Heist shows tend to have a lot of characters and storylines going on, but they eventually focus on the business at hand. That’s what we’re hoping happens with The Apartment Job, a new K-dramedy on Netflix.
Opening Shot: Shots of the many apartment high rises in Seoul. A man puts on a vinyl record while he sips an espresso.
The Gist: Park Hae-gang (Ji Sung) is the CEO of the HK Group, which from the outside looks like a respectful investment firm. But in reality, the buttoned-up offices hide an illegal gambling den, whose clients all have high net worth and are extended large lines of credit. One of their best customers is nicknamed the “Lizard” (Kim Won-hae) because he slips out when a gambling den is raided. The Lizard manages an apartment complex for a living and sits on a pot of money that even the resourceful Park doesn’t know about.
Park takes a lot of effort to make sure the government and law enforcement is kept at bay, including bribes and being a pack mule for the One Club — a club consisting of top officials — as they go on their regular nature hikes. He’s not only trying to make money for himself but for his loyal employees Kyung-nam (Jung Soon-won), “Big Guy” (Kim Kyu-won), and Je-gil (Hwang Hee). He also has concern for Park Yong-man (Jung Jin-young), the gambling ring’s old boss; he’s a father figure to Park since taking him as a mentee when Park was a teenager.
At the same time, police commissioner (Jung Hee-tae) wants to be a part of the One Club, but is told that the entry fee is 10 billion won. The police chief (Lee Hyun-kyun) knows that Park can get the money, but when he approaches Park with that massive figure, even Park doubts that he can do it. But the police chief insists, and wields his power by raiding the gambling den, arresting Kyung-nam, Big Guy, and Je-gil, and holding Yong-man as collateral. Park needs to collect the ten billion in three months for Yong-man to be released.
Park tries whatever he can to collect the money, including throwing a fake wedding: he hires Kang Ha-ri (Ha Yoon-kyung), a young woman who works at a law firm’s free law consultation office, to be the fake bride. She failed the bar exam, and she’s been lying about her predicament to her older sister, Kang Ha-jeong (Ryu Hyun-kyung), who does things like buy her an expensive suit and foots other bills.
When Park and crew call in The Lizard’s line of credit, their “best customer” tells them he’s been skimming from his apartment complex’ construction fund, inflating bids in order to collect more from residents. It gives Park an idea how to get that ten billion fast.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Apartment Job is a heist drama along the lines of shows like Money Heist.
Our Take: The Apartment Job is supposed to be a funny take on the heist drama, one where we’re supposed to root for Park and his minions simply because they corporatized the illegal gambling business, and because they are all extremely loyal to Park, their old boss and each other.
The idea is that they’re the “good guys” versus the slimy businessmen and corrupt government officials, especially the ones that make up the super-exclusive One Club. What’s going to happen is that Park is going to run for the head of the residents’ association in a massive new apartment development, finding out that the construction fund could cover what he owes the police chief and then some. There will be corruption everywhere, making what Park does seem small-time in comparison.
The problem is the show has so many moving parts, especially in the first episode, that it’s hard to see where things will go as the show moves forward. Park and his crew are the main focus, but then we also have the corrupt One Club and their mysterious leader, as well as Ha-ri and her sister Ha-jeong, the latter of whom may or may not be involved in a similarly shady situation at the apartment complex where she works.
What becomes confusing is trying to figure out who is skimming from whom. It may not matter, though; at some point, the show will focus on Park and company trying to rip off the particular fund he’ll eventually be in charge of. Ha-ri will be part of that effort, because we know that the fake wedding won’t be the last time that Park wants her to be his fake wife. How all that comes together will be what keeps us watching.
Performance Worth Watching: We like Ha Yoon-kyung as Ha-ri, especially her bemused reaction at Kyung-nam, Big Guy, and Je-gil singing and dancing like an ersatz BTS at the fake wedding.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Fireworks go off as Park contemplates being able to skim off 10 billon won from a new apartment complex’s construction fund.
Sleeper Star: Others involved in this story are Park Byung-eun as Lee Chung-won, who lives in the penthouse and is a construction executive, and Moon So-ri as Jang Suk-jin, the complex’s “busybody” who is constantly wondering why the construction fund has so much money in it.
Most Pilot-y Line: When the police chief has all of Park’s right-hand men arrested, the trumped-up charge against Big Guy is that he’s taking pictures of girls. “All I have are pictures of bread!” he yells as he shows a police officer his phone.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We hope that The Apartment Job can focus on its central heist and not distract itself with what feels like a lot of extraneous characters and storylines, like we saw in the first episode.
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.