D.P. Season 1 (2021) Review

D.P. (Deserter Pursuit) is a South korean netflix action and drama revolving around military life in South Korea. If you did not know, South Korea is one of the countries that still enforce conscription. Although there are already many dramas that sheds light on conscription issues, D.P takes on another POV (point of view). They are looking at it from specialized staffs/unit who pursue people that escape while they are doing their military duty. Hence, the title “ D.P (deserter Pursuit).

This TV series stars Jung Hae-In, Koo Gyo-Hwan and Kim Sung-Kyun who acts as deuteragonists in this series. The story starts when An Jun-Ho (Jung Hae-in) goes to conscription and witnesses how his roommate got bullied. Somehow, he also gets into trouble and was jailed until he eventually was scouted by Kim Sung-Kyun because he shows that he can follow the rules and is also quite tenacious. At first, he was paired with Park Sung-Woo (Ko Kyoung-Pyo ) who ended up failing in his task trying to find a deserter and was then paired with another D.P who is Han Ho-Yeol (Koo Gyo-Hwan). They both become good friends and while doing their task as D.P, they witness the reason behind the deserters that mostly stems from bullying. Jun-Ho who was relatively new to all these undergoes a character development as he witnesses more deserters and the reason behind their action. From one conflict to another, the culmination goes when a deserter named Cho Suk-Bong (Cho Hyun-Chul) had too much bullying from Hwang Jang-Soo (Shin Seung-Ho). Cho wanted to kill Jang-soo and in the process of it all, the upper hand from the military wanted to cover the problem so that it doesn’t go into public. While all is too late, Jun-Ho and Han attempted to find both of them to stop them from making a mistake that they would regret for the rest of their life.

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It took me a while to finish this series but I eventually did because I wanted to start the 2nd season. D.P is cinematically stunning with a good story. If you’re a frequent K-drama viewer, this issue might not be a new thing but seeing another perspective was quite refreshing. I have to say that compared to non-netflix production, I think that morality is often quite blurred over the netflix South Korean production. It’s often not black and white; good or bad and often ends with dangling notes where it always infer that there would be a sequel or even a franchise. It was like that with the first season and now, with the second season, I can only hope that it does not disappoint my expectations as the first one was quite good.

Anyhow, if you have never seen any K-drama raising this issue, I would suggest watching it as it’s shedding light on the military life in South Korea and their mandatory conscription. And once you watch way too many of them, you also notice that they love to add colors in the film through a canvas of an economic class. D.P was no different. Where An Jun-Ho was coming from a less wealthier family compared to Han.Throughout the movie, there are cases where going to the military was the option as it’s a paid conscription.

And again, South Korean Netflix production definitely did not disappoint as I’ve quite enjoyed some of their production. This series gets 6.5 out of 10 in my rating.