Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Money Heist: Korea’ On Netflix, Where The ‘Money Heist’ Formula Is Transferred To A Korea That’s Preparing To Reunify

Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area takes the formula of Netflix’s massive hit Money Heist and transfers it from Spain to the Korean Peninsula. It’s 2025; North and South Korea are taking tentative steps to reunify, starting with a city both will run, called the Joint Economic Area (JEA). One of the key places is the Mint, where the JEA’s currency is printed and stored. That will be the target of a new Professor and his city-named gang of thieves.

MONEY HEIST: KOREA – JOINT ECONOMIC AREA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A girl in a school uniform dances to BTS on the stairs of her North Korean school.

The Gist: A criminal mastermind called The Professor (Yoo Ji-Tae), upset that the wealthiest people from both countries are getting rich while the the rank and file continue to struggle, puts together a super team of criminals that will infiltrate the mint, steal 4 trillion won, and disappear. The first of his crew that we see — all of whom take nicknames of cities they want to visit — is Tokyo (Jeon Jong-seo), the university student we see dancing to BTS; she’s our narrator. We see how she turned to petty crimes after moving to the JEA, and The Professor saved her from getting killed doing those risky robberies.

Tokyo and rest of the group — Rio (Hyun-Woo Lee), father-son team Moscow (Won-jong Lee) and Denver (Kim Ji-hoon), Berlin (Park Hae-soo), Nairobi (Jang Yoon-j), Helsinki (Kim Ji-hun) and Oslo (Lee Kyu-ho) — infiltrate the mint, executing the Professor’s complex plan. Part of that plan includes getting into a shootout with police, putting the hostages in their signature jumpsuits and masks, and getting South Korean negotiator Seon Woo-jin (Kim Yun-jin) to inadvertently help them out, especially against the more militaristic-minded North Korean Captain Cha Moo-hyuk (Kim Sung-oh).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Well, the original Money Heist, of course. But it’s also a classic heist story, that we’ve seen in recent series like Heist and The Great Heist as well as older series like Prison Break and Good Girls.

Our Take: We don’t usually give a “long story short” review (we’re not paid for one-sentence reviews, after all), but in short: If you’re a fan of Money Heist, you’ll like Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area.

Now the long version: Money Heist: Korea brings up all of the same haves and have-nots issues that drove the Spanish original, but adds in everything that has made Korean dramas like Squid Game popular here in the States. The Professor and the members of his crew are all introduced in ways that show immediately what they bring to the team, with Tokyo being our narrator and the person much of the story revolves around. There are twists and turns galore in the first episode, like how the Professor manages to use the North-South rivalry to his advantage. And there will be lots of places where the crew or the hostages throw a monkey wrench into the Professor’s finely tuned plan.

All of that, though, is done through a Korean lens. Even the target of the heist, the mint in this fictional Joint Economic Area, makes the show more like it’s Korean brethren than just a remake. It speaks to the idea that the Koreas are going to reunite in the near future, and inserting the possible issues that a reunification will bring up makes for story elements that will separate this version from the Spanish original.

It helps that the performances by Yoo as the Professor, Jeon as Tokyo, and Kim as Seon Woo-jin are all excellent, each providing just the right tone to make the show less and over-the-top heist series and more of a layered treatise on the economic gap that everyone is suffering through at this stage in world history.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode, though Tokyo barely escapes a sexual attack before she’s “discovered” by the Professor.

Parting Shot: The crew discovers just how they’ll get away with 4 trillion won when they find the printing press. “This will be a revolution in the history of crime,” says the Professor during the planning stages.

Sleeper Star: Park Hae-soo is Berlin, who is one of the few people to escape a North Korean concentration camp. He’s cool under pressure and will likely end up being the leader of the crew on the ground, along with Tokyo.

Most Pilot-y Line: When the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador goes into the museum at the mint with her class, Nairobi tells Berlin “The Munchkin is going in.” “Munchkin?” asks Tokyo. “Whatever makes sense, right?” Nairobi replies.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area sets up its central heist effectively, giving us all the characters and putting the story in a very Korean context.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.