Former After School member, Nana, has stormed into the idol acting world in the past few years.
With a handful of notable performances under her belt, she’s grown to be a name to watch in the South Korean acting industry. Her latest venture, OCN’s Kill It, makes her return to the small screen as the aloof, independent Busan detective Do Hyunjin.
This role is very similar to Nana’s portrayal of Kim Dan – the taciturn, tough-edged investigator – in tvN’s The Good Wife.
But while both characters are tough and mysterious, Do Hyunjin’s storyline falls a little bit flatter.
Kill It has an interesting contrast: Nana as Detective Hyunjin and Jang Kiyong as Kim Soohyun, a daytime veterinarian moonlighting as an assassin.
Soohyun is a broody vet, with a soft spot for animals and unusual blue eyes. The first episode centres on Soohyun’s loneliness and isolation. We slowly start to see him unravel throughout the series. Finding out more and more about his family and why he became an assassin.
The series starts fast; with a lot of violent, gory scenes to keep viewers interested. Despite that, however, there is an element of predictability.
As is usually the case in terms of K-Dramas, Kill It is quite formulaic. Themes follow exactly what you would expect in a mystery action thriller. Lost memories, tortured but incredibly attractive main leads with a mysterious past, a detective too smart for her own good, everyone in the drama coincidentally happens to be connected to one another, etc.
But there’s so much potential for this drama to develop over the course of the next few weeks. Hyunjin is a character that deals head-on with misogyny, ridicule and disrespect as a female police officer in a male-dominated industry. Her plight feels terribly real and particularly hard-hitting.
There’s a lot of mystery still to be unravelled. The series is punctuated with really fitting artistic choices that will leave you wanting more and more.
You can catch Kill It on Saturdays and Sundays on OCN.
