A Not so Ordinary Day, ‘One Ordinary Day’ Review.
One ordinary is a Coupang play remake of the popular British drama 'Criminal Justice'. The drama follows the life of a shy college students, Hyun Soo (Kim Soo Hyun) who ends up being accused of the murder of his one-night stand after a night of drinking, drugs, and passionate sex.
Throughout the drama you are confronted with uncertainty as all the circumstantial evidence points to him as the murderer but did he really do it?
At the beginning of the drama Hyun Soo seems to do everything wrong. From fleeing the crime scene to trying to run away once he is in prison, but this behaviour can be attributed to his personality more than to him being guilty. But for one to arrive at that conclusion one would need to understand his personality which is difficult when the investigation and prosecution needs a fast conviction and are not interested in anything else.
Once he is in prison awaiting trial, he is faced with the uncomfortable reality of trying to navigate that space and not get himself killed. He soon realises that to survive he needs to make certain alliances and pick up habits he didn’t have before.
Episode 4 focused a lot on the shortcomings of the criminal justice system. The colluding between the prosecutor (Kim Shin Rok) and the investigator (Kim Hong Pa) was borderline unethical, sickening and infuriating. The fact that Hyun Soo abruptly chances lawyers to a lawyer that merely took the case for publicity did not help. She was probably worse than the prosecutor as she was just fancy, pretentious, unprepared, and shifted all the blame to Hyun Soo when she never really bothered to have an actual consultation with Hyun Soo or put up a proper defense because she was merely using him.
The climax of episode 4 was when Hyun Soo’s fancy lawyer (Seo Jae Hee) starts negotiating with the unethical prosecutor. All the cards and true intentions are then clearly put on the table. It becomes very clear that this case has always been about making their careers and not justice for the deceased, the accused or finding the real murderer. There was never really an interest on the prosecutions side to bring to justice the actual perpetrator and there was never an interest on the fancy lawyers’ side to prove Hyun Soo’s innocence or put up an actual defense. The end of episode 4 causes you to have an emotional breakdown along with Hyun Soo because why must he confess to something he didn’t do.
Watching the drama as a lawyer was very frustrating. I kept screaming at the screen every time Hyun Soo made silly decisions without proper counsel and just trusted the very same people who want to put him in jail, but I had to keep attributing his silly mistakes to his personality which frustrated me even more. By the time we get to episode 6 it is clearly established that Hyun Soo just doesn’t listen. What’s the point of having lawyers if you are going to do the opposite of what your lawyers advice you almost all the time? But also, his lawyer (Lee Seol) when he is being attacked on the stand doesn’t have a single objection. She just sits there.
Remakes come with their own challenges such as viewers comparing them to the original and saying things like “it falls short from the original” or that “it deviates too much from the source material”. This however, isn’t the case with “One ordinary day”. Though the story has been told before this drama does a great job of telling it through a Korean lense and perspective while staying true to the story and that was beautiful to watch.
All I can say is “One ordinary day” is how you do a remake/ adaptation! The suspense! The emotional build up! The tension! Just beautiful! 10/10!
Reviewed by Mikateko Mafuyeka
