Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Cafe Minamdang’ on Netflix, A New Cat-and-Mouse K-Drama

Netflix has established itself as a home for popular K-Dramas (Korean dramas), even branching out to create original series. Cafe Minamdang is based on a popular web novel by writer Jung Jae-ha, which also won a grand prize on the platform KakaoPage. How does the adaptation fare as a television series?

CAFE MINAMDANG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: On a semi-busy bridge, the camera employs stylistic smash cuts to hone in on an orange car as it navigates traffic and approaches the MK Noble Hotel. A stylish man in a red suit gets out of the backseat.

The Gist: Nam Han-joon (Seo In-guk) is a former criminal profiler who pretends to be a shaman to swindle people out of money and uses Cafe Minamdang as his headquarters of operation. He has a gift for reading people’s facial expressions and body language to appear like the spirit is speaking to him, and leans on his little sister Nam Hye-joon (Kang Mi-na), an expert hacker, to solidify his claims. As he’s investigating a hit-and-run case involving one of his client’s husbands, he is introduced to Detective Han Jae-hee (Oh Yeon-seo), forming a slight crush on her while she investigates him, setting up a cat-and-mouse game for the series.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With Nam Han-joon’s criminal background and ability to read people on a surface-level, the show feels a little reminiscent to the fun Matt Bomer vehicle White Collar. There are also shades of Killing Eve, especially with the cat-and-mouse game between a detective and a criminal she can’t seem to shake.

Our Take: While the premise of the show seems fun and entertaining, it is unfortunately a little bit undercooked. The main issue is that Nam Han-joon feels like an extremely self-obsessed person, and the characterization comes off more like a caricature than anything else. He’s a bit goofy but not in an endearing way, and his shaman character is played for more laughs than actually realistic, making all of the people who fall for his tricks also seem equally silly.

At a few points in the show, characters are shown to have supernatural strength — running fast and scaling buildings. But the show fails to set up the world as one in which people with unnatural abilities exist, and those moments feel more jarring than exciting.

The cat-and-mouse story between Nam Han-joon and Han Jae-hee is the most exciting part of the series, and it remains to be seen whether it lives up to the promise. Still, the show takes a bit too long to set up the characters and the conflict: K-dramas always tend to have episodes that span an hour or longer, and the pilot of Cafe Minamdang clocks in at an hour and eight minutes, but doesn’t really earn the long runtime. It feels a little bloated and could have shaved the time down slightly to keep the story tighter.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After a lengthy alleyway chase, the shaman stands at the bottom with a sly look on his face while the detective stands atop a building, unsure of what to do next.

Sleeper Star: Kang Mi-na plays Nam Hye-joon, Han-joon’s younger sister who is an accomplished hacker and his right hand woman. She injects a perfect amount of sarcasm and fun to the show.

Most Pilot-y Line: In the first few scenes, Nam Han-joon’s abilities shown to audiences via an interview panel for managerial position at a high-end hotel. Showcasing his skills, he comments on how an applicant’s sharp ears mean she can’t control her impulses — a to-the-point characterization of how he ended up in this position.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While the premise is compelling, the story and characters within the show aren’t.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.