Suspicious Partner review

Suspicious Partner is a legal romcom with a serial killer in it, and the two leads make most of it work. Ji Chang Wook plays Noh Ji Wook, a prosecutor turned defence lawyer, and Nam Ji Hyun plays Eun Bong Hee, the trainee he once had to prosecute for a crime she did not commit. The early episodes are the show at its best: a meet-cute that goes badly wrong, quick banter, and a small, scrappy law office full of people you will want to spend time with. The chemistry between the two is the whole engine, easy, funny and warm, and Ji Chang Wook has rarely looked this relaxed on screen. Dong Ha makes a properly unsettling villain, and the case running underneath gives the romance a spine it would not have on its own. The costs are mostly about length. There is not enough story to fill the run, and it shows. Around the middle the case thins out, the show starts circling, and the couple spends the back half breaking up and making up for reasons that feel more like scheduling than character. The legal side is loose, so anyone who cares how courts actually work will wince now and then. The second couple gets far more screen time than they earn, and Bong Hee's loud, headlong energy can wear thin. The finish is solid and generous, and the people who stay the course are glad they did, but plenty tap out past the halfway mark. Watch it for the leads, the villain and the office comedy, and do not feel bad about skimming the side plots. Skip it if you want a tight legal thriller or you lose patience with a couple who keep finding reasons to part.