K-Drama rewind, Suspicious Partner : Ji Chang-wook, Nam Ji-hyun drive a drama where unreliable memories upstage romance

From the title alone, Suspicious Partner is misleading. This little deception  game continues right through the credits—drenched in pink and white, teasing playful leads and lighthearted love stories.

So, a quirky rom-com about an inquisitive girlfriend or boyfriend?

Not quite. The 2017 drama smirks at you for thinking it’s that simple. Sure, there’s a captivating romance at its core, fueled by the ever-charismatic Ji Chang-wook as a ruthless lawyer, and Nam Ji-hyun’s Bong-hui, who unexpectedly finds herself entangled in a murder case, with her ex-boyfriend as the victim.

Yes, the show opens with a murder, witnessed, unfortunately, by Bong-hui, who doesn’t realise what she’s seeing because she isn’t wearing her glasses.

 Worse, she’s now on the killer’s hit list. But before that, she must first prove her own innocence.

 And so begins a legal drama, murder mystery, tale of revenge, and a love story intertwined with unresolved childhood trauma, as the show leans into the classic K-Drama trope of connecting the leads' pasts.

Suspicious Partner’s greatest strength lies in its balance—while the romance between a lawyer and a key witness-turned-roommate is deeply absorbing, it never overshadows the gripping murder mystery at its core. It exists, overwhelming you with its cuteness, angst and heartbreak and then nudges you towards the seemingly important focal point of the drama: A killer avenging the murder of his school sweetheart.

 But again, as the show progresses, you realise that you have been misled again. It’s what makes Suspicious Partner, so different from the other romantic-murder-mystery shows, like When the Camellia Blooms or You are My Spring.

At its core, Suspicious Partner isn’t just a murder mystery, legal drama, or romance—it’s a story about the fragility of memory. The ones we keep, the ones we bury out of guilt, resentment, or fear. It’s about rebuilding, or tampering memories to suit our own narrative. How and why do you choose to remember the most formative memories of your life? It can go to different extremes: We can be victim, hero, or at worst, the guilty one.

The drama delves deeply into the first two aspects, focusing on two individuals with troubled pasts and their efforts to reconstruct their memories. You begin to believe they are both victims of fate, cruel timing, and perhaps even dangerous company. While that's partly true, they are also victims of their own memories. The show portrays how malleable the mind really is, especially for a child. In one searing scene,  a mercenary lawyer convinces a young child subtly, carefully and quietly about who to frame regarding his father’s death in a terrible fire. And so, the impressionable child carries that knowledge through his years, accusing the wrong person for his father’s death, only to be compelled to rewrite his memory later.

And, in the case of the killer who wants to avenge his girlfriend’s death: Is that really the case, or has he forgotten some very crucial elements regarding her sudden demise? It's these fine details that are brought out in court, in the form of a courtroom drama. Ji Chang-wook is a delight to watch, as he coldly presses on, slowly prising the truth out of the perpetrator.

The drama smirks at you again for making the wrong assumptions, too.

 Suspicious Partner is an addictive watch, owing to the intricate details of storytelling, to the stellar acting performances by the cast. There’s a comfortable blend of romance, action, thrill and angst, and none try to overpower the other. Ji Chang-wook tackles the nuances of Noh Ji-uk, his reserved nature owing to the breakdown of the relationships with the two people he trusted the most, his own childhood that gives him sleepless nights. He's a man perpetually on the verge—of triumph, collapse, or unraveling—always lingering at the edge, only to pull back at the last moment. A fantastic Nam Ji-hyun complements this with Bong-hui, who brings humour, as well as depth to her character.

 So, If you're looking for a drama that masterfully blends murder mystery, psychological intrigue, and heartwarming romance, Suspicious Partner is a must-watch.