The Keys to An Exemplary Family, the new South Korean Netflix series

The Netflix catalog continues to grow with South Korean productions. This Friday, the streaming giant will debut an exemplary familya new series of the increasingly prolific Asian country that aims to follow in the footsteps of the game of squidthe boom of 2021.

Some time ago it emerged that the platform had signed long-term contracts to continue investing heavily in this content. An example of this is the South Korean remake of The robbery of money. The trend is expected to continue over the next few years.

a little bit at a time, other platforms join the trend and include K-dramas in their catalogbut the service of the red N itches in quantity.

Looking forward to the second season of the game of squidit is worth diving into this police drama in ten episodes of a model family, which ends up caught up in drug cartels overnight.

The plot

an exemplary family focuses on the character of Dong-ha, played by actor Jung Woo, the head and breadwinner of a family on the brink of bankruptcy.

About to divorce his wife (Yoon Jin-seo), with a teenage daughter and a sick son desperately fighting for a heart transplant, man urgently needs money.

And suddenly he finds himself involuntarily with it: on a deserted road, runs into a car containing a bag full of banknotes. The problem is that it also houses the bodies of two dead.

For that lot of money, Dong-ha gets involved in a gang of drug traffickers, most notably with Gwang-cheol, the second in command of the cartel, putting him under pressure and blackmails him into a mule for the organization.

“I know the strong energy between these two men who have to protect their families and their money respectively”, closes the official summary.

Model and family: two words in question

Kim Jin-woo, director and screenwriter of an exemplary family, claimed to have tried to dismantle the stigma of the words “model” and “family”. Through characters from the criminal world, he tries to question the audience by asking what he defines these ideas of exemplarity.

“Many people give meaning to the word ‘model’ based solely on the outward appearance of the person,” Kim explained a few days ago at a press meeting in Seoul.

“People often use the word to describe others without really knowing their inner thoughts or circumstances. In some ways, the word is irresponsible, ”added the writer of the series.

Jin-woo talked about the innate component of the family. “Family is something we have grown up with innately, we can’t know in advance how to start a family,” she mused.

“Regarding our local culture, we have a distinct social stigma about what defines a family and what kind of family is considered exemplary. Seeing the Dong-ha family story, I wanted viewers to think about how we can really define these two. words “, proposed the director.

South Korean Ozark?

After the trailer was released last month, many have hinted at it the narrative is reminiscent of another crime drama series but made in the United States: nothing less than Ozarkwhich is also a Netflix original production.

Although many already postulate it an exemplary family is the South Korean version of the fiction with Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, the “South Korean” concept of family is already understood as a differentiating element of this and other stories in which people outside the world of violence and organized crime are forced to make difficult decisions under great pressure.

“I’ve heard this from people who have read the script, and while I think the two programs use similar elements (like money laundering and drug cartels), I haven’t seen Ozark before hearing those opinions, ”Kim said.

“And then I purposely didn’t watch the show because I thought it was going to affect me unintentionally and “A model family””Added the director. It will be a matter of waiting for what Netflix subscribers will judge.