Money Heist Korea Part 2 Review: Capitalism, Dream and Nightmare Of Unified Korea
Cast: Yoo Ji-tae, Park Hae-soo, Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Ji-hoon, Jang Yoon-ju, Yunjin Kim, Lee Hyun-woo, Lee Joo-bin, Ko Myung-tae, Yoon Mi-seon, Lee Si-woo
Creator: Kim Hong-sun and Ryu Yong-jae
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The second tranche of episodes (for a total of twelve) of the Korean remake of one of the platform’s iconic series, Money Heist, makes its debut on Netflix. Six new episodes were directed by Kim Hong-sun and written by Ryu Yong-Jae, with original format creator Alex Pina serving as executive producer. After the success of the first chapter, we, therefore, return to following the events set in a future Korea reunified under the banner of a single currency. We then find the famous group of selected thieves intent on completing the plan concocted by their leader, Professor (Yoo Ji-Tae). So, let’s find out together how the continuation of the story was managed in our review of Money Heist Korea Part 2.
Money Heist Korea Part 2 Review: The Story
Let’s take a small and summary step back: despite the interesting dystopian trigger and the elements that enhance its cultural uniqueness, the plot of the first episodes is a déjà vu that differs little from the Spanish original, starting from the names of the characteristic figures of the main characters (here perhaps less exaggerated, compared to those of the European cousins). We had left the chief inspector Woo-Jin (played by Yunjin Kimu, a face also known to us Westerners for the role of Sun in Lost) who proposed that the Professor enter the Mint with a video camera capable of verifying the actual safety of the hostages. Once out, she finds in her pocket a piece of a burnt banknote, slipped secretly by the student (and daughter of the American ambassador) Ann Kim.
From here on, the inspector will begin to have the first (of many) doubts about the real intentions of the group of masked thieves. It is therefore not a “simple” robbery that they want to carry out: they are in fact printing new banknotes, and to do so they are trying to buy the necessary time. Meanwhile, from the inside, the robbery group realizes that one of its members is a traitor. The cohesion of the group, so scrupulously prepared by the Professor (the requisite on which he builds the whole plan is trust in the group and its leader) then begins to fall apart, in a game of accusations and reciprocal suspicions that jeopardize the good outcome of the operation. In this climate of tension, it is the charismatic character from Berlin (Park Hae-Soo, already known for his role in the equally successful Korean series Squid Game) to unleash all its ambiguous tones, magnetizing much of the dramaturgical power of the narrative on itself. It is around his character that the most relevant flashbacks are built, those that untie the most significant plot nodes and that constitute the skeleton of the real motivations that move the strings of a story which, despite the heist movie dress and you find them (extremely well-constructed) from an action series, it is a “political” story.
This is the submerged surface that emerges episode after episode: gradually the political and symbolic motive of the plan of the Professor and his brigade becomes more and more evident. A revenge movie that links personal motivations to ideological claims, in which Berlin and the Professor represent the two poles around which the thread of the narrative is knotted. The fraternal bond that unites them (taken from the original series) is modeled here according to the Korean context in which it was born: the two little brothers were separated during the family’s attempt to escape to the south. Berlin remained in the north and lived in a prison camp with aberrant conditions, while the Professor managed to reach the southern border together with his father. This is the story of a double meeting.
Money Heist Korea Part 2 Review and Analysis
Capitalism is a rip-off, a distortion, a form of disguised freedom that exacerbates social inequalities. This is the ideological manifesto upon which, net of (inexhaustible) cultural differences, the narration of Money Heist is triggered original and its Korean remake. Money is not the prime mover that moves the action, but the ferocious will to unmask the real agenda behind the unification operation of the two Koreas. At the top of power sits a group of men who have no interest in social progress or in leveling the economic disparities of their people. He changes the dress, but the substance remains unchanged. The Professor’s (and Berlin’s) plan aims to open the eyes of public opinion, partially intoxicated by the effluvia of change, by showing how the horrors of North Korea recur despite the abolition of geographical restrictions.
It is therefore the political and ideological theme, more than the relational dynamics between the protagonists (more nuanced and less declared than in the original), that constitute the densest and richest material of the series. And if it is true that the relationships (love and friendship) that necessarily come to be established between the various characters are present and almost copied from the Spanish series, it is also true that a further and distinctive element infiltrates here: that of suspicion and persistent distrust between citizens of the north and south.
If this is the question, the answer is probably no, because the category of necessity understood in the strict sense tends to exclude more than accommodating. It therefore perhaps makes more sense to ask what are the most interesting aspects of an initiative of this kind. Beyond the content rendering, it is worth dwelling on the operation that underlies the project, and which sees the Korean audiovisual industry ever closer and intertwined with ours. By bypassing the obvious contaminations, the cultural gap remains irrepressible and places us at the center of an interesting dynamic game of proximity/otherness which, as spectators, we can never be put in a position to completely bridge.
Money Heist Korea Part 2 Review: The Last Words
In light of the last six episodes of Money Heist: Korea, we can sum up what was the remake operation of the original Spanish series. While on the one hand, the premises follow the Spanish format in an almost slavish way, as the narrative progresses the political and ideological component intensifies, assuming its own more marked identity and a more distinctive cultural imprint.
