Series / Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area

Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area is a South Korean remake of the Spanish TV series Money Heist. Created and produced by Netflix, which previously produced Seasons 3-5 of the original show, the first part of its first season was released on June 24, 2022, with the second part being released on December 9 of the same year.

Between 2025 and 2026, Korea is about to reunify, but tensions still run high between North and South Koreans. In the midst of all this, a new Professor (Yoo Ji-tae) directs a group of criminals from both Koreas with various skills and backgrounds into the recently-built Korea Unified Mint for the heist of a lifetime: hold the visitors hostage as they print four trillion won for themselves.

The thieves are comprised of:

• Berlin (Park Hae-soo), an attempted North Korean defector;
• Tokyo (Jeon Jong-seo), a wanted North Korean thief and killer who serves as the narrator of the series;
• Moscow (Lee Won-jong), an ex-convict and Denver's father;
• Denver (Kim Ji-hoon), Moscow's volatile son;
• Nairobi (Jang Yoon-ju), a con artist;
• Rio (Lee Hyun-woo), a hacker;
• Helsinki and Oslo (Kim Ji-hun and Lee Kyu-ho), a pair of former gang members.

Meanwhile, Seon Woo-jin (Kim Yun-jin) leads a task force comprised of both North and South Koreans to capture the mysterious Professor and end the heist. Unbeknownst to her, said Professor is the man she's recently started seeing.

---

Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The series, which was originally released in 2022, is set between a hypothetical 2025 and 2026, where North and South Korea are about to end a process of reunification.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Tokyo here was a former soldier in the North Korean army, so she is a lot calmer and in a position to teach others. At one point, she even leads the rest of her team and almost gets mistaken for the Professor.
  • Berlin isn't just a thief; he survived growing up in a forced labour gulag in North Korea, and learned at a much younger age how to organize people to follow him.
  • Anne Kim, the student with the important ambassador parents, is not the shrinking wallflower easily bullied by her classmates. Instead of needing a rescue and pep-talk from her captors, she actively plots against them and tries to work with the infiltrating cops.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • Unlike the original Professor, this one was never fond of robberies since his childhood, instead being motivated to begin one to simply solve the Korean society's economic issues. Plus, the outline of the heist is entirely his own, whereas the original took plans from people close to him.
  • Exaggerated with Berlin, who's pretty much the only character in the series who has a completely different backstory from his original counterpart. Rather than being a terminally ill career thief who's had multiple wives and a son, he's a former concentration camp prisoner who applies his experience to command the heist at the Mint.
  • While both versions of Tokyo had a hard life before joining the heist team, the original was a willing thief who robbed small locales. The Korean one, on the other hand, was a North Korean military veteran who tried to find a legitimate job in South Korea, but ended up becoming a fugitive from the poor job conditions that she had.
  • The original Moscow left mining due to getting silicosis and experiencing claustrophobia. This one had to leave due his constant convictions.
  • As the setting is Korea, Tokyo's name choice generates much more reaction. To this day the Korean population remembers their Japanese occupation, Tokyo even says her name choice is because they will be doing something bad.
• Adaptational Heroism: The cops have much less friction amongst themselves. Woo-Jin and Moo-Hyuk didn't have the best introduction, but after Woo-Jin stops him from making a potentially catastrophic mistake, Moo-Hyuk is willing to provide her all his resources. The chief, while still overly concerned about PR, is also much more willing to let his staff do their jobs and trust their judgment.
• Adaptational Intelligence: By meeting Woo-Jin much earlier before the heist, the Professor establishes himself much sooner then his original counterpart, and so Woo-Jin is less suspicious.
• Adaptational Modesty: Because Tokyo and Rio are not in a relationship, there is significantly less sex scenes in this remake. That isn’t to say there isn’t any, as the Denver/Mi-Seon and the Professor/Woo-Jin scenes are kept in the storyline.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • In the original series, the Task Force is often at odds with each other. Here, Moo-Hyuk is a North Korean captain who is immediately at odds with his South Korean counterparts and starts off questioning Woo-Jin's tactics, but does care for his team and treats the people around him a lot more respectfully. He also expresses regret and is willing to accept punishment for his mistakes.
  • The students are not bullies here, and no boy takes photos of Anne without her consent.

