Kyeongchalsueob

This Korean comedy drama is centred on a group of students at the titular Police University and their instructors; particularly trainees Kang Seon-ho; his potential love interest Oh Kang-hee and lecturer Yoo Dong-man. The story opens with Detective Yoo Dong-man working to bring down an illegal online gambling ring with the help of a hacker known as 'Yoon'... who just happens to be Kang Seon-ho. When the latter's adoptive father needs medical treatment he uses his skills to steal the money from the gambling ring. This leads to them moving their operation just before their planned arrest. Dong-man arrests Seon-ho but ultimately releases him without charge. After this Seon-ho applies to join the police and attends their university; here he is shocked to find the new professor is recently transferred Dong-man, who is initially determined to get him thrown out! Not surprisingly Dong-man refuses to drop his pursuit of the gambling ring and ends up teaming up with Seon-ho again. Eventually a small group of students are unofficially helping him as they start to fear the ringleader may be close to the University.

I thought this series was a lot of fun. The drama is solid, with plenty of tense moments and a decent mystery concerning the person behind the illegal gambling ring. There are also plenty of laughs to be had, usually provided by secondary characters, and touches of romance. I admit that the title and opening had me expecting a Korean version of 'Police Academy' it doesn't take that route so anybody expecting non-stop gags are likely to be disappointed; similarly those hoping for gritty realism won't be too happy... however if you want a fun show which provides a good mystery, laughs and romance you could do worse. The characters are fun to watch and the acting is solid. Overall I'd certainly recommend this; just don't expect it to be too serious.

These comments are based on watching the series in Korean with English subtitles.

Everyone goes around spewing justice, rules and regulations blah blah and promptly breaks them all. Professors sit to drink with students. Everyone shouts as if the others had a hearing problem. Characters appeared and disappeared at will. Every evidence , In USBs, ledgers, that was precious to pin the culprit was carried around like a newspaper. Ouch. The student trainee was more intelligent than the Professor and could think through issues and connections better.

It got so tiring I just stopped bothering. . The lead pair were dead as dodos.

Korean Drama " Police University " is a predictable, boring, drama.

The story has a nice start and some interesting characters, although the main one is so cookie cutter 'good guy struggling' that it gets the plot cheesy and full of cliches. The progress of the story has few surprises to offer as well and the action part, unfortunately, doesn't aid to the entertainment. The romance, in addition, is boring and tiring. Probably, the only enjoyable relationship is between the mentor and the young trainees.

On the other hand, the performances were decent and the actors and actresses did a good job presenting their characters.

So, overall, two out of ten.

It had a good concept and it started off actually decent but it derailed unbelievably hard and quick after episode 2. As If there was a switch flipped. It almost seemed as if the writer lost interest and handed over the wheel to an intern. The drama got seriously dumbed down to the nth degree and the cheese meter got turned to 11. The performance of the younger cast was weak, and the older cast seemed to take the easy way out, delivering lackluster performances for their relatively insignificant and undemanding roles. Cha Tae Hyun is usually good but somehow he's unable to show an expression other than him pouting all the time. The plot surrounding the villain was poorly developed and ended up being lame, as expected. The whole romance in the drama was nothing but childish. The portrayal of the police life was dull and uninteresting. The drama is a strong contender for the worst love triangle out there as well. The last episode was solely dedicated to pair everyone with someone forcefully because reasons?!

The show started decently, promising a lighthearted mix of fun and thrill following the life and development of police rookies. It also raised interesting questions about justice and the use of means, like is it okay to break the rules to catch a criminal, i.e. A murderer escapes by stealing a boat, is it ok to also steal a boat to catch him - and other good questions. However, it became more and more boring, the dialogues flat and stereotypical and the characters unbelievable. A police officer with 20 years of experience answering questions by slapping or stating intelligent questions as irrelevant, acting impulsively as if he were an immature newbie... no wonder he failed to catch the culprits. The chance to cleverly cover the knowledge gap of experienced officers and fresh input of newbies was cheaply given away as were many other good points of the story. The same is true for the dialogues , the pacing, character development. It feels like the writers were in a hurry, briefly touching relevant points, but due to negligence or whatever limited the script to being overly simplistic and moralistic. I endured... and except for the promising start it's a disappointing view. There are far better shows out there.