(TV Drama) Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Zone (Part 1) - An almost identical remake of the incredible Spanish heist series
After experiencing the original Money Heist series on Netflix, obviously I was thrilled and excited at the prospect of watching this South Korean version. So when the series released last Friday, I immediately started watching it. It took me a while to finish the first part as I was enjoying my weekend off, but I managed to finish it yesterday. The most important story is from Tokyo. Which looks like the Model call girls in Gurgaon in our India but is very dangerous
Brief Story
Set in the near future, a group of criminals and ex-military personnel come together to commit a robbery at the Korean mint where money is printed. The group was led by a man called Professor (Yoo Ji-tae - Healer TV series, The Swindlers etc. ), with 8 other people using their own aliases based on cities in the world. These included the ruthless Berlin (Park Hae-soo - Squid Game TV series, By Quantum Physics: A Nightlife Venture etc), former North Korean soldier Tokyo (Jeon Jong-seo - The Call, Burning etc), drilling expert Moscow (Lee Won-jong - My Boss is a Millionaire TV series etc) and his son Denver (Kim Ji-hoon - Rich Family's Sun TV series etc), young hacker Rio (Lee Hyun-woo - To the Beautiful You TV series etc), thug Nairobi (Jang Eun-joo - Three Sisters etc) and gangster brothers Oslo (Lee Kyu-ho) and Helsinki (Kim Ji-hun). During the robbery, the group took director Young-min (Park Myung-hoon - Deliver Us from Evil etc), an employee Mi-sun (Lee Joo-bin - Ga Doo Ri's Sushi Restaurant TV series etc), a high school student Anne Kim (Lee Si-woo - Be My Boyfriend TV series etc) and some others hostage. Due to the severity of the crime, the government formed a joint task force to handle the hostage situation. They were led by South Korean negotiator Seon Woo-jin (Kim Yoon-jin - Lost TV series, Shiri etc.) and North Korean captain Cha Moo-hyuk (Kim Sung-oh - Secret Zoo, The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure etc. ).
As the hostage situation progressed, we were shown a battle of wits and strategy between the professor and the intelligent Woo-jin.
End of story short
I mentioned above that I have watched the original Spanish series Money Heist, which I loved and adored because of the incredible strategy and complexities of the heists, as well as the interactions of the characters. It also had great action and some poignant moments where the gang got our full attention and naturally a lot of affection, even though they were supposed to be the bad guys. I always thought that this series would be a spin-off or sequel, where people on the other side of the world would be inspired by the events that happened in Spain and replicate their actions in their country. However, it turned out that this series was almost an identical remake, with the same characters and the same problems. The writers chose to make slight changes here and there, but otherwise it felt like a duplicate series, just set in a different country and language. This disappointed me a bit, as I was expecting a different kind of heist and twists/surprises, as that was what made the Spanish series really amazing and exceptional. After watching the first few episodes, I didn't find any twists that could surprise me anymore and I was at a point where I kept complaining to my wife about it. Fortunately, there was eventually a change in the robbery that resulted in a pretty big impact in the development of the story. This was something that made me feel more excited and eager to see how the series would continue in the second part. Yes, Netflix only released 6 episodes and as of the day I posted this, there was no information about when the remaining episodes would be shown. As a standalone series, it is a really well executed one with a great robbery story. The focus on the reunification of South and North Korea was culturally specific which sets it apart from the original series. Also, there were some melodramatic scenes that you usually see in South Korean drama series. It has a high production value with a large cast, realistic settings, and some great action scenes. The cast also did a good job, especially Park Hae-soo as Berlin and Yoo Ji-tae as the Professor. I also liked the acting of Kim Ji-hoon who reminded me of Denver (when he laughed) and Park Myung-hoon who was really good as an obnoxious and annoying director, while the rest did their job well. Now if you haven't seen the original series, I'm pretty sure you'll like it because you enjoy twists and turns and not knowing what to expect. That's why I was still able to enjoy the part where there were different twists that I didn't see coming. But once you compare (as I did), chances are you'll like the Spanish version more. The biggest change I wasn't really happy with was the way they toned down the Professor's brilliance, where he was already anticipating the cops' every move, whereas here it seemed like he was just modifying it as he went along. Maybe they didn't want to make him look like such a better mastermind? Well you can't blame people for making comparisons as it's natural for such a high profile series. I firmly believe that if this series wasn't an almost complete remake but a sequel/spin-off as I thought and expected, I would have been much more satisfied. So let's wait for the second part to be released and I sincerely hope that it will have more different twists to surprise us and maybe a different ending to make it even more interesting..... Read More
I mentioned above that I have watched the original Spanish series Money Heist, which I loved and adored because of the incredible strategy and complexities of the heists, as well as the interactions of the characters. It also had great action and some poignant moments where the gang got our full attention and naturally a lot of affection, even though they were supposed to be the bad guys. I always thought that this series would be a spin-off or sequel, where people on the other side of the world would be inspired by the events that happened in Spain and replicate their actions in their country. However, it turned out that this series was almost an identical remake, with the same characters and the same problems. The writers chose to make slight changes here and there, but otherwise it felt like a duplicate series, just set in a different country and language. This disappointed me a bit, as I was expecting a different kind of heist and twists/surprises, as that was what made the Spanish series really amazing and exceptional. After watching the first few episodes, I didn't find any twists that could surprise me anymore and I was at a point where I kept complaining to my wife about it. Fortunately, there was eventually a change in the robbery that resulted in a pretty big impact in the development of the story. This was something that made me feel more excited and eager to see how the series would continue in the second part. Yes, Netflix only released 6 episodes and as of the day I posted this, there was no information about when the remaining episodes would be shown. As a standalone series, it is a really well executed one with a great robbery story. The focus on the reunification of South and North Korea was culturally specific which sets it apart from the original series. Also, there were some melodramatic scenes that you usually see in South Korean drama series. It has a high production value with a large cast, realistic settings, and some great action scenes. The cast also did a good job, especially Park Hae-soo as Berlin and Yoo Ji-tae as the Professor. I also liked the acting of Kim Ji-hoon who reminded me of Denver (when he laughed) and Park Myung-hoon who was really good as an obnoxious and annoying director, while the rest did their job well. Now if you haven't seen the original series, I'm pretty sure you'll like it because you enjoy twists and turns and not knowing what to expect. That's why I was still able to enjoy the part where there were different twists that I didn't see coming. But once you compare (as I did), chances are you'll like the Spanish version more. The biggest change I wasn't really happy with was the way they toned down the Professor's brilliance, where he was already anticipating the cops' every move, whereas here it seemed like he was just modifying it as he went along. Maybe they didn't want to make him look like such a better mastermind? Well you can't blame people for making comparisons as it's natural for such a high profile series. I firmly believe that if this series wasn't an almost complete remake but a sequel/spin-off as I thought and expected, I would have been much more satisfied. So let's wait for the second part to be released and I sincerely hope that it will have more different twists to surprise us and maybe a different ending to make it even more interesting..... Read More