Hmm ... yummy!
Vampire Prosecutor (Hangul: 뱀파이어 검사) is a
Korean Drama which aired on cable network OCN, starring Yun Jung Hoon as the titular character. Season 1 aired in late 2011, season 2 is scheduled for 2012.
Prosecutor Min Tae Yeon is a
reluctant vampire. As he uses his abilities in his day job, his main goal is
to solve a 7-year-old murder in which the victim was close to him and the culprit was undoubtedly another vampire.
Tae Yeon is asked to set up a special taskforce to investigate unusual homicides in the Seoul area. To this end, he is given several team members:
- Hwang Soon Bum, a grizzled veteran detective who knows Tae Yeon's secret;
- Yoo Jung In, a young female investigator with a gung-ho attitude and a shadowy past; and
- Cha Dong Man, the young enthusiatic intern and resident computer nerd.
The team is under the mantle of Chief Prosecutor Jang Chul Oh, who sometimes clashes with Prosecutor Tae Yeon. Together, they try to make Seoul safer for the living and the undead.
This series provides examples of:
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Season 1
- Always Murder: Averted in "Fight Club"
- Amoral Attorney: Yoon Ji Hee in episode 4, who has built her career on getting murderers off scot-free. Later she's revealed to be the mastermind behind the murder of the episode's Asshole Victim.
- Armour Piercing Question:
Tae Yeon: (to Jung In) Is there anything that makes you want to turn back time?
- Asshole Victim: The pastor who was also a child molester in episode 4.
- The Bartender: The blood dealer/doctor at the bar where Tae Yoon frequents
- Berserk Button: Don't ask Jung In's father about his daughter. Just. Don't.
- The Big Bad: Yeon Ji
- Body of the Week
- The Cameo: Lee Jong Hyuk
as Jung In's sunbae in episode 8 - Casting Gag: Yun Jung Hoon, who plays Min Tae Yeon, is famous for playing a prosecutor in East of Eden.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Jung In's father Yoo Won Gook
- The Chessmaster: Chief Prosecutor Jang. Turns out he's the one who made Tae Yeon a vampire, specifically to take the fall for Jang's crimes.
- Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster: But not when everyone's only out for themselves. And their children.
- Decoy Damsel: Episode 12.
- Debate and Switch: In episode 6. "The question is not whether or not I believe, since I know what I saw."
- Distracted by the Sexy: The boys (Hwang Soon Bum and Cho Dong Man) go 'ga-ga' over the medical examiner, Soo Hee.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Chief Prosecutor Jang, The Chessmaster, works to feed Yeon Ji's insatiable appetite.
- Dramatic Chase Opening
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Justified. The first scene ends in a nasty 3-car crash including a tractor-trailer, but there's no fire until someone uses a lighter. Even then, the tractor doesn't blow up till much later.
- Everyone Is A Suspect/Everybody Did It: Episode 6. Everyone in the fight club injured the victim in some way and as the mystery unfolds, the detective-prosecutor team can't figure out exactly how the victim died.
- Facial Dialogue: When Tae Yoon returns to work after being fatally stabbed while protecting Jung In, the two of them have this type of conversation.
- Fight Clubbing: in Episode 6
- Fingore: In episode 3
- Flashback: The characters' stories unfold in flashbacks.
- Four-Fingered Hands: The suspect in episode 3 has one.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Cho Dong Min/Hwang Soon Bum. Played With. They weren't even interviewing the same suspect! Or in the same room.
- Gorn
- Gone Horribly Right:
- Hello Attorney: Both our protagonist Min Tae Yeon and his opponent in episode 4, Yoon Ji Hee
- Hey, It's That Guy!:
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: "If you kill him, then you'll be a killer too!"
- Improbable Weapon User: Yoo Won Gook beats his boss to death - with a cane. All it took was just one question: "How is your daughter?"
- Inspector Lestrade: Bumbling detective Hwang Soon Bum, who knows Tae Yeon is a vampire, is fairly good at his job, but Tae Yeon is much, much better.
- The Intern: Cho Dong Man. He later "graduates" to full-timer.
- Jack the Ripoff: Tae Yeon's first case in the series proper mimics a vampire killer from 7 years ago.
- Jerkass Façade:
- Tae Yeon, especially to Jung In
- The philosophy of Episode 7's victim was, "If nobody resents you, then you aren't achieving your potential." However, that was just his onscreen persona, and he was having trouble keeping it up.
- Knight Templar Parent:
Jung In: (about her gangster father) He’s the bad guy. He’s someone I have to lock away. But when the reason he did those bad things is because of me, I can’t call him the bad guy. I can’t even hate him.
- Life Imitates Art: In-Universe. In the 2nd episode, the murder victim (a director) is found lying in a pool on the set of his horror flick, Murderer. The entire cast had been shown earlier working on a scene in which the victim ends up dead in the pool. The film was also based on the unsolved murder of a young woman.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Episode 11.
- Mood Whiplash: Any time something comical happens in this otherwise serious show. Imagine a random funny moment in a series like Law & Order.
- My Greatest Failure: The unsolved murder of Tae Yeon's sister Yeon Ji is the Story Arc.
- Mystery of the Week
- New Meat: Yoo Jung In
- Not a Game: Tae Yeon rains on Jung In's parade when they first meet by telling her that murder isn't "fun."
- Not Blood Siblings: Tae Yeon and Yeon Ji
- The Only One Allowed to Kill Him: Tae Yeon says something like this in the first episode as his suspect is being stabbed to death.
- Pedophile Priest
- Prima Donna Director: Episode 2's murder victim is an overbearing director, working on his debut film.
- Rashomon Style: Episode 9
- Real Men Hate Affection: Episode 9. Tae Yoon goes to comfort Jung In—and stops short.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Tae Yeon's boss, Chief Prosecutor Jang
- The Reveal: Tae Yoon's sister Yeon Ji is alive! Well, undead. She's a hungry vampire and Chief Prosecutor Jang has been feeding her for the past 7 years until she decided to go looking for Tae Yoon.
- Room Full of Crazy: Tae Yeon finds one of these filled with newspaper articles in the house he inherited.
- Secret Keeper: Hwang Soon Bum
- Sunglasses at Night: Actress Seo earns a slap from her director for wearing Sunglasses at Night.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Almost always.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Hwang Soon Bum and Yoo Jung In have different methods for going about solving murders; their personalities clash.
- Treachery Cover Up: Episode 7's victim covers up the fact that his adulterous wife killed him.
- "You Made Me Do This," said the murderer in episode 3.
- Volleying Insults: The medical examiner vs. Jung In.
- Will They or Won't They?: Tae Yoon and Jung In
- Wimp Fight:
- Actress Seo vs. Director Cha in episode 2
- Also, hilariously, all the fight club showdowns turn out to be this in episode 6.
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