On reflection, ‘Café Minamdang’ had a lot of potential to be a good series . Its plot, setup and casting choices seemed to suggest that it was going to be somewhat avant-garde but enjoyable as well as creating potential for some likeable characters along the way for audiences also. However, there are times where reality can be very disappointing. Sadly the eighteen -episode KBS2- Netflix series rarely hit the mark and instead created a show with some very mixed results for the audience.

As suggested previously, this isn’t to say that the concept of the show was bad from the outset. It is important to acknowledge that the screenplay was adapted from “ Minamdang: Case Note”; a fairly successful novel by writer Jung Jae-ha. In charge of adapting Jung’s novel to the small screen were Screenwriter Park Hye Jin and Director Go Jae Hyun. ( Viewers will likely know these familiar names from productions such as ‘ The Emperor: Owner Of The Mask’ , ‘Smoking Gun’, as well as ‘ Black’ and ‘ Dinner Mate’ respectively.)

The narrative of the series predominantly focuses upon scam-artist and former-criminal profiler, Nam Han-joon (Seo In-Guk- ‘Reply 1997’, ‘ High School King Of Savvy’ and ‘ Doom At Your Service’). Pretending to be a shaman at his main base of operation, Café Minamdang, Han-Joon’s talents for decoding body language and micro -expressions has given him the ability to swindle people out of pocket easily and without causing suspicion. Especially thanks to the expertise of his little sister and hacker Nam Hye-joon (Kang Mi-Na- ‘ Dokgo Rewind’, ‘ Hotel del Luna’ and ‘ Moonshine’).

However after snooping around in a hit-and-run incident involving the husband of one of his clients, Han-Joon becomes acquainted with Detective Han Jae-Hee (Oh Yeon-Seo- ‘ My Husband Got A Family’, ‘ Love With Flaws’ and ‘ Mad For Each Other’). Developing a small crush on the investigator, Nam Han-Joon begins to play a cat-and-mouse game with Han-Jae-Hee, leading to many unforeseen consequences for both the detective and the scam -artist .

A lot of viewers have understandably remained divided with one major component of ‘ Café Minamdang’ among many others; its tone and mood. Of course, it isn’t unusual for a show to want to offer leverage between tense and melodramatic moments with more lighthearted or easygoing scenes. However what was noticeable for audiences with regards to Park Hye Jin’s writing, came through some of these underlying moods feelings overly inappropriate at times. To explain this in more depth, ‘ Café Minamdang’ did have its darker and tense moments which while exciting were often heavily overshadowed by strained attempts to offer " comic relief"; even when discussing serious or grave matters or when it didn’t always feel necessary to a moment of scene. However while while forms of comic relief can sometimes work well in this scenario, ‘ Café Minamdang’ often heavily relied on a physical and wacky form of comedy ; commonly found in Korean dramas and productions. Naturally, it isn’t necessarily that this comic relief was bad per say. However, it never seemed to truly flow well against some of the subject matters tackled.

As for the acting and casting choices of the series, Seo-In-Guk’s performance as the main lead is fairly solid here. Although it is fair to say that his onscreen character will either be loved or hated by viewers of equal measure .
Nam Han-Joon was an interesting male lead in his own right. scam artist with a particularly unconventional method of scamming people out of pocket, the male lead had a lot of intriguing elements to his character from the outset. However, where writing issues did become noticeable can often be said to be found through his overall character-arc.

Throughout the course of ‘ Café Minamdang’, there were few and far moments between where viewers truly got to see Nam Han Joon be held accountable for his self-absorbed personality or feel conflicted with his past and current actions. Later episodes admittedly did offer some justification for his current-self and vulnerabilities through his backstory but even then this often somewhat rough around the edges. Instead, a lot of the male lead’s personality traits were often played out for laughs and were rarely interspersed with opportunities for viewers to understand a lot more about Han-Joon.

