The Apartment Job: Episodes 1-2

by lovepark

Life throws a wrench into a former gangster’s life when he suddenly needs 10 billion won to save his father figure. Despite his efforts, he comes up short, but then a miraculous solution appears before him in the least expected place. All he needs is a fake family to win an election, and then the position of president of the residents’ association is as good as his.

EPISODES 1-2

A handsome face with a genteel manner, HK Trading and Investments CEO PARK HAE-KANG (Ji Sung) is not your typical loan shark. Instead of shadowy gambling dens and metal baseball bats, this entrepreneur runs his operations inside an office building and collects his debts using research. Whether recovering unclaimed ancestral lands or digging into a client’s credit history, the bygone era of threats has been replaced with a more 21st-century approach, but even with Hae-kang’s new leadership, some things remain the same.

In order to keep his illegal business running, Hae-kang greases the wheels of the local police chief who, in turn, works under an even more corrupt police commissioner. Said commissioner wants to buy his way into an elite club run by an unassuming businessman by the name of LEE CHUNG-WON (Park Byung-eun), but the entry fee is 10 billion won. This exorbitant sum is then passed along to Hae-kang, but our moneylender has nowhere near that amount.

Unfortunately, the police chief does not care and has all of Hae-kang’s men arrested for absurd charges. Right-hand man KYUNG-NAM (Jung Soon-won) is tased in the street for bumping into someone, left-hand man JE-GIL (Hwang Hee) is caught for drinking and driving despite being sober, and youngest BIG GUY (Kim Kyu-won) is thrown in jail for possessing illicit materials on a phone that isn’t even his. The straw that breaks the moneylender’s back, though, is when his old boss PARK YONG-MAN (special appearance by Jung Jin-young) gets caught for being the figurehead of Hae-kang’s gambling den.

The police chief gives Hae-kang three months to scrounge up the cash, and in exchange for his initial payment, he releases the crew minus Yong-man. Though his old boss tells Hae-kang to forget about him, our fiercely loyal hero refuses to entertain the thought. Twenty years ago, his birth father sold him to Yong-man to fund his gambling addiction, and ever since they met, the retired gangster has been a father figure to him. When the rest of the world tossed him and his dreams aside, Yong-man offered a hand, and Hae-kang will never forget that.

While Hae-kang will do anything to buy Yong-man’s freedom, he cannot ask the same from his men and sends them off. However, like their boss, they are loyal to a fault, and barely make it out of the building before turning back. With their combined forces, they collect any outstanding debts and sell off all their assets besides Hae-kang’s apartment, but it hardly makes a dent. Running out of options, they come up with a harebrained idea to throw a wedding, but who will stand at the altar of a retired gangster’s sham marriage?

Enter our leading lady KANG HA-RI (Ha Yoon-kyung), a part-time stand-in and a full-time free legal consultant. For the past ten years, Ha-ri has been trying to become a lawyer, and after her nth failure, she feels guilty towards her older sister KANG HA-JUNG (Ryu Hyun-kyung). So guilty, in fact, that she did not tell her that she failed the bar exam again, which somehow snowballed into a lie that she passed and works for a law firm. Now she needs attorney-level paychecks to keep up the ruse, hence the part-time jobs.

For 5 million won, Ha-ri plays the role of bride, and for another 2 million, she kisses the groom (which Hae-kang tactfully fakes with his thumb). However, even after all that hullabaloo, the group only has 3.5 billion won. A significant uptick, but nowhere near their total. To make matters worse, their only remaining debtor is the VVIP “LIZARD” (Kim Won-hae) who happens to be on the run for stealing 4 billion won from his job.

While they capture and dangle Lizard over the side of a building, the older man swears that he has a solution to their problem: have they heard about a long-term repair reserve fund? He informs Hae-kang that apartment complexes collect monthly maintenance fees, and for large neighborhoods like his, the funds could be upwards of 10 billion won (₩17,857,420,000 to be exact). The only way to access it, though, is by becoming the president of the residents’ association, which only building representatives can run for.

Thus, a new plan is hatched — even crazier than the wedding — but along with the bigger prize comes bigger stakes. Contrary to Lizard’s claims that no one cares about this race, a few colorful characters reside in Hae-kang’s complex, most notably the notorious busybody JANG SOOK-JIN (Moon So-ri). She lives for appearances, and what better way to assert her ~~rules~~ advice to her neighbors than by becoming the president. Sook-jin’s meddling also happens to rile up the local mom group, and their leader seems interested in throwing in her hat, as well.

Besides some unexpected competition, a couple of other figures stand in the way of Hae-kang’s plan. First, the current president, SEO KANG-WON (Baek Hyun-jin), is clearly up to shady things and threatens Ha-jung to continue working for the maintenance facility (it wouldn’t be a K-drama without some coincidental connections). The real thorn in our hero’s side, however, will most likely be Chung-won, the penthouse resident. If Hae-kang is the type to ram his car into an annoying neighbor’s vehicle, then Chung-won is the type to key it, pay for the damages, and when the driver comes for revenge, “dispose” of him.

After filling out his application — which Hae-kang refused to lie on because it would violate election laws — he goes to the maintenance facility to turn it in and receives a comment from Ha-jung about his unusual circumstances. Most, if not everyone, who runs for the association are part of a family, and Hae-kang realizes that no one is going to vote for a strange man who lives with three other strange men.

To remedy the situation, he comes up with the idea to make a fake family, which works perfectly with his fake wedding. All he has to do is get Ha-ri on board, and luckily for Hae-kang, she just got fired from her consulting job after slapping a sex offender who claimed the victim “asked for it.” (Yuck.) The pay is 100 million won with a 30 million down payment for a three-month gig as his wife, and though every ounce of Ha-ri’s common sense yells at her to walk away, she responds, “Deal.” As for the rest, Lizard becomes Grandpa, and Kyung-nam’s son KYUNG-BOK (Kim Han-gyeol) becomes Hae-kang’s kid.

In order to cement their lie, the group takes a photo, and I’m dying at their idea of an appropriate “family.” Hae-kang sits on the armchair, absolutely mogging in the corner, while his wife and artsy father stand in the back; and the three “uncles” sit together in the middle and make the only child in the group stand. Thankfully, the photographer moves them around for a more conventional arrangement, and they manage to get as normal of a photo as you would expect from a haphazardly thrown together family.

What a blast! The Apartment Job is off to a strong start with a wacky but surprisingly believable premise along with some interesting characters and motivations. Hae-kang is a great lead with just the right amount of charm and pathos to still be bad yet appealing. He is a bundle of contradictions that somehow work, and the juxtaposition of his calculating side next to his more considerate actions makes him a fun character to root for. His relationship with his father (the real one and not the piece of crap sperm donor) is especially sweet and continues this idea that found family can be more important than blood. I also really like Ha-ri and her outbursts. She’s unrestrained and reckless, but at the same time, that spontaneity is what brings a spark to her personality and makes me think she’ll survive just fine in this fake household.

In addition to the characters, I like the overall con and this fascinating dichotomy of high and low stakes. On an individual level, the amount being scammed is small, but when that gets compounded by 9,800 residents over multiple months, the number balloons beyond expectations. It makes our bumbling swindlers feel both overly prepared and completely unprepared because on one hand, their opponent is a former Miss Korea who fights toddlers and their moms over flowerbeds, yet on the opposite side of the spectrum is a chillingly evil kingmaker who kills people without batting an eye. Clearly, that 17 billion won is not going to be easy to steal, and I can’t wait to see this fake family stumble through the inevitable hijinks waiting ahead.