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| Crew and cast members of "Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area," a Korean remake of Netflix's 2017 series "Money Heist," pose during a press conference for the series at Coex in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap |
'Money Heist: Korea ― Joint Economic Area' follows group of thieves taking over mint
By Lee Gyu-lee
Netflix is set to launch one of this year's most anticipated series, "Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area," a remake of the platform's hit Spanish crime thriller series "Money Heist" (2017).
The creators of the upcoming Korean original, director Kim Hong-sun and writer Ryu Yong-jae, shared ― in a press conference ― that the fictional story of a divided Korean Peninsula under the process of unifying will make the adaptation unique.
"The hardest part we struggled with, from the beginning, was making the story convincing: how we can make it believable for the viewers that this could really happen in real life," the director said during a press conference for the series held at Coex in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Wednesday.
"So we came up with the idea to take the situations between South and North Korea and set it in the future. And as the series is streamed abroad, we thought people might be curious about the stories between the two Koreas."
The new crime action series revolves around a group of thieves ― played by Jeon Jong-seo, Park Hae-soo, Lee Hyun-woo, Kim Ji-hun, Lee Won-jong, Jang Yoon-ju, Lee Kyu-ho and Kim Ji-hoon ― who plan to pull off the biggest heist in Korea, on the brink of unification between the North and the South.
Led by the mastermind, nicknamed Professor (Yoo Ji-tae), the group takes over the mint of a unified Korea, holding hostages inside. As they carry out the heist, they face a showdown with the police, led by negotiator Seon Woo-jin (Kim Yun-jin).
The director of the crime thriller series, Kim, previously created the action series "Voice" (2017) and "L.U.C.A.: The Beginning" (2021), and the writer Ryu wrote the Netflix series "My Holo Love" (2020) and horror series "Monstrous" (2022).
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| A scene from the crime series "Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area" / Courtesy of Netflix |
Ryu added that the characters of the heisters will be portrayed differently to carry the sentiments and idiosyncrasies of Korea.
"The original series had such animated and appealing characters that made it interesting. And taking that would have just been imitating (the original work). But instead of trying to switch the whole thing, we tried to arrange the characters within our own story. And that process gave us ideas on what changes to make in the characters," Ryu said.
"As we were building those characters, we interviewed the actors and discussed how they analyzed their own characters and shared ideas to develop our own gang."
The actors expressed that although they felt pressure to take part in the remake of such a successful series, they felt confident in the story.
"(The original series) has such a strong fan base. But I felt that a great story will resonate in any country," actor Yoo said. "The reason Korean content can reach abroad is that it has insight and pays attention to detail. (The remake series) captures the charm and humor of our own culture with the South and North Korea as its setting."
"Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area" will premiere on Friday.