Similarly, Oh Yeon Seo delivered a decent performance as Seo In Guk’s onscreen counterpart and female lead Han Jae-Hee. Oh Yeon Seo’s performance is admittedly a little wooden at times but this wasn’t entirely the fault of the actress per say. Instead a lot of the blame can probably be put on the writing decisions for the female lead.

Similar to male lead Nam Han-Joon, Han Jae-Hee had a lot of potential to be an intriguing character in her own right. ( Especially as someone involved in a particularly astute field of work such as crime investigation and the male lead’s initial advisory.) However, instead of the female lead having her own moments in the spotlight to be explored as a complex character with her own motivations and flaws, Jae-Hee was often subjugated to the role of being overly fractious, whiney and frivolous character; rarely changing, being explored beyond her surface level or being developed even into later episodes of the series.

In addition to the main characters of ‘ Café Minamdang’, it’s hard not to acknowledge some of the reoccurring side character also. In particular, there should be a special shout-out given to actress Kang Mi-Na. Although her onscreen persona was rarely given her moments to shine in later episodes, the actress delivered a surprisingly charming and lively edge to Nam Hye-Joon.

Acting aside, it is hard to forget one of the show’s most bizarre elements; the superhuman-like abilities of some of the main characters, especially in early episodes of the series. Admittedly, ‘ Café Minamdang’ was never truly aiming for hyper-realism with its setup and premise. However it still seemed inexplicable in a mystery-comedy series to see some of its main characters being able to suddenly run at breakneck speeds and scale buildings without any hassle. Perhaps the show was aiming to play this off for some parodical moments but instead, this often led to some slightly head scratching moments without enough context being given.

One of the major points of intrigue for ‘ Café Minamdang’ came through its crucial plot point of the “cat-and-mouse game” between detective and scam artist. Although there were moments which could be fairly entertaining, it still often seemed that the screenplay’s attempts to build up this “ hype” took a lot longer than expected. While the first few episodes of ‘ Café Minamdang’ did require for some necessary spoon-feeding for viewers towards establishing the identity of main characters as well as the main plot-arc, the tedious duration of episodes at times in addition to some unnecessary plot points could’ve been avoided with harsher writing decisions and editing. ( For example rather than attempting to pad out episodes with a surplus amount of comic relief or unnecessary subplots, the series could’ve used the time in-between to develop characters, intensify the mystery element of the storyline and heighten relationships between characters as well as using these writing points, as a tool for improving the continuity of the narrative in later episodes.) As a result, the final part of the series felt somewhat underdeveloped and lacked a satisfactory feeling of completion for many viewers.

Stylistically and under the directing leadership of Go Jae Hyun, ‘ Café Minamdang’ was fairly conventional for a Korean drama. The quality of filming was decent enough and while there were certainly a few nice moments of cinematography ( especially with contrasting palette schemes such as with natural and vivid hues ) , perhaps it is fair to say that there were was nothing particularly standout with regards to the stylistic approach either. (Perhaps it didn’t help that even for the slightly theatrical and fabricated worlds of K-dramas, the settings and set designs for ‘ Café Minamdang’ felt a bit counterfeit as they rarely felt "lived-in" by the characters.)

Certainly one of the few major and surprising highlights of the series came through its OST. ‘ Café Minamdang’ offered viewers with a surprising array of genres from the surprisingly catchy rap track “ Ghost Buster” by Jo Gwang-il and the beguiling alternative pop song “ Stay Awake” by Nam Young-joo though there were some tracks on the OST which were a little unremarkable also.

‘ Café Minamdang’ started off on a potential high note with an intriguing setup, an impressive cast and characters. Seo In Guk and Kang Mi Na delivered fairly consistent performances but even they couldn’t save the series from crashing and burning as it ran its course. Despite a talented cast and some entertaining moments here and there, ‘ Cafe Minamdang’ felt greatly overshadowed by its flaws ( especially narrative execution and character writing) rather than its strengths.