The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Via Netflixjunkie

When the Spanish hit La Casa de Papel reached international audiences, it led to a heightened global craze that the characters of that very series started acknowledging the unexpected influence their first heist had on the world, when the show unexpectedly returned for a second heist and a third season. It was only natural then to expect the inspiration would sink in international show-runners too, for multiple remakes from different countries. Amidst the golden age of Korean content at the moment, it perfectly fits that they’d be the first to localise Money Heist and colour it with another layer of distinctive identity. 

The heist as an act of political message/resistance is adapted under a distinct Korean identity; the show is set in the near-future (2026) one year after the economic reunification of North and South Korea, with the team being made up of equivalent members to their Spanish counterparts. 

As much as we’d like to start this piece by reviewing the show as a standalone series– as it definitely deserves– it’d be naive to not address the elephant in the room first and hold it up against its original Spanish series. Viewers of La Casa de Papel would recognize, and even predict, most beats of the heist, but can be quite surprised with where it differs. 

The show sets up its stage right away. Because of the nature of the show, dealing with a potential alternate future rather than a current Spain, which, like its strong Korean predecessor on Netflix ‘Squid Game’, creates a slightly different reality to accentuate and highlight a very real problem. It establishes both the news of the economic reunification and the overwhelming hope that swarms over the populations and the quick disillusionment that comes with the realisation that the only real beneficiaries are the rich, while the rest are left to be fed upon by loan sharks and the sharp edges of capitalism. Likewise, the sociopolitical-economic elements drape over the six episodes in a more tangible sense than in the original, where it directly affects not just the core team members, but also the hostages and the police force. While the theme was also important in the Spanish original, it was always more of a background element that wasn’t directly even pointed out until the last few episodes. Here, after 70 years of separation, the series is full of tension between North Korean and South Korean characters, most distinctly in the police force.

We learn this through our main narrator, Tokyo, who won’t take fans familiar with the original long to realise she stands quite distinctively from her Spanish counterpart. Tokyo here is a North Korean soldier who migrates to the South with a heart full of hope only to get exploited, turns into a serial killer who singles out loan sharks, who take advantage of people like her. Like the original, the professor finds her when she’s on the brink of losing everything, and recruits her for his big plan. While Spanish Tokyo is an impulsive hothead of a loose canon determined to live every second of life to the fullest, the Korean version is maturer, more contained and drawn into herself, a rational woman who becomes both the voice and act of reason inside the Korean Mint. 

Berlin is another character, while reminiscent of Pedro Alonso’s charismatic version, still differs greatly. Standing on his own feet to become one of the best-written and best-performed characters in the show, Berlin was a prisoner of an infamous North Korean labour camp for 25 years since he was a child who watched his mother get killed when they both were trying to cross the river to South Korea, he becomes a man not only hardened by pain and oppression, but one who believes nothing motivates humans better than fear, as he knew it firsthand. It perhaps gives even more weight to every act of his inside the Mint than his original counterpart. While he’s an incredibly written and fascinating character, Berlin is remarkable even for his unhinged side, and was often reminiscent of middle school boys who think they are cool for idolising Hitler or so, dying to have an edge.  

But there is a downside to the more serious and darker manner of Money Heist: Korea, where everything is more weighted: the series lacks the fun and humour that was a big part of why the original was loved to that extent. The interpersonal relationships are still there but are greatly downplayed from the original (most notably with Tokyo and Rio), or the dynamics simply lack distinctive chemistry (like El Professor and the Inspector). 

Aside from some three or four characters, the rest stand quite close to their original counterparts. The beats of the heist do too, but not without the Korean writers’ additions or different takes; for example, while the team’s car is still discovered by the police, the professor and police’s playout are different, and threads from the original continue differently, such as the police infiltrator with the medics, which eventually leads to one of the strongest scenes in the sixth episode. 

So, while the series is a faithful remake, adapting the heist nearly beat for beat, it doesn’t shy away from doing things its own way. Characterisations and dynamics are different, coloured with both creativity and the distinctly Korean backgrounds of the characters. It removes some arguably weaker elements of the original, but sometimes – and only sometimes – becomes a little less fun for it. 

Part one of Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area is now streaming on Netflix.