• Adaptational Seriousness: Most notably, Berlin makes less jokes and Tokyo rarely smiles.
• Adaptational Villainy: This Tokyo likely killed multiple people, most of them loan sharks, before meeting the Professor. She is also a former soldier in the North Korean military, so they might not even be her first victims.
• Adaptational Wimp: Nairobi is still the cheerful and confident woman, but she doesn’t seize control of the group like the original, although this is partially because Tokyo does instead.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Despite the Professor’s knowledge of the Mint’s entry points, he almost missed this, and one member of the Special Forces manage to sneak in this way.
• All Up to You: When the thieves first considered turning against then-leader Berlin, Tokyo is considered the only one who could step up.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Woo-jin catches the gang as their getaway train is about to leave, the Professor asks if she intends to arrest them because they revealed the corruption of Sang-man and his allies with the heist or simply out of revenge for his deception of her. She's left on the platform as an emotional wreck while the train parts.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Like the original, Rio is the youngest and most boyish of the thieves. The Korean word maknae (youngest) is used in reference to him.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Unless this remake takes a completely different route, while there were casualties, the source material ends with the bad guy protagonists successfully escaping the police with their money.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: After Moscow begs Denver not to repeat his father's mistake of dragging to a life of crime a woman who developed affection towards him because of Stockholm Syndrome, Denver breaks up with Mi-seon so that she'd leave with the other hostages who've chosen to walk out when given the last chance for that. She does walk out with the others, but when Tokyo makes her dynamic return to the mint, Mi-seon changes her mind and runs back in to be with Denver.
• Brick Joke: Berlin tells Cho Young-min that any hostages who cooperate obviously won't be able to just leave with the money, but will get a big box of it at a later date. In the final scene, when Cho Young-min is moving out after his wife leaves him, he rejects a box he didn't pack and leaves it on the curb. The camera then pans to show it's full of cash.
• But Not Too Gay: There is no mention of an LGBT character, although whether this remake completely cut that out or plan to reveal it later remains to be seen.
• Caper Rationalization: The story narrative is meant to convince the viewer that we should feel some empathy for characters who are criminals. We start the story with Tokyo’s story and it’s made even clearer then the source material that she was arguably a Justified Criminal.
• Character Narrator: Like her counterpart from the original series, Tokyo is the character who narrates the events.
• Composite Character:
  • Downplayed. While Tokyo and Nairobi are still separate characters, Tokyo inherits some traits of the original Nairobi, such as becoming the leader in the Mint after the group disagrees with Berlin's methods. Meanwhile, Nairobi takes the original Tokyo's status as The Tease.
  • The militant North Korean captain Cha Moo-Hyuk combines traits from both Angel and Prieto.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Professor has many plans and contingencies, so the thieves are well prepared when they take the Mint. Woo-Jin is quick to catch on how the thieves were actually intending to hold hostages, as they would have had to bring enough extra costumes and masks to disguise even the visiting students.
• Crocodile Tears: Initially when Woo-Jin is allowed into the Mint with a cameraman to check on the status of the hostages, she is forced to stand at a distance by the thieves. When Anne is presented, she fakes an emotional breakdown so that Woo-Jin could approach and comfort her, giving Anne a chance to pass information.
• Death by Origin Story: Berlin's mother died during their attempted defection from North Korea.
• Death Faked for You: In the first season, Berlin catches and shoots an infiltrator. The listening cops are understandably horrified when they have their first casualty, but it’s later revealed Berlin knowingly shot the man in his bulletproof vest.
• Decomposite Character: Downplayed. Helsinki and Oslo are separate characters in both series, but the original Oslo was always Out of Focus while Helsinki gets to show his Hidden Depths as a Bruiser with a Soft Center, especially following Oslo's death. The new Helsinki and Oslo have the original Helsinki's traits split more evenly between them, like his close friendship with Nairobi. The new Oslo is also the one who commits the original Helsinki's mistake of failing to get rid of the team's car in accordance to the Professor's instructions.
