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Dan Da Dan
Dan Da Dan may be a comedy, but the sensuality, violence and spiritual elements within it make it a tragedy for viewers.
Ena’s entire life changed in the course of one evening — and she barely remembers the evening at all.
She remembers coming home from high school to find her uncle, a former police chief, lying dead in the kitchen. She remembers finding a strange puzzle piece on the floor. But after that? Nothing. The rest of the evening is a complete blank.
Unsurprisingly, the police don’t find this very convincing — and it doesn’t help that her account of her movements that night raises some questions. But with no hard evidence and no solid motive, they’re forced to remove Ena from suspicion, and the case goes cold.
Except not everyone is so ready to move on.
Hansaem Kim was a rookie cop when the former chief was murdered, and he never fully bought Ena’s memory loss story. Even 10 years later, the case haunts him, and Ena remains his prime suspect.
But when Ena, now a police investigator herself, is mailed a puzzle piece that fits perfectly with the one she found 10 years before, she knows Hansaem is her only hope of finding the real killer — only she’s no longer sure that that killer hasn’t been her all along.
As crime dramas go, Nine Puzzles is surprisingly tame. There’s some violence and disturbing content (including a case in which a young boy murders his 10-year-old brother), but it’s not as gratuitous as you might expect. This Korean drama prefers to find excitement in tense police investigations instead of graphic murders.
Our heroes, however, are not entirely—well—heroic. Ena’s traumatic experience as a teenager turned her into an adult who’s rude at best, self-destructive at worst (she enjoys bungee jumping off bridges because it makes her feel like she’s going to die). Hansaem, on the other hand, is something of a loose cannon, and he’s not afraid to disobey his superiors or get his hands dirty to find the truth.
This doesn’t mean either of our protagonists are deplorable people, of course. But they’re certainly not what you’d call role models.
Nine Puzzles poses an intriguing mystery, and it’s less graphic than some of its counterparts in the crime genre. Still, look out for moments of violence, continuous strong language, and less-than-heroic protagonists.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
(Note: This review covers the English-dubbed version of the episode. Language concerns may differ slightly in the original Korean with English subtitles.)
Teen Ena Yoon discovers her uncle, a former police chief, murdered next to a strange puzzle piece. Her claim that she can’t remember most of her actions that evening makes her investigator Hansaem Kim’s prime suspect. But with no hard evidence to convict her, the case goes cold. Ten years later, Ena receives a new puzzle piece in the mail and enlists Hansaem’s help in tracking down the killer.
At the beginning of the episode, Ena enters her uncle’s house and finds him dead on the floor with a woodworking awl in his neck. Blood covers the floor, and we briefly see his wound. Crime scene photos are also shown of the body. Ena imagines herself committing the murder; the stabbing isn’t shown in detail, but we see blood fly onto Ena’s face.
As an adult, Ena investigates a case involving a murdered 10-year-old boy. She determines that his older brother is responsible, and we see a flashback of the brother stabbing the boy with a kitchen knife. Again, nothing graphic is shown except blood splattering on the wall.
Though Ena is not explicitly suicidal (at least not in this episode), she expresses strong self-destructive tendencies. She enjoys bungee jumping from tall bridges to trigger the sensation that she’s going to die, which her therapist expresses concern about. Her mental state is a source of internal conflict throughout the episode and could potentially deteriorate throughout the season.
On the anniversary of Ena’s uncle’s death, Hansaem and other police officers gather at his grave and drink from a flask in his honor. They later go out drinking, and one of them remarks they should “drink til we’re dead.” (Hansaem declines and leaves.)
The f-word is used three times, while the s-word and “d–n” are used four. “A–” is used twice. God’s name is taken in vain once, and “h-ll” is used once.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
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