Well, better late than never, I always say. We’re about two days away from the premiere of KBS’s upcoming crime thriller Mad Dog, and posters for the show have finally been released. The cast looks quite cute together in the behind-the-scenes stills, and I can’t wait to see their characters all interact once the show starts.
When I think of the phrase “insurance fraud,” it’s not exactly the sexiest premise for a crime drama, but trust Yoo Ji-tae (The Good Wife) and Woo Do-hwan (Rescue Me) to level up the need-to-watch quotient of this show. Yoo Ji-tae will play Mad Dog team leader Choi Kang-woo, the ferociously tenacious insurance fraud investigator with a 99 percent success rate. He’ll have a special bromance with Woo Do-hwan’s character Kim Min-joon, a street con artist with the wits and gut instinct that make him a valuable asset to the Mad Dog team, though his true motives for joining a law enforcement body remains unclear.
I’m quite eager to see Woo Do-hwan reunite with Jo Jae-yoon (Rescue Me) in back-to-back projects, with their roles sort of reversed now that the former rebel heartthrob plays the shady con and the chilling cult enforcer is now an insurance investigator who dreams of becoming a nurse in the children’s ward someday. It took a moment for me to compute that Jo Jae-yoon’s character Park Soon-jung wouldn’t be evil personified like in Rescue Me, but I kind of love his character’s contrasts, like his polite demeanor coupled with his love for gaudy cheetah print, or his time spent in prison while also having an unexpected innocent side.
To round out our Mad Dog team are Jang Ha-ri, played by Ryu Hwa-young (Father Is Strange), and Ohn Nu-ri, played by Kim Hye-sung (Falsify). Ha-ri is a former competing gymnast skilled at disguising herself in order to investigate insurance fraud schemes. Nu-ri, on the other hand, is the computer whiz with a sun allergy (literally) to Ha-ri’s field agent, and is so good at what he does that he could breathe life back into dead machines.
Hong Soo-hyun (Mom, Would You Give Love Away) is also returning to dramaland as the only daughter of the family that owns Taeyang Life insurance company, and while her character isn’t named as an antagonist or ally of the Mad Dog team, her relationship with the insurance fraud investigators will be “tense.” I don’t think I’ve watched Hong Soo-hyun in anything since 2011’s The Princess’s Man, so it’ll be nice to see her back on my screen.
Mad Dog is premiering this week on October 11, and will take over KBS’s Wednesday-Thursday slot for the next eight weeks.
