Inspector Koo is a unique detective thriller TV series consisting of 12 episodes. It aired on JTBC, one of South Korea’s major cable channels, in 2021. Despite its modest ratings, it broke new ground in Korean drama-making in several ways.

Firstly, it features female characters in both the detective and villainous roles, creating a novel psychological relationship among the major characters in crime thrillers. While Killing Eve also features two female characters in major roles, Inspector Koo differs in that the two women are not in a love or hate relationship. Unlike Eve and Villanelle, who are also lovers, the two female characters in Inspector Koo, Koo and a serial killer named K, are not in such a relationship. Thus, their desire to get rid of each other has no chance of being mistaken for an expression of deep-seated love. Instead, what they represent are diametrically opposite approaches to life’s hurtful experiences, such as the loss of loved ones: anger and fear.

Secondly, Koo Kyung-yi, a former police detective turned insurance investigator, is portrayed by Lee Young-ae as an unreliable source of fair judgment. She is possibly an alcoholic and definitely addicted to multiplayer online role-playing video games. The only way to make her brain work is a big gulp of beer. Even then, she agrees to investigate her former colleague’s mysterious case only on the condition that she will receive a state-of-the-art PC for her games. There is a clue as to why she is in such a state: Koo’s husband killed himself, and she is still in the dark about why he took such a drastic measure. Koo is a bundle of remorse, fear, and doubts about herself and others.

The underlying theme of Inspector Koo is pain and loss within a journey of soul-searching

Koo grapples with the cases of the serial killer K while delving into her own past, mind, and wounds. The drama clearly distinguishes between her reality, past, traumatic events, and the workings of her mind. Koo’s cramped apartment, the presence of her life-like husband, the reenactment of past events like a theatrical play, and the digitally constructed presentation of her reasoning for crime scenes are all elaborately crafted to highlight their distinct identities. Yet, they are seamlessly interconnected to form Koo’s psychology, where memories, desires, and future plans are not truly separate. For instance, Koo’s effort to solve the murder case is also a way of understanding her husband’s death, which fuels her anxiety and motivates her to leave the past as it is. This is a private world of sensuousness and idiosyncrasy—bizarre, eccentric, and divine!

Lee Young-ae, who played this enigmatic detective superbly, started her career as a model for a TV commercial of Amore-Pacific, a global cosmetic brand, and reached international stardom with her role as Jang-geum, a medicine woman, in The Jewel in the Palace, also known as Dae Jang Geum (2003). The drama series scored a 57% rating when it premiered on MBC in Korea and was sold to numerous countries. Lee then starred in a film directed by Park Chan-wook, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005), which solidified her acting career, making her an icon representing the complexity of being a woman—innocent and vile, fearful and contemplative, oppressed and resistant, motherly and vengeful. In the film, Lee played Geum-ja, who spent 13 years in prison for the kidnapping and murder of a young boy, a crime she did not commit. She was coerced into confessing to the crime to protect her own child. The real perpetrator, Mr. Baek, is a cruel and manipulative teacher who exploited Geum-ja’s vulnerability.

While in prison, Geum-ja toughens up and builds a network of accomplices to exact revenge on Mr. Baek. Upon her release, she sets into motion a meticulously planned scheme to exact her vengeance. Her quest, however, raises questions about violence in the context of being a mother. Geum-ja’s desire for vengeance is closely tied to her motherly instinct to protect and avenge her child. The violence she plans against Mr. Baek can be seen as an extension of this protective instinct—a way to right the wrongs done to her and prevent future harm.

So, the questions are: Does being a mother exonerate Geum-ja from being a simple perpetrator of vindictive violence? Could she be forgiven because her intent was to protect her child from Mr. Baek’s harm? Lee Young-ae’s convincing portrayal of Geum-ja as a protective yet violent mother expanded the concept of a mother’s protective instinct, traditionally regarded as sacred, patient, peaceful, and benevolent, to include being violent and vengeful. In the presence of Lee Young-ae’s Geum-ja, for whom motherly virtues cross over into traditionally male territories, occupying a position of powerful dominance such questions seem pointless. In the end, rather unexpectedly, Geum-ja demonstrates how to question both motherly qualities and violence of men by placing them in the context of each other. The result is a mockery of both.

Inspector Koo also explores her sensibility as a woman, building a new structure of senses. Rather than prioritizing logic and reasoning, she extensively trolls her memories, traumatic events, hurtful emotions, guilt, and doubts to form her own narratives. These narratives do not seek validation from men. In the drama, the hot pursuit of a mysteriously disappeared man leads her to the rooftop of a building in the red-light district. She watches girls in skimpy dresses go in and out of the adjacent buildings. Koo, standing on the vantage point, frowns. Does she get important clues? Or does another painful memory come back to her? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Then her face fades out, and the face of her arch-enemy, a serial killer K’s younger version, fades in. Koo weaves her own consequences of events with materials picked up by her senses in a stark contrast with K who is dependent on rationality, validity, and feasibility in her calculation of crimes to commit. At this moment, there is no evidence that K is the mastermind behind the murders. Yet, Koo recalls K from her high school days, implying her connection to the current investigation of the disappeared man. It is simply a joy to watch Koo use her senses to navigate the maze of mysterious cases.

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