Cafe Minamdang stars Seo In-guk and Oh Yeon-Seo. (Photo: Netflix)Cafe Minamdang reminds me of a very intoxicated person telling a story at a wedding party, very entertaining at first, will make you laugh—and then once they notice that you’re laughing, they’ll try so hard to make you laugh again and then forget their own story, because they’re too busy laughing. At the end, they’re so lost in giggling incoherently at their own jokes, that you don’t know what’s funny anymore. You really want to be a part of it, but you just can’t understand what’s happening.
This feeling of polite bewilderment, exasperation, coupled with a few chuckles is what Cafe Minamdang, starring the ever-reliable Seo In-guk and Oh Yeon-So, feels like. The first few episodes itself are pure chaos, but enjoyable chaos—you know you’ll be coming back for more, even if it is very scrambled. The next five episodes are exciting. And then, the series becomes intoxicated by its own comedy and loses the plot, literally.
The show revolves around Seo In-guk’s Nam Han-joon, a criminal profiler who was imprisoned after being accused of fabricating evidence in the murder of his close friend Jae-jung, a well-known prosecutor. Out of prison, he takes on the role of a fraudulent shaman, who actually uses Sherlockian skills of reasoning and deduction to crack seedy cases. He hasn’t forgotten the murder of his friend, and is overwhelmed by guilt that he could not save him on that fatal night as he was too focused on nabbing the murderer.
Nam Han-joon has an odd-ball squad with him – his sister Nam Hye-joon (Kang Mi-na) and his close friend Gong Su-cheol (Kwak Si-yang). Hye-joon is an expert hacker and Su-Cheol, is, well, very good company and support. Hye-joon and Su-cheol’s love story is played entirely for laughs and to get a rise out of Han-joon. Added to this mix is On Yeon-so’s righteous cop Han Jae-hui—the ‘ghost’ as she’s called owing to her fighting abilities, and the sister of Jae-jung. Jae-hui is harbouring an old crush on Han-joon, coupled with grief, anger and resentment about his imprisonment—so all her emotions are a tangled mess. Hence, she doesn’t stop herself from delivering a punch across his jaw whenever she meets him. Of course they fall in love, much to the chagrin of her close friend and prosecutor, Cha Do-won (Kwon Soo-hyun)
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Unfortunately, we don’t get to delve much into Jae-hui’s real emotions, even though she is the sister of the man who was murdered. Apart from a few scenes where she’s allowed to show grief, this is Nam Han-joon’s show all the way. Jae-hui exists to either foil his plans or listen to them. As a consolation prize, she isn’t a damsel in distress that needs to be rescued—except for one instance, because how else will we show a flourishing romance, if our hero doesn’t get to flex his muscles at least once?
This motley crew unites with the police to track down the murderer—but oh wait, there are two murders, with a sadistic and evil spiritual woman thrown into the mix. There are many, many plot threads and backstories to the extent that the show begins to burst at the seams. But you still can somewhat keep up—for a while—-till the real murderer is revealed. He was right there in front of us all along, and our initial suspicions about him are quickly quelled. We grew to like him a lot too, and he seemed to fit right into the madness. Nevertheless, the revelation is upsetting, but not as disappointing as the contrived backstory that’s written for him. A psychiatrist is at the root of it all because she was thrilled with reforming a child with psychopathic tendencies….you get the drift.
After Episode 14, Cafe Minamdang is just chaos and the final showdown between Han-joon and the killer doesn’t deliver the punch it should. Moreover, it’s jarring that Han-joon has the final battle with the killer in the rain, of course to show impact.
Seo In-guk clearly had a ball with this role and had no qualms about going rather overboard with it, and this energy seemed to slowly spread to others by the middle of the series. To be honest, it was actually fun to watch him in such a kooky avatar at first, because in his last show Doom At Your Service, he actually played Death. In Cafe Minamdang, the energy is infectious and then we are treated to excessive hamming and exaggerated crying, all played for laughs.
It worked partly in the beginning, but once the suspense of the murder mystery began to reach a peak, this particular diversion into comedy seemed like a waste of time. I’m all for laughs, even if it’s in a serial killer mystery. But either do it better, or get the timing right? For instance, an example of getting comedy with murder mystery right is Suspicious Partner. The show revolved around an intriguing serial thriller case, with a romantic comedy fitted neatly into the middle. The comedy was fun, and the murder mystery was riveting, with a twist in the end. Or maybe, try the Vincenzo way, where looniness was top-notch, but never felt exaggerated or out of place. Cafe Minamdang begins to awkwardly waver between two planes, satisfying fans of neither genre. The romance between the leads is sweet, but we don’t get too many of those moments because the show frantically dives like an ostrich back into comedy.
Cafe Minamdang is good fun at the beginning and it had suspense, comedy and a romance blended well into the story. But, it is all sacrificed for forced storylines, hamming and a rather problematic twist that we really didn’t need. Maybe if you watch the show in fast-forward, you might enjoy it.