Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
It’s 1987 in South Korea, and everything’s pretty volatile.
Pro-democracy students and civilians are protesting the oppressive military dictatorship of Chun Doo-Hwan in what would be known as the June Struggle.
During this period, Eun Yeong-ro is looking for love. She’s a freshman at Hosu Women’s University, and she works in the office helping to operate the university’s two phones. As such, she constantly hears boys calling to talk with all the girls there.
Well, all except her.
But when a group of boys invite her and her roommates on a group date, she meets a charming man named Lin Soo-ho. And she can’t really explain it, but it sure feels like love at first sight. So she asks him out to dinner, but he shows up late.
As in, six months late, as he collapses through her dorm room window, bloody with a bullet in him.
Snowdrop is set in 1987 in South Korea, and if you know your South Korean history, it’s a very important year. Following World War II and the Korean War, a military dictatorship took power in South Korea under the guise of an anti-communism and economic development plan. In 1980, Chun Doo-Hwan took power through the declaration of martial law, and the regime restricted freedoms of the press and speech, prompting student-led protests. The South Korean people longed for a fair democracy in which the president would be directly elected by the people. In 1987, tensions rose to their highest point when Chun declared Roh Tae-woo would be the next president, causing 19 days of intense protests. As a result, Chun conceded to the people and instated a direct presidential election system.
This historical backdrop—while not overtly shown here—sets the stage for the events that occur in Snowdrop. And when the drama originally aired in South Korea in Dec. 2021, it received backlash from viewers on two main fronts: First, that the show allegedly distorts the history of South Korea’s democratization. And second, many took issue with the fact that the main male protagonist, Lee-Soo ho, is a North Korean spy. That second point is important, because the real-life South Korean regime justified many of its actions against student protestors by claiming that they were communist sympathizers.
“It may give viewers the impression that spies were hidden among students and were indistinguishable, adding weight to the regime’s claims that cracking down on student activists was an effort to catch spies,” said Ban Byung-yool, an emeritus professor of history at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in an interview with Korea JoongAng Daily.
In response, director and broadcaster JTBC explained that the series does not intend to defend the military regime’s claims of that era, and it makes an effort to point out that no North Korean agent joins any protest at any moment in the series.
The show makes explicit references to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and this sets the major romantic theme throughout the show – the forbidden love between a North Korean spy and a South Korean student.
Regardless, the show—now stateside as part of the Disney+ stable of programming— illustrates, graphically, the brutal side of conflict.
Moderate amounts of blood spill throughout the series. Throats are cut, and people are shot. Characters are implied to have been tortured. At one point, a woman has to stuff bloody tissues down her shirt to hide evidence, which is turned into a gag after an agent suspiciously eyes her chest—much to her dismay.
And other unsavory references can be found in the show, too. A man and a woman have implied off-screen sex—though we never see any direct nudity in the series. Moderately harsh language, including “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—”, is used. God’s name is inappropriately used as well.
When Eun Yeong-ro meets Lim Soo-ho, it’s love at first sight. What she doesn’t know, however, is that he’s a North Korean secret agent.
Eun Yeong-ro reads a section of a book that says “You will never defeat us. Not even once. God will not allow it.” Yeong-ro tricks the police to help Lim Soo-ho not get arrested.
Men in a government meeting cut their fingers to bleed into a water-filled cup, and they drink the mixture. To make a point, Secretary-General of the Aenin Party Nam Tae-Il cuts his hand instead of his finger. A woman intentionally steps on another woman’s toes. A dead body is seen with a piece of rebar stabbed through it. Two men jump out of a moving train. A car intentionally rams into another.
Jang Han-na, an agent for the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP), fires a gun to make a point, nearly hitting Lee Gang-mu, the leader of Team One in the Anti-Communist Investigation Bureau. Additionally, Jang Han-na punches a fellow agent.
A man tells someone to pour Lim Soo-ho a drink. A girl kisses the phone. A man pushes another man. Yeong-ro’s dormmate Hye-ryeong says that “romantic relationships begin with a tag-of-war. And the best way to win is to make the guy desperate.” A man is seen in a photo with a drink in his hand and his shirt unbuttoned, exposing his chest.
A man runs through a protest while being pursued by police. In the protest, demonstrators throw Molotov cocktails, and government officials shoot tear gas and beat people with batons. The ANSP shoots someone, but the person escapes, and blood is seen.
“Wench” is used three times. “B–tard” is used twice, “d–n” is used three times and “h—” is used twice. God’s name is misused six times.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
