Never has a drama affected me so profoundly… It would have been my favourite had I not already had one. But this definitely comes in top second.
City Hunter….A story of an innocent boy who wanted nothing more than to live a normal live…yearning for love from a very young age – the love of a mother, the love of a father. A love, which he is denied time and time again by a surrogate father, whose sole mission is to exact revenge against those who killed his best friend and comrades.
Being the sole survival of the tragic betrayal by the nations’ corrupt leaders, Lee Jin Pyo plots his comeback by training and turning the boy into a human weapon…a tool of vengeance…
(Spoiler alert): If you have not watched this drama yet, do NOT continue reading…
Despite the spoiler alert, I’m sure if you’re a die-hard fan of Korean dramas, you would not be able to resist. So here’s how the story goes…. And unlike most reviews, I’m going to start with the ending first …
Although the storyline is very compelling and exciting throughout from the get-go, it was the ending that ultimately got to me…
Why? Not because it was good. Not because it was bad. If you have read some of the reviews about the ending, you’d know that there were quite a number of reviews commenting about the unsatisfactory ending. Again, perhaps it’s because I had already built a negative impression regarding the ending that I didn’t really hope for much. So, maybe because of that, I felt the ending wasn’t all that bad. Having said that, it does not mean that I liked it. It's just that I felt they could have made it better as it seemed as if the production team had rushed through the ending, which is sad because the gist is there especially with the intriguing twist. Otherwise it would have made the drama almost perfect …
Anyway, what hit me hardest was....the death of a good man…A very likable character who simply didn’t deserve to die a senseless death! Just thinking the injustice of it, was simply heartbreaking especially when there was someone waiting for his return with so much hope… I guess the thought of that hope being dashed is what really made it all the more depressing… I couldn’t stop myself from getting all teary even much later after the drama was over.
Now, going back to the beginning…
The first couple of episodes centre on the treacherous past and how it eventually led to the training of an innocent boy into a highly skilled operative with an agenda to accomplish.
The real story begins with Lee Yun Sung, now an adult, arriving in Korea upon completing his higher education at the MIT in America. Throughout the drama, you can’t help but feel the inner conflict that Lee Yun Sung has to go through. Perhaps because we have watched him grow from a young boy to become the City Hunter, we sympathize with him when he is faced with his inner turmoil.
I must say that Lee Min Ho did justice to Lee Yun Sung a.k.a. the City Hunter character. Lee Min Ho’s lithe, agile and tall form was plus point in the action sequences as it seemed effortless and professional!
The storyline continuously had us on the edge-of-the-seat in almost every single episode except for the last few episodes, which turned out to be profoundly heartbreaking…
Another fact that had it going for the drama was the soundtrack … evocative, thrilling, ideal and simply superb complementary soundtrack for this particular drama.
A must-watch for all K-drama fans!!
