Netflix Kdrama Review: Money Heist: Korea Joint Economic Area Part 2, Actionthriller Starring Park Haesoo Begins To Ring Hollow
- In the second part of the thriller based on the popular Spanish series, the fake workers, including the daughter of the American ambassador, remain in the workshop with the hostages.
- The characters don't seem lovable or hateable, and the series lacks much spark as it abandons its exploration of the theme of Korean unity.
2.5/5 stars
When we last met with the professor, Tokyo, Berlin and company were on their way to four trillion won at the JA Mint, the currency printing center of the newly united Korea United Economic Zone.
When Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area Part II begins, the team largely picks up where we left off, but the now-familiar battles lack the spark they had earlier this year.
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Angerless Berlin (Park Hae-soo) is still defenseless, and at the center of the anger now stands the most expensive of hostages, allied with renegade foreign bosses. Ann Kim (Lee Si-woo), the daughter of the US ambassador to Korea.
A professor (Yoo Ji Tae), who coordinates a sophisticated heist from the outside and goes out with chief negotiator Song Woo Jin (Kim Yoon Jin) to obtain important information about the investigation, feels the walls crumble.
Especially when Woo Jin's North Korean partner Cha Moo Hyuk (Kim Sun Oh) hangs around the cafeteria, his true identity is in danger of being exposed.
Money Heist: the Korea-Spain series receives a geopolitical twist
Professor Tokyo Witch's henchman (Jung Jung-seo) dances with flirtatious gangster Ryo (Lee Hyun-woo) and tries to stay on top of things as various robberies and hostage situations arise throughout the day.
Denver (Kim Ji Hoon) struggles to control his emotions for the hostage Yoon Mi Sun (Lee Joo Bin), who seems to feel the same way.
The first installment was mostly a fun adventure, largely staying true to the original series, but that was why it struggled to find a local or international audience.
© Courtesy of South China Morning Post. Lee Hyun-woo as Rio the Hacker from House of Paper: Korea Unified Economic Zone Part 2. Photo: Jung Jae-gu/NetflixIn the past six years, Korean producers have remade many foreign-language films, many of them into Spanish, in a process called localization. A story that worked in one market is taking you to a new market that the public is unfamiliar with.
Two years ago, Jung Jung Seo directed another similar project based on a Puerto Rican caller titled Netflix 's The Ring .
But Money Heist was not just a local success, it was global and arguably the most popular Spanish series ever made. Besides the fact that Netflix's Korean dramas are expected to attract a global audience, the question is, who is this project for? Your target audience is familiar with the original show, which is still ongoing.
© South China Morning Post Jung Jung Seo as Tokio (left) and Kim Yunjin as Son Woo Jin from Paper House: Korea's Unified Economic Zone Part 2. Photo: Jung Jae-gu/NetflixOf course, familiarity alone is no reason not to edit stories. God knows we get a new Macbeth movie every two years, but as long as the creators give us a fresh look at the source, it's worth watching.
Money Heist: Korea shares the same characters and many of the same plot points, but differs in one key point: the unified backdrop of the Korean peninsula, hence the game's subtitle, "Common Economic Zone."
When Money Heist: Korea debuted this summer, it felt like a fresh approach. This allowed us to build a fictional comic world of a unified Korea in 2026, including Tokyo, a BTS-loving North Korean soldier living his life of crime in the South.
It also introduced more layers of tension and contrast between the characters.
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The base story already featured cops and robbers and robbers and hostages, but in the Korean version, all these groups are divided into North Korea and South Korea, and in a newly unified country, they still don't know exactly how. to meet.
But in the second part, the difference between the North Koreans and the South Koreans becomes much less important. Aside from the story of the North Korean military camp in Berlin, most of the plot and tension is removed, if not more.
Suddenly, the back is revealed for what it is, an empty novelty that only suggests interesting questions without pursuing them.
Unfortunately, the superficial attitude of the main novelty of this Korean update extends to its features.
© Courtesy of South China Morning Post. Kim Ji Hoon as Denver Photo from Paper Heist: Korea Unified Economic Zone Part 2. Photo: Jung Jae-gu/NetflixIn heist stories, it's important to charm your favorite anti-heroes and cast an unpopular law enforcement officer as a sinister captain, but Money Heist: Korea doesn't do much to help its characters. Beat each other, we just have to cheer them on.
It's okay at first because the cast is charming, but over the course of these six episodes, we realize that we can't take too much away from the characters. Instead of adding layers, the story tries to create contrasts by making the antagonists brutal.
These include MK Kim Sang-man (Jang Hyun-song), who wields the power of corruption. and the Mint hostage manager Jo Yong-min (Park Myung-hoon), who keeps throwing other people under the bus to save his own skin. But even these are empty clichés.
© South China Morning Post Kim Yunjin (left) and Jang Hyun-sung as Kim Sang-man in a still from "House of Paper: Korea's Unified Economic Zone Part 2." Photo: Jung Jae-gu/NetflixPart II also adds more emotion and more shots, but that too feels empty. Like Salvador Dalí's red-robed masked criminals, after a good start, the series seems to be struggling to find its way over the precipice.
Money Heist: Korea – The Common Economic Area Episode 2 will premiere on Netflix on December 9.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), a leading Chinese and Asian media outlet.
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