• Decoy Damsel: Anne was able to successfully distract Rio, and even manages to steal his gun. Unfortunately she is not familiar enough with guns to realize the safety is on, and Rio quickly takes control back.
• Decoy Getaway: The hostages are roped into digging a tunnel that they believe is to help the thieves escape. It’s not, and it’s made clear early on that Moscow is digging his own secret tunnel.
• Defiant Captive: While most of the hostages obey the thieves, some of them do have their moments.
• Defective Detective: The Professor initially thought Woo-Jin could be this, as while she can be competent he knows she has plenty of personal troubles he could use against her.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Downplayed with Oslo. The original one is struck across the head and left in a vegetative state, after which Helsinki mercy kills him. The Korean one is also struck across the head, but he loses blood so quickly there's no need for mercy killing.
• Disguised Hostage Gambit: Once all the hostages are gathered, they are forced to wear the same attire and masks as the hostage-takers. This is made clear to the police early on, preventing them from just storming the Ming like they initiated planned.
• Dressing as the Enemy: The first SWAT team that were to be sent in wore their usual gear, but the second team were dressed just like the people in the Mint. Of course, this made sense as they were meant to be infiltrators, and while the Professor eventually figured it out and sends in his team after them, one soldier managed to successfully join the hostages.
• Easily Forgiven: When Nairobi confesses she's the one who betrayed the team by trying to murder Anne and unwittingly causing Oslo's death, she's quickly forgiven when she explains Kim Sang-man threatened to hurt her son if she doesn't obey him.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Many times when the cops have them, the Professor is actually prepared. The first time Woo-Jin gets one over the Professor, it’s when he told her in their negotiations that he had a sandwich for breakfast, except the food suppliers to the Mint told her only traditional Korean food is served, alerting her to the fact that he had access to outside food and was therefore outside the Mint.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Varying levels, but even the hostages could see which of their captors may be kinder. At one point, when Tokyo first becomes leader, even the hostages say they prefer her because she treats them more humanely.
• The Fake Cutie: When Tokyo first arrived to South Korean and is deceived into accepting jobs of exploitation, she is forced to hide all her military training, until she finally snaps.
• Foreign Remake: A South Korean remake of the Spanish show Money Heist.
• From Bad to Worse: As the story goes on, tensions rise and situations escalate.
• Given Name Reveal: As in the original series, to protect their identities the thieves substitute city names in place of their own.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Young-Min is often this, particularly as he watches Denver and Mi-Seon, much like the source material.
• Groin Attack: Denver uses one to defeat Oslo in the third episode.
• History Repeats: When Moscow realizes his son is in a relationship with one of the mint's workers, he reveals that he took Denver's mother hostage when he robbed the bank she worked at. They too believed they were truly in love, and Moscow correctly guesses that Mi-seon has told Denver she doesn't need money as long as she can be with him, which is exactly what Denver's mother told him. However, once Denver was born, his mother left him, and Moscow, not wanting his son to repeat his father's mistakes, begs him to leave Mi-seon. He eventually comes around while he's dying and Mi-seon assures him she's serious about choosing a fugitive's life with Denver.
• I Have Your Wife: Kim Sang-man uses Nairobi's son to blackmail her to murder Anne Kim to give the police an excuse to attack the mint. After the assassination attempt fails, Tokyo and Berlin's mercenaries rescue the boy and allow Woo-jin to take him to a secure place.
• Interrupted Suicide: In the first episode's prologue, Tokyo, tired of fleeing the authorities following her partner's death, points a gun towards her own head just as the Professor finds her and convinces her to join the heist.
• Irony: When Young-min has to move away from his family, he spots one of the house movers caring a box he knows he didn't pack and dumps it in front of the house. After he leaves with the moving truck, the box is revealed to contain his share of the money he was promised for helping the gang finish their job in the mint, exactly how he was told it would be delieverd.
• Kangaroo Court: Discussed when Young-Min accuses Hyun-ho and the North Koreans involved in the digging of the fake tunnel of setting this up against him after the latter speak against how he's only executing his plans for his own good, calling them "commies" in the process.
