The Paper House: Korea: With the proper perspective, it is quite impressive how far Netflix has taken a Spanish TV series like La casa de Papel (2017-2021), which we would probably only have enjoyed in this country if the streaming company had not decided to acquire the rights and bet for her. And now, with two planned spin-offs, one focused on Pedro Alonso’s Berlin, it is joined by an unexpected oriental remake: La casa de Papel: Korea (from 2022).

There is no doubt that the mold of the one created by Álex Pina is there, but the version directed by Kim Hong-seon turns out to be very different.

To begin with, the geographical context is not only different, but its writers choose to go to the very near future and invent a considerable change in the situation. In addition, even though the narrator’s resource persists in each chapter with the voiceover, they disdain the enigmas about their past and the more polyhedral story and choose the common.

They’re bare-faced, so the plot is all about finding out what happens next. But Money Heist: Korea fails in several very important aspects.

On the one hand, both the actors and their main characters lack the necessary charisma to stand up to the Iberians. And, if Yoo Ji-Tae’s Professor is analyzed, it seems indisputable that our Álvaro Morte took care to provide his with many more nuances.

The paper house: Korea

Money Heist: Korea, directed by Kim Hong-seon, is so soulless and mediocre that it doesn’t even make us worry about what happens to its main characters. The futuristic political situation of the country that he proposes to us seems quite curious, but this remains unclear because neither the script has the eloquence and spark of the writing by the Spaniards, nor does the intrigue manage to absorb us at any moment, nor does the audiovisual proposal shine the least. If you want this story to be told well, you’d better stick with the original series.

We don’t care about the heist of “The paper house: Korea.”

In this pale reflection of Álex Pina’s proposal, the heroic perspective of the robbers is not built very well, at best, mostly unpleasant and almost always puerile subjects, and we do not even experience empathy for them, something essential in a story like this. Nor, the verisimilitude, which suffers in the twists, the solutions, and the sentimental evolution of certain characters. Or an eloquence even similar to that found in the Spanish robbery scripts.

Its routine development is rushed, with Kim Hong-seon not very attentive to details or to the fact that they have mounted the episodes of Money Heist: Korea with an untimely outrageous rhythm at times. And, although they provide us with staging and planning with a certain vigor, some excessive accelerated transitions from one approach to the next, they do not at all approach the powerful montage of the original work, much more detailed and far from functional.

The latter is the fruit of a feverish imagination and a very evident talent for audiovisual composition, and every detail of it has been considered by Álex Pina and his team to originate and maintain the hypnosis of the spectators. But the Korean filmmaker, who was already owed multiple chapters of other series such as Black (2017), Voice (2017-2019), Son: The Guest (2018), or Luca (since 2021), is not even up to the task. of the bitumen in his own, by what is seen.

The absence of an ensemble cast renowned across the globe

On the other hand, composer Kim Tae-Seong would like to have delivered a score with the overwhelming energy that resonates in our ears courtesy of Iván Martínez Lacamara and Manel Santisteban, which even has echoes of Hans Zimmer’s para Interstellar (2014) or Tom Holkenborg’s for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). There is nothing, friends. While that of the oriental musician for La casa de Papel: Corea complies but does not cause any ecstasy.

Sad is the recognition that Kim Hong-seon has tried to bring together in the soulless Netflix remake a handful of performers whom the international public remembers from successful productions. Jeon Jong-Seo, his Tokyo, plays Shin Hae-mi in Burning (2018); We identify Yoo Ji-Tae, the Professor, by Woo-jin Lee from Old Boy (2003); and Kim Yoon-jin, a copy of Raquel Murillo as Seon Woojin, for her Sun-Hwa Kwon from the famous Lost (2004-2010).

But are not the only ones. The Berlin of Money Heist: Korea has the face of Park Hae-soo, whose Cho Sang-woo from The Squid Game (from 2021) you will not have forgotten; and Park Myeong-hoon, in the role of his particular Arturito as Cho Youngmin, is none other than Geun Se, from the Oscar-winning Parasites (2019). And his involvement is not enough for the first six chapters to take flight from this rampant mediocrity that comes to us in streaming from the East.