Another highly underrated drama, Lookout will surprise you with it’s brilliant pacing, interesting plot, and characters that simply grow on you.
I’ll be honest with you guys, MBC hasn’t been under my radar for a while now since a lot of their previous dramas have been disappointing for me. Or once I think I’ve found something good, I’m left hanging, only enjoying the first half of a show and wind up falling in love with dramas from other networks.
Lookout however, is an exception and I’m currently binge watching episodes in order to catch up. I never thought MBC could manage to deliver and even finds a way to make every episode worthwhile despite the new formatting in relation to episode durations. If you’re unfamiliar with the change I’ll give you a little heads up, a lot of the major networks are reducing episodes down to 30 minutes so a drama ends up with double the episodes, having 4 episodes aired during the week as opposed to 2 episodes that are over an hour long.
Technically, it’s the same thing if you watch episode after episode, and frankly I don’t see how this helps people who have to watch it in real-time but as someone who watches K-dramas online, I like the little break in between. It really condenses things, forcing writers and directors to focus and refine episodes so there’s no additional useless content floating around.
Another reason why I didn’t think this drama would appeal to me is because of Lee Si Young, she isn’t a great actress in my opinion since I rarely flinch during any of her emotional scenes but she truly shines when doing action scenes and her own stunts. I might not consider her as someone with a lot of depth but her performance here won me over and I do admire her for being an action star who’s willing to do anything. Besides, she plays a Detective who happens to be a Mom – badass alert.
Lookout is about people who have never felt justice being served to them, having lost their loved ones to crimes. Forming a brilliant crime team made up of a Detective, Prosecutor, Hacker, and social shutout, this group of vigilantes come together in order to catch elusive criminals, confronting a flawed and unfair legal system, and are out to fuel their sense of vengeance. Their pasts have made them bitter, and each story unfolds to reveal exactly how dark and haunting they are, victimized by the corruption and injustice around them.
I won’t ruin anything for you guys, but I will say that I’m glad Kim Young Kwang chose his role as an eccentric Prosecutor. It’s nice to see him play something other than a stoic, persecuted kitten persona and this role is much more demanding, having to switch from this eccentric, cunning jerk to all business and guns (literally).
If you’ve been hooked on all the crime dramas that have been coming out one after the other, then definitely check this one out. I’ve noticed that a lot of the crime thrillers are unique and different in their own way and Lookout stands out as being different right along with those great OCN dramas or SBS romantic-mystery dramas. It may resemble other dramas in terms of the whole “making a team to save the day” but it still remains as being something ‘new’ and refreshing.
Release Date: May 22, 2017 MBC (Eng Sub available on DramaFever)
