# Criminal Minds (2017)

> Profilers hunt killers by thinking like the criminals they chase in this Korean remake of the American crime series.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/62653

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 20
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Network: tvN
- Cast: Lee Joon-gi, Moon Chae-won, Son Hyun-joo, Yu Seon, Lee Sun-bin, Go Yoon, Kim Yeong-cheol, Hong Ji-yoon
- TMDB rating: 6.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6568694/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, somber, cerebral, gritty

## What critics say

Viewers found the opening case intriguing but the later cases bland and generic, with a weak team dynamic.

## Synopsis

Criminal Minds (2017) is a South Korean crime procedural series created for tvN, a Korean remake of the American series of the same name. Lee Joon-gi plays profiler Kim Hyun-Joon, who leads a team of investigators including Moon Chae-won as Ha Sun-Woo and Son Hyun-joo as Kang Ki-Hyung. Their engine is the attempt to solve each case by stepping into the offender's mind, reconstructing motive and behavior from crime scene evidence and psychological reasoning before the next victim falls. The single season of twenty one-hour episodes follows a case-of-the-week structure, with each investigation contained in its episode while the team's personal lives and a growing sense of the cost of the work build quietly in the background. The tone is tense and somber, with a cool, procedural atmosphere in a contemporary urban Korea. Viewers who enjoy the cerebral psychology of Mindhunter, the moral unease of Signal, and the American original that inspired it will find a familiar pleasure here, though the show's execution divides opinion. Its procedural rhythm and dark psychological focus make it a natural pick for those seeking criminal profiling drama with a Korean perspective.

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