The Good Detective - Netflix Korean detective series

Books, comics, TV, music
1

I was wondering if anyone had any background on the Korean detective oeuvre?

I’m about 6 episodes into this series and some of things that are apparently allowed to happen baffle me and I’m not sure if it’s just the script, some kind of trope thing I am completely unaware of or some kind of comment on the Korean detective service (although the bad subtitles are not helping me sometimes I’m sure either)

Questions arising so far are?

They seem very lowly in rank for a team who investigate murders?
They seem incredibly unprofessional at times, making basic mistakes in procedure and disappearing off to go drinking during the middle of a shift on a regular basis (the team turn up to a murder scene dead drunk at one point and are warned by their boss later on only for the boss to say “I can’t make an issue of it since I’ll have to do that for everyone” )
There is an awful lot of “I’m not going to do this because it will make me look bad” going on even when their team lead shouts at them to get things done…

I’m enjoying it thoroughly though so far, I just wouldn’t mind some background on whether there are some things about Korean culture, Korean TV programmes or Korean TV detective series that would be helpful to know to fill in some of the baffling things they do at times…

2

It does seem to be a thing in Korean pop culture, which I assume has some basis in fact or stereotype about the real police. See Memories of Murder (discussed here), or Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. The homicide police are sloppy and largely useless.

3

We have been watching a bunch of K-dramas on Netflix and Viki, but mostly stuff with romantic overtones and Joseon period stuff, so I’m not much help. The shows we did watch that had modern cops (The King, Bring it on Ghost) in them didn’t seem to echo that, though there was plenty of corruption depicted in Vincenzo (though this wasn’t just cops but the entire legal system). Also, Vincenzo is awesome (and on Netflix).

4

I watch a lot of Korean movies and it always seems that they play to a ton of drama in all genres. I feel like the mistakes are there to create the drama rather than reflecting real life (my assumption anyway).