• Kansas City Shuffle: The police learn quickly that the Professor is constantly trying to fool them, but often get wrong how he is doing it.
• Karmic Thief: Combined with Mint money not "belonging" to a specific individual but the institutions that caused so much economic unrest, the Professor claims they are this.
• Knight Templar: The North Korean unit, led by Cha Moo-Hyuk, is seen as this, since even though they have the same good intentions as the South Korean unit actively work with them, they are more likely to consider an armed response to the heist. Woo-Jin even tells him to observe how a country that respects human rights deals with a crisis.
• Little Miss Con Artist: Anne may be a little older then your typical Deliberately Cute Child, but she is still a minor, and does fake weakness to try reaching her goals. Rio even berates himself for falling for her tricks.
• Loan Shark: Before joining the heist team, Tokyo used to rob from and kill South Korean loan sharks, who began to extort North Koreans upon the opening of the Korean border.
• Male Gaze: To establish her status as The Tease, Nairobi invokes this trope in her introduction scene; as she takes her sweet time to pick up her alias from the globe, she has her behind pointed towards the others, to the awkwardness/annoyance of the Professor and Tokyo.
• Malevolent Masked Men: As in the original show, the thieves/hostage-takers wear identical masks to throw off the police. They forgo the original's Salvador Dalí masks for traditional Korean Hahoe masks.
• Meaningful Name: The Location Theme Naming of some of the characters are given more context for.
  • Tokyo chooses her name to refer to the Japanese occupation because the crew is about to do something bad.
  • Berlin, who spent most of his life in Kaechon concentration camp, likely chose his alias as reference to Nazi Germany.
  • Rio, whom Tokyo first describes to look like a K-pop idol, states that he has always wanted to visit Rio Carnival.
  • Denver is a Rocky fan and picks up said city because he mistakenly associates the Rocky Mountains with the movie's setting.
  • Moscow reveals that his late mother's lifetime wish was to travel on train from Busan all the way to Moscow.
  • Nairobi claims she chose the city from Africa due to the diamonds and greatness of Mother Nature.
  • Like her Spanish counterpart, Mi-seon takes Stockholm as her alias when she joins the crew after developing Stockholm Syndrome towards Denver.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Moscow, when he first learned that his son allegedly executed one of the hostages, is horrified that he helped turn his son into a murderer.
  • Anne blames herself for causing the death of a would-be rescuer, who explicitly told her not to alert anyone about him, only for her to do so.
  • As the one who orders and approves the more militant tactics, Moo-Hyuk experiences this often. Highlights include almost killing hostages, sending a soldier to his presumed death, and cutting Woo-Jin out from the investigation.
  • Nairobi experiences this after she indirectly causes Oslo's death due to being blackmailed to try to murder Anne when her son's life is threatened.
• Mythology Gag: The café that the Professor owns is named "Bella Ciao," the same name as one of the songs used in the original series.
• Once More, with Clarity: This remake keeps with the flashbacks throughout the series, showing how things were done.
• Police Brutality Gambit: One of the reasons why the Professor emphasized the no-killing rule. The Korean public initially supported a raid to end the crisis, but once they show the hostage-takers made a point of sparing lives while the police are willing to accept casualties, public opinion turned against the police.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Inverted with Tokyo and Rio, who don't fall for each other unlike their original counterparts, instead having a close platonic relationship. That said, it's clear that Rio still has a crush on Tokyo.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • The Professor sees Moo-Hyuk once in the Task Force tent, and once more when the latter is snuck into the medical team allowed inside the Mint. Rather than just be content with that, or think he may have just remembered wrong, the Professor instead focused on the different glasses Moo-Hyuk was wearing to correctly deduce that there was a camera.
  • Moo-Hyuk is the first to suspect Woo-Jin's new boyfriend because he was the only outsider to step inside the Task Force tent.
  • Tokyo stops Anne from returning Woo-Jin's hug, preventing her from passing information to the police.
• Race Lift: Since the setting moves from Spain to Korea, most of the cast's equivalents are now Korean instead of Spanish. Meanwhile, Anne Kim is American in contrast to her original counterpart Alison Parker's British nationality.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation:
