D.P.

August 27, 2021

Private Ahn Jun-ho (Jung Hae-in) is assigned to the D.P. — Deserter Pursuit — unit after his superior notices his quick thinking. His partner Han Ho-yeol (Koo Kyo-hwan) explains the job: find soldiers who ran away, bring them back. The army base exterior in Uijeongbu establishes the institutional world they are both inside and pursuing.

August 27, 2021

Their first case. The deserter they are hunting is not a coward — the drama's central moral complication is established immediately. The Seoul streets where the man has been hiding.

August 27, 2021

A case that reveals the systematic hazing and abuse driving soldiers to flee. Jun-ho and Ho-yeol must return someone to the institution they escaped from.

August 27, 2021

The D.P. unit's own internal dynamics — who gives the orders, who absorbs the consequences — are shown. The drama's critique of military institutional culture becomes explicit.

August 27, 2021

A deserter with a personal connection to someone Jun-ho knows. The case forces the drama's most direct reckoning with what the D.P. unit actually does.

August 27, 2021

The finale. A deserter's case ends in violence that implicates every level of the military hierarchy. Named best Korean drama of 2021 by Korean critics — a six-episode work that said something important about mandatory military service and institutional violence.