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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Han Suk-kyu, Chae Won-bin, Han Ye-ri, Roh Jae-won
Latest Nielsen rating: 4.7 per cent
Han Suk-kyu (Dr. Romantic) leads the immersive, psychological murder mystery Doubt, playing a brooding criminal profiler who develops serious misgivings about his own daughter.
Han plays Jang Tae-soo, an aloof but brilliant profiler who generally does not get on well with his fellow detectives. Recently, he has been even more distracted and will soon be transferred, which is welcome news for the rest of his department.


Tae-soo attempts to push back the transfer, as he wants to stay near his teenage daughter Jang Ha-bin (Chae Won-bin, Sweet Home season 2); he has been trying to mend his broken relationship with her ever since his wife’s death.
Tae-soo interviews two very different candidates to replace him, the strait-laced evidence gatherer Lee Eo-jin (Han Ye-ri, Hometown) and the looser Gu Dae-hong (Roh Jae-won, Uncle Samsik), who believes that understanding criminals is a quicker path to the truth than conventional evidence.
Both candidates get picked and begin training with Tae-soo as a new murder case occupies the department.
The case is a complicated one, involving lots of blood but no body to go with it. For Tae-soo it soon becomes something more when he realises that Ha-bin is in some way involved.

Tae-soo had raised doubts about his daughter years earlier during another serious incident, which created a rift between him and his wife.
Despite wanting to be a trusting father, damning evidence is beginning to mount against Ha-bin, which he works hard to cover up until he can figure out for himself what happened.
Directed by Song Yeon-hwa, who made a name for himself in 2022 with Hunted, a limited series that was well regarded in Korea but little seen internationally, this 10-part series is carefully crafted and full of parallel images and symmetrical framing.
The emphasis on clean lines makes the show stand out from many similar small-screen thriller series despite its relatively low production budget – but this is hardly just style for style’s sake.

With its criminal profiler protagonist, Doubt has echoes of films such as Memories of Murder and shows such as Through the Darkness, while the intersection of a detective’s professional and personal lives also calls to mind notable series such as Beyond Evil.
The set-up of the series and the investigation it focuses on are not particularly novel as far as K-thrillers go but, as any good detective knows, the devil is in the details. This is where the show shines, particularly in its clever use of mise-en-scène.
The rigid framing reinforces the story’s genre trappings and enriches the dynamic between the lead characters.
Tae-soo is an expert profiler who can read a scene at a glance. For him, the world is all clear lines, which he breaks down into criminal evidence and motivations.

The camera often follows from the side as he walks across the screen, be it through his home, a police precinct reminiscent of the one in Memories of Murder, or a crime scene.
To allude to the work of Bong Joon-ho again, it is a bit like US actor Chris Evans constantly walking from the left to the right of the frame as he moves up the class-divided train in Snowpiercer.
The lines and symmetry are starkest of all in Tae-soo’s minimalist and very darkly lit home. Yet this is the space he seems to be the most ill-at-ease in. He gazes at doors in consternation, unsure of what he may find behind them, or sometimes comes to a sudden stop in a corridor, as though lost in his own home.
As his suspicions grow, he decides to invade his daughter’s privacy by entering her room. Just before he opens the door, he notices a tiny wedge of paper caught in the frame, intentionally put there to alert Ha-bin if someone has been inside.

When Ha-bin does return to her room, we discover that she put a second marker above the door that her expert-detective father failed to notice.
The assiduous style extends to the blocking of characters in scenes, as our attention is cleverly redirected during important dialogue.
This is particularly noticeable in the scene in which he interviews the candidates to succeed him. At first, Tae-soo dominates the room as his questions pit the candidates against each other; the perspective shifts to their relationship and Tae-soo becomes a spectator like us.
The challenge for Doubt going forward will be whether its terrific construction can overcome the vague familiarity of its story. Then again, the story may have some unexpected surprises in store for us.
Doubt is streaming on Viu.


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Han Ye-ri (left) as evidence gatherer Eo-jin and Han Suk-kyu as profiler Tae-soo in a still from Doubt.

Han Suk-kyu as police criminal profiler Tae-soo in a still from Doubt, an immersive, psychological Korean series. 

Chae Won-bin as Ha-bin, the teenage daughter of Han Suk-kyu’s criminal profiler, in a still from Doubt.

Han Ye-ri as evidence gatherer Eo-jin and Han Suk-kyu as profiler Tae-soo in a still from Doubt.

(From left) Han Suk-kyu as criminal profiler Tae-soo and the candidates to succeed him, Eo-jin, played by Han Ye-ri, and Dae-hong, played by Roh Jae-won, in a still from Doubt.

Han Suk-kyu as criminal profiler Tae-soo and Chae Won-bin as his teenage daughter Ha-bin in a still from Doubt.

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An aloof criminal profiler finds out his daughter is involved in a case he is investigating in this immersive, psychological Korean series


An aloof criminal profiler finds out his daughter is involved in a case he is investigating in this immersive, psychological Korean series.
