In Netflix‘s new Korean thriller Mousetrap, a reclusive writer finds that his identity has been stolen, and the person he teams up with to help him find who did it is the loan shark who came after him to settle a debt the author didn’t even know he had.
MOUSETRAP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We see a flashback to when the parents of writer Je Moon-jae (Ryu Jun-yeol) died when his mother drove the car they were in into the ocean.
The Gist: Since that accident — which likely wasn’t an accident — back when he was a teenager in 2011, Moon-jae has become a recluse, popping pills for a panic disorder and generally not wanting to go outside. Years later, the successful novelist now lives in a luxury high rise, running on his treadmill, and seeing life proceed the same way every day in the plaza below.
The only visitor he gets is an old classmate that’s an accountant; for reasons that remain a bit murky, the classmate has all of Moon-jae’s accounts and real estate in his name.
On a day the classmate visits, a bird hits one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving a crack. Also, Moon-jae no longer is able to access his bank account. Even though the classmate gets him a new phone, the account is still inaccessible. That is when a police detective named Park Sun-yong (Lee Kyu-hyung) comes looking for a Kim Yeong-geun, based on an anonymous tip he received.
Then things get really strange. After spending time in his darkened office, lined with books and newspaper clippings about his reclusiveness, he comes out to find that his classmate has sold the place out from under him, and has gone radio silent. This drives Moon-jae out of his building for the first time in three years, dressed only in pajamas and slippers, and he finds out in various places that someone else has been posing as him.
The depth of the identity theft comes to a head when a ruthless loan shark named No-ja (Sul Kyung-gu) comes after him with a baseball bat.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Based on the webtoon Field Mouse, Mousetrap has a bit of the same feel as the recent hit Agent Kim Reactivated.
Our Take: One of the reasons why we compared Mousetrap to Agent Kim Revisited is that both shows took their first hourlong episodes to slowly set up their stories. In the case of Mousetrap, most of the episode consists of Moon-jae running around Seoul in is pajamas, bewildered at the idea that someone is using his name and that he can’t get anyone to believe he is who he says he is.
It’s always a risky way to start a series, where you don’t get insight into the major players right away. We only see glimpses of Son-yong and No-ja, the other two of the three main characters here. But the tension that Moon-jae feels as he finds out that his identity has been stolen is palpable, even though it seems like he can more easily make his way through the outside world than earlier scenes would have indicated.
The overarching plot of this show is that Moon-jae and No-ja are going to be looking for “The Rat,” the unknown figure who stole Moon-jae’s identity. Could “The Rat” be the accountant and former classmate who used to visit Moon-jae? Or is he a part of something much larger and more sinister?
Performance Worth Watching: Ryu Jun-yeol does a good job playing the paranoid Moon-jae, who has for some reason set up his life to the point where he’s can get his identity so thoroughly stolen.
Parting Shot: In an alleyway, Moon-jae comes face-to-face with someone who says, “Who am I? Wanna know?”
Sleeper Star: None, really, because the only person we get any extended look at is Moon-jae.
Most Pilot-y Line: Moon-jae somehow is able to run through the streets of Seoul in his slippers. Not sure how that’s possible without losing one or both of them.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The two parts of Mousetrap that intrigue us are the unlikely team-up and their pursuit of this shadowy figure. We just wish the first episode had gone into that part of the story even a little bit, just to give us an idea of where it might be going.
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.