  • Whereas the original Helsinki and Oslo were cousins, the two are stated to be brothers in this series. They're not biologically related though; they grew up in the same orphanage and consider each other brothers.
  • The Professor and Berlin were half-brothers in the original series. They're shown to have the same parents in this continuity.
• Resignations Not Accepted: The first time it looks like Moo-Hyuk is going to be fired or forced to resign, Woo-Jin refuses to just accept this and tells him to keep fighting.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Woo-Jin was selected by the Korean government to lead the Task Force because she was the only negotiator at the time not connected to a scandal. Because the scandals were actually outed by the Professor before the heist, solely to place her in that position, Captain Cha suspected she was a mole. After he tells her about this, she realizes the thieves may have targeted her early.
• Scoundrel Code: While this Professor doesn’t enforce as many rules as the original, he is aware that he is trying to get a group of near-strangers with criminal inclinations together, and so tries to give them one.
• Sick Captive Scam: Many of the named hostages will pull this at least once in an attempt to outsmart the thieves.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The original Berlin died by giving the rest of the team time to escape from the mint. This one also stays behind to hold off the police, but he manages to survive and escape thanks to Seoul.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Like in the original series, this occurs among some of the hostages, most notably Yoon Mi-seon's (Mónica Gaztambide's Korean counterpart) romance with Denver. Moscow in turn reveals that he first got together with Denver's mother when he took her hostage while robbing a bank. However, she left him once she had given birth to Denver.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Even more so than the original series, the Joint Task Force here are all much more respectful of each other and are all trying to do their jobs.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal: Downplayed with Berlin, who, unlike his counterpart from the original series, isn't really motivated by or doesn't mind about his identical illness at all, since he had spent over two decades diagnosed with it, and doesn't try to get himself killed when he gets the opportunity to do it in a glamorous way. He still gets physical and mental issues when he doesn't take his necessary medication for a good while, though.
• Token Evil Teammate: Like the original, Berlin is the only member of the heist team who's willing to harm hostages, though he's much less murderous in comparison.
• The Triads and the Tongs: Helsinki and Oslo were members of a Chinese gang from Yanbian before joining the heist team.
• Trojan Horse: In Episode 4 of Season 1, much like the one from the original series, Young-min needs medical attention after being shot in the previous episode, and the police try to sneak Moo-hyuk as part of the team that will treat him while a group of agents get in through a tunnel disguised as hostages. The Professor, aware of the plan, has Rio hack his cellphone to plant a bug and change the masks of everyone else to make the agents stand out. This is even name-dropped in the flashback to the Professor explaining the tactic to the team, with Denver saying that he knew it from "the Brad Pitt movie."
• Ultimate Job Security: Woo-Jin was first thought to have this because the other negotiators are currently all caught up in scandals, and even Moo-Hyuk was said to be more likely dismissed before she would be, so she threatened to resign herself to protect him. Unfortunately her ex-husband is a popular politician who is slandering her, and her other family problems are starting to unravel.
• Undying Loyalty: What the police complains about, as it seems like all the criminals would rather die then reveal the Professor. Berlin even picks up Rio’s resentment of the Professor because Tokyo has this, while Denver goes through a beating from Young-Min and still refused to give up information.
• Villain with Good Publicity: One of the ways the Professor is able to hinder the police is if he could get public opinion to side with him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Moo-Hyuk wants the heist to end just as much as Woo-Jin does, but his aggressive and militant approach puts them at odds.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Just as in the original series, there is a scene where a compromised Moscow is assisted by Denver and the hostages. Everyone is masked, so the watching police cannot take action, but at one point the Mint director starts acting aggressively because he thought Denver killed his paramour. Denver and everyone else kneels, and the police open fire on who they quickly realize is a hostage.

---