War of Prosecutors

Presentation

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Analysis

Synopsis

​Cha Myung Joo has just been transferred to Jinyoung branch after an incident in Seoul. There, she meets her new team and especially Lee Sung Woong, one of her classmates in college. The war between them begins. 

My Opinion (No Spoilers)

I am kind of mitigated on that drama. I liked the humor and realism, the accuracy and reliability of the stories told. However, I found myself sometimes bored. Fortunately for me, there were not so many boring moments, but I felt as if I had lost the rhythm of the drama. 

Anyway, I liked that drama and found it really original, refreshing and novel. The ambiance sometimes reminded me of the director’s previous dramas “Age of Youth” but set in a prosecutors’ office.

Analysis (Spoilers Alert)

​Characters: Lee Sun Woong (Lee Sun Kyun) has been a prosecutor for quite a long time in Jinyoung. Therefore, he got used to his life as a salaryman, working most of the time on small cases. He is accustomed to this quiet and peaceful life. However, he sometimes gets some rushes of anger when he is confronted with injustice. I liked to see how he sometimes acts in a very unexpected and irrational manner, taking me by surprise. 

On the other side, Cha Myung Joo (Jung Ryeo Won) is an excellent and notorious prosecutor, who was transferred to Jinyoung after she stood up for an injustice. Just like Sun Woong, she has a temper and throws some tantrums. Both are troublemakers with very strong beliefs. They are determined and sometimes stand on their position, unbent. Their strong temperament and their resolution creates chaos in the office, as soon as Myung Joo arrives. They actually give the impression to compete against each other all the time, when in reality they share similar opinions. It’s just that their methods differ: Sun Woong is more straightforward while Myung Joo is subtler when getting what she wants. 

Anyway, they are absolutely not a couple in the drama but their chemistry as colleagues is quite awesome. I felt as if their constant bickering was in fact a driving force motivating them in their job and adding some spice to their quiet lives. 

As for the other characters of the drama, I loved to see how each embodied a specific trait of character: Jo Min Ho (Lee Sung Jae) is the boss, who tries to be popular while avoiding to do too much work. Hong Jong Hak (Kim Kwang Kyu) is the lazy one, Oh Yoon Jin (Lee Sang Hee) is the working mother juggling between her two jobs and Kim Jung Woo (Jeong Sng Woo) is the rookie one, discovering the work. 

All of these characters gave a strong and dynamic environment, in which everyone struggles and has to work hard day by day. I really liked how accurate and reliable the drama could actually be on some themes. 

Ambiance: Because the characters are so peculiar, the drama cleverly combines humor and reliability. The humor was really different, which made me laugh many times and react at some unexpected twists. Moreover, the romance between the two fans of videogames was just awesome. However, because we had this sweet combination, the realistic moments were sometimes a bit long and boring compared to the emotional or active ones. 

What are the themes questioned?

Many different themes are actually tackled in that drama, one per episode at least. In overall, the prosecutors’ lives give us some insight regarding their problems as parents, workers and prosecutors. We also have a broader view of social, societal and judicial issues like scamming, dating, voice-phishing… As the drama advances, we understand that no life, no work and no relationship is easy and that you need to be careful and make some efforts if you want them to work. The drama gave us some excellent life lessons, that I am pretty sure, you will be glad to discover. 

In a nutshell, War of Prosecutors really depicts a war between them, but also a war for their “clients” and between their “clients”. All of that punctuated by some serious laughable moments. 

P.S.: Even the OSTs are sometimes coming out of nowhere, but go so well with the story!