K-drama Brain Works: Cha Tae-hyun, Jung Yong-hwa lead duff procedural comedy-drama
- With its regressive gender stereotypes, toilet humour and a messy plot, Brain Works is unlikely to be remembered as a classic, but still has time to improve
- The series is similar to another Korean drama series, Ghost Doctor, in portraying two men with clashing egos who warm to each other
There’s a scene in the second episode of Brain Works, a new investigative comedy-drama starring Cha Tae-hyun and Jung Yong-hwa, in which a character’s ex-wife launches into a pole-dancing routine on a street lamp in broad daylight to seduce a middle-aged stranger she’s barely made eye contact with.
This is Kim Mo-ran, who earlier in the show is helpfully labelled as being in possession of a “hypersexual” brain.
The other main female character is Seol So-jung, the klutzy and mousy forensic hypnosis investigator who is the junior member of the newly formed Neuroscientific Investigation Team. So-jung, who has an “anxious” brain, wears oversized spectacles and cowers before all the men in the show – when she isn’t busy getting stuck in dustbins.
Given the regressive stereotypes they are called upon to represent here, neither is likely to remember Brain Works as a high point of their screen career.