Damo watch online HD

Damo is a Korean TV period melodrama from around 2003 or so. It goes by a few other names as well: Damo; The Undercover Detective, Female Detective Damo, etc.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Here's your story: It's Joseon era Korea, and various law enforcement factions throughout Korea are looking to rid the country from crime and corruption. This story focuses on the daily inner workings of one of the state police sections, which include 2 of the 3 primary characters of this series. One of these characters is the handsome, young, righteous police commander played by Lee Seo-jin. The other character is the "Damo", who is played by Ha Ji-won.

A "Damo" is a low level police servant, who is usually from a less than stellar upbringing and is of poor social status. However, this particular "Damo" has become a highly skilled, smart, ambitious, loyal, likable, ass kicking, beauty. As such, she soon rises from a nobody to a trusted & respected member of the police force. She's done all she can in life to get ahead on her own, but, much of her accrued knowledge, abilities, and current status are due specifically to her section commander, who took her under his wing when she was a young orphan, and helped her become who she is in the present.

Ha Ji-won is soon sent undercover to infiltrate a band of thieves; there she meets their leader who's the 3rd primary character involved in the story (played by Kim Min-joon). Like the police commander, he's also a handsome, righteous, young man, except he operates on the opposite side of the law. He's not a bad guy per se however; he's more of a Robin Hood type who fights for the people, and helps the poor and sick from being marginalized and mistreated by the powers that be.

Being a Korean melodrama, the 2 male leads fight for what they believe is right, while they compete for the affection of the female lead in some fashion or another. There's also the sibling angle at play here as, unbeknownst to everyone, the Damo is actually (SPOILERS) the long lost sister of the leader of the thieves. In addition, the police commander is sort of a surrogate brother to the Damo, as they've spent much of their lives growing up and living & working together. From there, it's just a matter of which of the two leads will win out, and which man the Damo will choose to side with in the end.

I liked this show pretty well overall, and, it holds up surprisingly well even a decade after it aired. There's a fair amount of swordplay and wire-fu involved on occasion, and although the budget couldn't have been too enormous, the action rarely looks overly silly. The 3 main leads all do a solid job, as do several other secondary cast members. And, the story is fairly interesting and quickly paced for the most part over its 14 episode run time.

One of the better aspects of this show is that the 2 main male leads are both treated fairly equally. These are both mostly honorable men, and this makes it difficult for the Damo to decide which side she wants to be on. The story, smartly & effectively, never lets you clearly delineate which side (& man) is right and which side (& man) is wrong.

One of the more odd aspects of this story, is that it occasionally tends to want to be a romantic love story. The police commander begins to fall in love with the Damo, but she is somewhat of an adopted little sister to him. The Damo begins to fall in love with the leader of the thieves, but he is her actual brother. I guess one could argue that's just the way it was in that era in regards to the commander/Damo relationship, and since the Damo didn't initially know the thief was her actual brother, it provides an excuse for her to begin to fall for him. Nevertheless, I found this dual sibling vs love interest angle bordering on being a little creepy at times.

One more thing, please stop with the female fighter disguising herself as a man in various Asian martial arts period pieces. You can cover up a girl's hair and rub dirt on her face all you want, but it is impossible to mistake any of the actresses they typically do this with (and Ha Ji-won is no exception) as anything other than beautiful women, in any time period.

This show has a few minor problems here and there, but what KTV melodrama doesn't?...All in all though, it is enjoyable and entertaining enough to recommend. It flows along pretty well throughout, it's written well enough to get the job done, and, it's not afraid to do what they wish (dramatically wise) to one or more of the characters you've invested in by the time it all wraps up.

With all due respect to the other 2 IMDb reviewers of this show to date; A) this is not a 10 star watch by any means or rational, and, B) the other reviewer completely misunderstood how the Damo and her brother ultimately resolved their story line.

It's plenty watchable though. A rock solid 7 out of 10 stars in my opinion!

