bit harder to find beneath the gluttons of romcoms that still heavily saturate the market of Korean television. Out of pure chance I stumbled upon a show, fairly new at the time, bearing the title “Hidden Identity” whose synopsis sounded more like something out of my native country than that of what I knew of Korean drama to that point.

Directed by Kim Jung-min, A former police officer with a personal vendetta to settle against an imprisoned adversary, a stoic, sensible, and hardened leader, an elder statesmen with qualities similar to that of a confidence trickster, a martial arts specialist, and a technologically adept hacker make up Criminal Squad 5. An undercover, off-the-books police unit specializing in taking down undercover criminal activity.

At face value it sounds fairly derivative of other episodic, police procedurals. With an ensemble cast, action, and suspense it didn’t sound like anything I hadn’t seen before. And as is often the case in the art I find myself interested in it was far more than it’s USP would have led you to believe it was.

Something I wasn’t used to was a Korean drama respecting my intelligence. Rather than handholding the viewer from the very start so as to keep them feeling comfortable in characterization, plot, motivations, and stakes, Hidden Identity says disorientation be damned, dropping the viewer in cold to an already ongoing investigation. And it was from that starting point that something felt different about this show. Rather than tacking on a romantic subplot to a work that doesn’t necessarily need one, it decides to tell a peripheral story of a bygone romance. And while it is decidedly heavy-handed in it’s execution, relying too much on repetitive flashback, it doesn’t intrude as often as I had come to expect. For his part, Cha Gun-woo (portrayed well by Kim Bum) plays his part as a silent, brooding, grief-stricken police officer.

Speaking of characterization that is something that is extended beyond dimensionless archetypes who were dropped into the story with no pasts (or worse, cliche pasts) worth delving into. Each character is given not only a remarkable amount of time being built up beyond a boring caricature of police disinterest, but they are fleshed out with that time into human beings, not just personalities. Towards the end of the show I felt like I knew Choi Tae-pyung, Jang Min-joo, and Team Leader Jang as people, not just their occupations, and why the events transpiring would matter to them. Even certain story beat antagonists are given an admirable amount of characterization beyond the surface level detail, and even the surface level is fairly unique in its own right. Although some, in my opinion, deserved more time.

Where the show truly shines is in its attention to narrative detail. What transpires is a fabulous mixture of episodic and serialized drama. Each story thread is interwoven extremely well with the overarching plot line. Nothing feels throwaway, which becomes even more clear in the shows final third. A pulsating full circle that (in many respects) feels earned with the writers endeavor to rarely throw away aspects that don’t fit.

That’s not to say this show is perfect at every corner. There are a few actions scenes, in particular fight scenes, as well choreographed as they are, that REALLY stretch the bounds of believability a bit too far. And remember what I said about its conclusion mostly feeling earned, the “final” antagonist unfortunately feels EXTREMELY cheap, which is a shame considering just how much effort was put into the others that came before. Especially when the rug was pulled out from under them a little too soon.

At its core this is a show about governments best kept secrets of corruption and shadiness often times tickling down the chain of command and finding their way to the “foot soldiers” of bureaucracy. Damaging their lives and the lives of their loved ones in ways that they never signed up for. And on a larger encompassing scale asking those of us with the grief created by others outside of our control in a healthy manner, understanding the peaks and valleys that come with mourning the loss of a loved one, pretending that it never happened will do no one any good, especially that which you are grieving.

It was from this point on that I realized what this medium was capable of and why it stuck with me even more than a similar show might have. Not only was it personally fulfilling that I was able to find this work of my own volition as opposed to another recommendation, but the fact that it was buried so far beneath uninspired fluff made me re-examine my own perceptions of what this medium was and what it has to offer. It gave me a profound respect for those who created for it knowing full well their reach was far more limited than that of say a “Descendants Of The Sun” type of romance drama. 

Granted the landscape of Korean drama as of writing this piece is far more diverse and multifaceted than it was 7 years ago thanks to breakout, internationally popular works like “Squid Game” and “Hellbound” (which as of writing this piece I have unfortunately yet to see), but it was this flexibility that I had gained that allowed me to become more receptive to works off the beaten path that, have massively influenced my tastes to this day. And it is the idea of new, uncharted mediums like that of Korean drama to keep me excited for the creativity I have yet to experience.