REVIEW: ‘Made in Korea’ Season 2 Is A Fantastic Albeit Inconsistent Look At 1970s Korean Politics

Individually, ambition and greed are excellent motivators for the right person. When combined, they can become the recipe for someone to be both powerful and dangerous. Made In Korea Season 2 (Meideu in Koria) explores those themes as the historical fiction continues its look at the corruption found in South Korea during the 1970s. Made In Korea Season 2, by director Woo Min-ho, does a great job communicating the depth of that corruption even if the writing is less consistent than the first season.

It’s 1979, and Baek Kitae (Hyun Bin) has risen to the position of Director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) following the assassination of the president by the KCIA Director. It’s worth noting that this mirrors real life because the KCIA Director really did assassinate the South Korean president amid civil unrest in 1979.

Because of the president’s sudden death, there is now a power vacuum desperately trying to be filled by two warring factions: the KCIA and the military. With Kitae leading the KCIA, the military faction is led by General Hwang Daesik from the Joint Investigations Headquarters (JIH).

Made in Korea Season 2’s biggest strength is its believability.

General Hwang brings in someone with a personal vendetta against Kitae for help: Jang Geonyoung (Jung Woo-sung). Also working in the JIH under General Hwang are Oh Yejin (Seo Eun-su) and Kitae’s brother Baek Kihyun (Woo Do-Hwan).

With that, the stage is set for a series that’s both a political crime thriller with a penchant for state-sponsored organized crime, and a game of cat-and-mouse between the two series leads. In fact, the dynamic between Kitae and Geonyoung is far more intense, but still fundamentally the same as in Made in Korea Season 1. The big difference is that Geonyoung has learned from his failures 9 years ago. As he chases Kitae armed with a new perspective, Kitae remains largely the same as he was back then but in a nicer office.

Made in Korea 2’s biggest strength is its believability. Thanks to its historical backdrop, no one has to question if the director of South Korea’s primary intelligence agency would actually assassinate the president because that’s not fiction. No one has to wonder if the government would sanction the selling of meth to the Japanese Yakuza, because that’s not fiction either.

What’s maddening is how inconsistent the character writing is in Made in Korea Season 2.

What is fiction is much easier to allow people to believe, especially considering the context of a state-sponsored drug trade and presidential assassination. It’s much easier to believe that the seedy, underhanded elements of a government capable of such things would ever be fully altruistic. Everyone, including the series’ protagonist, Geonyoung, has their own agendas.

In fact, by the time the finale rolls around, Geonyoung has transformed from someone who wants to serve his country to someone on a personal mission of revenge against Baek Kitae. This becomes so obvious that other characters are pointing it out. Eventually, Geonyoung even blurs the line between hero and villain, and the audience is left wondering who to root for.

What’s maddening is how inconsistent the writing for these characters is. In one sense, Geonyoung is almost a whole new character in Made In Korea Season 2. The evolution of his character is a much-needed change to keep the stakes from being stagnant. On the other hand, Kitae’s relative stagnation makes him seem like the most two-dimensional character in Made in Korea.

Hyun Bin is brilliant in bringing the cold, calculated villain aesthetic to life.

This is especially important because Made in Korea Season 1 sets Baek Kitae up as a cold, calculated villain playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. The Made in Korea Season 2 premiere continues that legacy, and Hyun Bin is brilliant in bringing that aesthetic to life.

Unfortunately, the writing never develops him anywhere else. Kitae truly believes in what he’s doing as more than just a matter of ambition and greed. Everything he does is to build a legacy and care for his family while serving his country. That kind of loyalty only gets him so far, with his ambition and greed crossing the finish line into some truly heinous acts.

Hyun Bin, for his part, is such a good actor that for most of Made In Korea Season 2, his character’s writing is covered up by Hyun’s gravitas and bravado. Unfortunately, it’s not the only place where the writing was inducing more head scratching than nodding.

In the Made In Korea Season 2 premiere, the series sets up Choi Yuji (Won Ji-an) as a force to be reckoned with. After Yuji murders her father and takes his position as head of the Ikeda clan by force, the natural expectation is that she’d be a major player in Made In Korea Season 2. Instead, she takes a back seat and winds up looking weak for the remaining episodes in the season.

Made In Korea Season 2 is a high-intensity K-drama worth a chance.

This is especially disappointing because Won Ji-an is exceptional in the premiere. Despite that, her talents are wasted for a vast majority of the season. One of the best actors on set, playing one of the best-written characters in Made In Korea Season 2, was effectively sidelined. The only hope for audiences to see a better version of her is if Korean House of Cards gets renewed for a third season.

The writing is also marred by the bizarre inclusion of Madam Shin (Jang Hye-jin). Madam Shin is some kind of mystic or priestess. Made In Korea Season 2 doesn’t really explain much about what she actually does or how she’s so well connected. After the president is assassinated, she appears to side with the KCIA in the power struggle and works with them in their efforts to take down General Hwang and the JIH.

In the finale, Madam Shin can be seen in a cave, performing ritualistic chants and prayers, with blood spatter. She looks like it’s taking everything out of her, and yet, the very next time she appears on screen, she’s completely back to normal. It’s very confusing and adds nothing to the narrative. If her character were to be erased entirely, the story would survive unchanged.

The score in Made In Korea Season 2 is better than that of its predecessor but shares the same basic flaw. There’s a scene in an episode of Family Guy that illustrates it perfectly. In the scene, a cutaway gag spoofing The Godfather takes place, and the trumpets playing over the scene grow progressively louder until the characters have to shout at each other. Made In Korea Season 2 commits the same kind of sin. The overly dramatic music — including trumpets that are in every episode — is an attempt to give the series a noir vibe but ends up being more of a distraction than drama.

Overall, Made In Korea Season 2 is good TV. It’s got the backbone of an excellent crime thriller with political intrigue, corruption, betrayal, and real-life history. It’s a shining example of what ambition, power, and greed can do to the worst of us and even the best of us. While the writing is inconsistent at best, Made In Korea Season 2 is a high-intensity K-drama worth a chance.

Made in Korea Season 2 is streaming exclusively on Disney+ and Hulu.