Damo is an excellent, well paced Korean drama set in ancient Korea. It has a great cast (some character roles are comically intense), over the top (if somewhat low budget) special effects, and plenty of emotion if you let the drama suck you into its world. The story is surprisingly violent in some scenes, so watching it with young children might not be advised. Also it should be noted that doing some research into ancient Korean culture might aid in explaining some of the cultural trends and rules present, as the drama might not always explain itself, however this doesn't detract from the story. It is not nearly as long as some of the dramas out there, so it can be finished in a reasonable amount of time, or you can cram it into an all night session if you can't get enough.

Damo, a historical kdrama set in Chosun era, is centered around three compelling characters who are pigeon-holed by society and strain to change society to allow a new paths to be taken to fulfill their dreams.

Chae-OK (central character), is a damo (servant) for the police and amazingly also a police investigator. How could she have this role in a society that valued her only as a possession? Hwangbo Yoon, the police captain, is her childhood friend/protector and facilitates her investigator role. When the police are assigned to crack a counterfeit coin case, Chae-OK volunteers to go undercover to investigate a gang of rebels. Here Chae-OK meets Jang Sung-baek, the rebel leader, who dreams of a society that is not ruled by class but equally by all the people. His dream draws Chae-OK like a moth to a flame. Her struggle to choose between the two men plays out as the plot thickens and the woven web draws them to a fated climax.

What I loved about this drama:

1) Chae-OK is smart, determined, fearless, and headstrong. She is one of the strongest women characters I've seen portrayed.

2) Equally appealing male leads.

A. Hwangbo Yoon was steadfast, honorable, and loyally loved only Chae- OK. But society would never allow Chae-OK (a servant) to be in a sanctioned relationship with Hwangbo Yoon (a higher class).

B. Jang Sung-baek, was a visionary with a passion for a free society not ruled by class. His new world would provide Chae-OK opportunities not possible in current society.

3) Supporting characters that contributed. There were no dead weight characters in the supporting cast. I secretly loved Officer Lee with the dashing scar.

4) Appropriate Ending. I agreed with the writer's choices, it could end no other way for these three characters.

What I did not love: 1) Wire-work fighting style was over-the-top unrealistic and off-putting. It literally defied gravity. I prefer a hand-to-hand sword fighting style (e.g. Chuno, Warrior Baek Dong Soo).

2) Pacing was ponderously slow in many episodes.

3) Why can't characters have a complete conversation? So much agony could be avoided if complete conversations took place. You can make this claim for many kdramas as misunderstandings are major plot drivers.

4) Turns out that Chae-OK's headstrong ways were selfish at times and the risks she took had a ripple effect of negative consequences for many other characters.

Beautiful performance by Ha Ji-won. But I was troubled by the following. (1) Why did the captain take so long to tell Jang, that Chai was his sister. Was it because he wanted him to kill him, so that he wouldn't have to kill the brother of the girl he was in love with. (2) Jang was too quick to believe that Chai would have been involved in the massacre of the lepers. He had spent enough time with her in the cave to know, that she wasn;t the type of person to do something like that. Even if he did believe it, it wasn't in his nature not to have looked in her eyes before he killed her. Obviously the idea was to make him believe he had killed her. but what happens if he ran into her afterwards. If it had been me, i think it would have been better to have threatened the life of the rebel girl. (3) When Jang finds that Jai is alive, after he was supposed to have killed her, he doesn't seem too surprised

(4) The ending. It didn't get the tear ducts going. Maybe because, I knew that it was going to be tragic, But as far as I could see, she still stabs him, even after she finds out that he's her brother. Okay. maybe, she was just too blinded with the idea of revenge against the man who killed the captain.

Anyway, here's my ending. The captain is not dead. He finds out that Jai has gone to kill her brother. As she delivers the death blow, he (the captain)cries out that he's her brother. But it's too late. She cries in anguish, and finally kills herself.

Oh, one other thing. The wuxia element. Exciting enough to watch. But in relation to Jai, because I can only think about in relation to her. Sometimes she used it, and sometimes she didn't. Was it only effective in certain hours of the day or what? :)