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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Ji Chang-wook, Jo Woo-jin, Ha Yoon-kyung, Bibi
The underbelly of the Gangnam neighbourhood in South Korean capital Seoul is exposed yet again in the stylish cops-and-clubbers thriller Gangnam B-Side, the first three episodes of which received their world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.
Playing a pimp who goes on the run, Ji Chang-wook has the lead role, teaming up with Disney+ and production company Sanai Pictures once again following last year’s The Worst of Evil, also a Gangnam-set crime thriller.
Jo Woo-jin (Narco-Saints) co-stars as the grizzled police officer battling Gangnam’s drug pushers and corrupt police force.


Considered to be Seoul’s ritziest neighbourhood, Gangnam enjoys a reputation as a playground for the rich, a fashion mecca and a debauched hotbed of drugs, prostitution and corruption. Like many shows and films before it, Gangnam B-Side focuses squarely on the latter.
Instead of designer-goods stores and fancy cafes and restaurants, the Gangnam of this series is filled with secret drug raves and neon-drenched back rooms packed with grinning men hopped up on drugs and booze and scantily-clad young women, often sprawled on couches barely conscious after having had their drinks spiked.

The show opens with detective Kang Dong-woo (Jo) blowtorching his way into one of these secret raves and busting the surprised revellers. But Dong-woo is not satisfied, especially when his colleagues try to congratulate him and steer him away from another door.
He brushes them off and pushes his way through, revealing a corridor bathed in red neon light. Dong-woo’s eyes sparkle – the colour red always puts him on to a good hunch – and he finds his way to a room full of drugs and a masked man who turns out to be a fellow police officer.
Three years later, Dong-woo is no longer in Gangnam, having been transferred to a quieter town after getting too close to the Gangnam Trading Company and corruption that goes all the way up the chain of command in his department.
In the present, the Gangnam underbelly continues to throb, feeding on fresh young meat, including a pair of young escorts who disappear. These are Jae-hee – played by Kim Hyeong-seo, aka Bibi, Ji’s The Worst of Evil co-star – and her friend, who are looked after by Ji’s ferocious driver and pimp Yoon Gil-ho.
Gil-ho is an angry creature who seethes at everyone when he is not beating them to a pulp, but it is quickly made clear that all he cares about is protecting his girls. He lashes out at at drug pushers and his anger is stoked further by the dangerous men who are after Jae-hee.

This is where things get a little confusing. After being pumped full of drugs, Jae-hee manages to slip away, pump her own stomach and escape into the night, but it is not entirely clear why the bad guys are after her.
Unfortunately, Jae-hee’s friend is not so lucky and Gil-ho soon finds her corpse floating in a bloodstained hotel room jacuzzi.
Meanwhile, one of Dong-woo’s former superiors, who is now a national assemblyman, implores him to come back to Gangnam to help solve the disappearances.
He grudgingly agrees to do so, partly because Jae-hee is a friend of his daughter, a formerly strait-laced student who has been experiencing mental health issues following an unexplained trauma involving Jae-hee.

The bad guys, who are deeply enmeshed in the police and the prosecution service, continue to look for Jae-hee and frame Gil-ho for murder.
Despite coming from very different sides of the track, Dong-woo and Gil-ho are on the same side as far as this case is concerned, as is prosecutor Min Seo-jin (Ha Yoon-kyung, Extraordinary Attorney Woo), who is initially naive about the corruption taking place all around her.
Gangnam B-Side is a very enjoyable addition to the Korean crime-drama canon; it is also the latest production to demonise drug use. The show is nowhere as extreme in its depiction of the evils of narcotics as shows like Strong Girl Nam-soon, but it still exhibits a lopsided view of criminality that reflects society at large.
Prostitution, which is illegal in South Korea but widely tolerated, gets a pass in the series, with Ji’s pimp clearly painted as a hero, making him something of a screen descendant of Kim Yun-seok’s pimp in classic thriller The Chaser.

Drugs are also illegal but these are not tolerated in the slightest, with the government and media routinely demonising offenders. The contrasting treatment of drugs and prostitution is plain for all to see in Gangnam B-Side.
However, this is a show clearly designed as entertainment; there is no deeper message about how society views these common crimes.
Park Noo-ri makes her K-drama directing debut, following her big-screen financial thriller Money with Ryu Jun-yeol, and infuses the series with punchy pacing and a mix of grunge, grit and vibrant visuals.
Gangnam B-Side will start streaming on Disney+ on November 6.


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Bibi (left) as escort Jae-hee and Ji Chang-wook as pimp Gil-ho in a still from Gangnam B-Side. Photo: Disney+

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The seedy underbelly of Seoul’s most glam neighbourhood is laid bare in this stylish thriller starring Ji Chang-wook as a pimp on the run


The seedy underbelly of Seoul’s most glam neighbourhood is laid bare in this stylish thriller starring Ji Chang-wook as a pimp on the run.
