Stream It Or Skip It: 'Chief Detective 1958' on Hulu, about a team of cops fighting Seoul's gangs in the face of police corruption (2024)

There are times when you want to watch a lighthearted police drama, especially one that takes place in an era when police work depended more on intuition, contacts and persuasion than it did on technology. A new South Korean series that starts its story in 1958 has that lighthearted vibe.

CHIEF DETECTIVE 1958: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An older man coughs as he puts his shoes on, looks at photos of his retirement from the police at the Jongnam Police Station, grabs his cane and leaves his store.

The Gist: Park Yeong-han (Choi Bool-am) goes to the local market and gets a warm greeting from the rice cake store. He brings food to the Jongnam station, where he’s greeted warmly. His grandson is now a detective there, and Yeong-han catches him as he’s running out to arrest some gang members.

Yeong-han looks at pictures of him and the group of detectives he worked with in 1963 and thinks back to how he got there.

In 1958, Park Yeong-han (Lee Je-hoon) was working as a police detective in the rural village of Hwangchun; his main mission is to catch cattle thieves. He takes the task seriously, because cows are the main sources of income for many of the village’s farmers. But, he has to disguise himself as a bum as he walks through the local cattle market, because his reputation precedes him; his picture has been in the local papers many times, and he’s now called the town’s “Grim Reaper.”

After we see him and the rest of the detectives in action as he busts a too-well-dressed cattle thief, we find out he’s being transferred to the Jongnam station in Seoul. When he shows up there, he finds the area for Investigative Unit One, and its captain, Yu Dae-cheon (Choi Deok-moon). Apparently, Yu is a tough captain to work for, and he’s brought Yeong-han aboard because he heard about his cases in Hwangchun and thinks he can help. But he does warn Yeong-han that their mission, which is going after organizations like the Dongdaemun gang, will give him more heartache than anything he’s ever done.

He sees this right away when Yu sends him to the market to arrest the Dongdaemun’s second in command, Sal Mo-sa (Kang In-kwon), nicknamed Viper, for assaulting a shop owner. Because he’s outnumbered, he gets creative and buys snakes from a soup shop and lets them out where the Viper and his crew are having lunch. But Yeong-han finds out about what his boss was talking about when the chief, who’s in the pocket of Dongdaemun leader Lee Jung-jae (Kim Young-seong), orders Yeong-han to let Viper go.

This is when Yeong-han realizes he has to find people who have the sense of duty and ethics tha both he and his boss have. He meets Kim Sang-sun (Lee Dong-hwi), a Unit Two detective who is derided as a “mad dog”, especially because he won’t kowtow to gangsters, even under orders. In the market, Yeong-han then sees a civilian, Jo Gyeong-hwan (Choi Woo-sung), take on a half-dozen gangsters at the market and knows he can help.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Chief Detective 1958 is a prequel to the series Chief Inspector. The series certainly has the vibe of a more lighthearted Perry Mason (the HBO series, not the Raymond Burr series).

Our Take: We’re inclined to see Chief Detective 1958 as less a serious police drama and more of a light drama about personalities. It certainly feels that way, as we see Yeong-han building a team around him that will start off as motley crew and end up as one of the best investigative units at the Jongnam station.

The first episode sets up the situation and most of the players, but it does seem that the show is going to take its time to get the story really rolling, with the Unit One group coming together and learning how to deal with the gangs in the area in the face of overt police corruption.

Is the story a bit over the top? Sure. The characters are pretty broad, and there a lot of silly moments. But it’s not such a bad thing to have a silly cop drama, especially one that takes place 65 years ago, when detectives couldn’t lean on technology to solve cases or find evidence that can get people to confess or flip on someone else. It’ll be interesting to see what Unit One does once they get together, even if some of the methods they use are a little nutty.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Yeong-han and Sang-sun confront Unit Two as they make a deal with a Dongdaemun operative, and Sang-sun seemingly turns on Yeong-han by knocking him out with the butt of a shotgun.

Sleeper Star: We like Lee Dong-hwi as Sang-sun, especially when he sleeps inside a cabinet to get away from his colleagues.

Most Pilot-y Line: Like many East Asian series, there are music cues that telegraph that “this is a lighthearted moment!,” which is a style in that part of the world, but it’s completely distracting.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Yes, Chief Detective 1958 is a bit silly, but sometimes you want a little silly, combined with some fun action sequences, in your cop shows.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.