Skip to main content

The Girl Who Sees Scents (2015)

A show of interesting juxtapositions: 

serious, gory + comic

intriguing murder mystery + romance, comedy and the important things in life (dogs, family, friends, food)

chilling villain + an inept police force

trauma + healing

 

Cho-rim (Shin Se-kyung): loss of memory and family tragedy + the need to create laughter

Moo-gak (Park Yoo-chun): loss of sensing + intense care for his sister Eun-seol (Kim So-hyun) and Cho-rim; seriousness + comedy

Chef Kwon (Namkoong Min): meticulous as chef + meticulous as murderer; losing self + gaining others’ lives

 

There is fun camaraderie among the characters, the friendship/family theme is movingly highlighted, and the ‘fantasy’ part of the show doesn’t overwhelm the plot.  I love how the smells are depicted so prettily and imaginatively as little patterns and objects – a very creative portrayal of PTSD, along with Moo-gak’s inability to sense and Chef Kwon’s need to kill and kill and kill.  


waking up from her 193-day coma, to see the sight of hospital smells 


Moo-gak can't feel full

Leads

Se-kyung and Yoo-chun move smoothly between being hilarious, sweet and emotional.  I enjoyed watching their relationship grow and how it healed both of their past.


one of my favourite scenes -- catching the crook in the sauna!


Silly police officers


One look at these guys tells you they are there for comic effect.  How are any crimes solved with such ineffective police?  How did the Chief of Violent Crimes become chief?  He doesn’t contribute to solving any crimes, only asking questions like how did this happen, why, and such.  At least Sergeant Ki (Jo Hee-bong, playing a policeman for the n-th time) figures out a few things, and Ye (Choi Tae-joon) is earnest, even aspiring to be Chief, although he sure doesn’t have what it takes for the position!  They rely too much on Cho-rim’s smell-seeing, for example, to find the button under the table, and waste time waiting in a café when rain washes away the scents.


come on guys, even if she's looking for the smells, you can search the place too?


The senior police officers seem only interested in their rivalries, though you wonder how they are even fighting for promotions when they hardly have achievements to boast of.   Yeom-Mi (Yoon Jin-seo) and Moo-gak are the only officers doing serious and proper investigation.  Why didn’t anyone investigate Eun-seol’s murder?  Why were serial killings just passed over and how could it be that no one previously figured out the murderer’s pattern before these two came onboard?!



Nevertheless, they are funny – the Chief and all his children who look like him, Ki with his Russian girlfriend, and Ye turning out to be chaebol nagged and threatened by his father! In contrast, the people of the Frog comedy troupe aren’t in the least amusing.  They make Cho-rim do chores and run errands, without properly mentoring her when they keep saying she isn’t funny enough.  Moo-gak is the only one who nails stand-up comedy when he stands in as her partner.



Girl power


Yeom-mi -- cool and calm in captivity


The girls save the day!  Yeom-mi and Cho-rim (who is not even a police officer) use their brains and skills to solve crimes.  Yeom-mi is outstanding as a police officer, and her courage and intelligence pull the trigger on Chef Kwon’s confidence.  Special mention also for Cho-rim’s wonderful friend Ae-ri, played by the cute Park Jin-joo. 



Killer and witness at large


on some days, a friendly guy with a soft spot for Cho-rim


Namkoong Min is a chilling Chef Kwon (though he had too much make-up in some scenes).  Such a smart guy, committing almost ‘perfect’ murders, and too bad he gets undone by a smart lady.

 

I do have some questions, though:

- Why doesn’t he install CCTVs in his rooms and lift when he is such a thorough person?

- What is in Joo Mari’s diaries and what is his alibi for the time she was murdered?

- What happened to his dog?  It disappeared after some episodes of being fussed over.

- How did Dr Cheon (Song Jong-ho) get to know him so well and why does he reveal that the witness (Cho-rim) is still alive??  Shouldn’t he be trying to protect her from Chef?



It was very smart of Detective Oh (Jung In-gi) to have Cho-rim ‘hidden in plain sight’, but didn’t he expect that her identity would come to light eventually?  It’s a pity that he is left in the background so much.  I thought his care for Cho-rim was touching and she is living the life she has, and is still alive, largely because of him.  Their relationship is one of the sweetest adoptive father-daughter ones that I’ve seen, so why isn’t he at their wedding?

 

This show is funny and exciting at the same time, with an able cast.  You can’t achieve lively chemistry among many characters without people acting well.  I’m glad I caught it shortly before it was taken off Netflix.  



16 episodes, SBS

 

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A lesson in love

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan...

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the ...

When the best man doesn't win

Speaking of 'sway' spurned lovers, the latest one I've come across is in Love Revolution ( only 12 episodes!), a J show I recently watched. Heroine of the story is pretty, 30-ish Smart Doctor, who is dying to fall in love and get married. She meets Aspiring Actor and Broadcast Journalist (right). She falls for Broadcast Journalist like a ton of bricks. It's obvious from the start (to the audience but not to her) that Aspiring Actor is nuts about her. But... she has fallen for Broadcast Journalist like a ton of bricks already. No doubt, Smart Doctor and Broadcast Journalist must be given credit for their love that stands the tests of time, separation and misunderstanding, but the one who loves most in the show is undoubtedly Mr Aspiring Actor. What he does/does not do because of his undying love for Smart Doctor: Y does not pursue her at first because he is still struggling to survive in this small-time drama group and he knows he doesn't have much to offer Y resp...