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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Kim Min-ha, Lee Joon-ho
Latest Nielsen rating: 6.8 per cent
The devastating IMF crisis that ravaged the Korean economy in the late 1990s returns to the fore in the workplace period drama Typhoon Family.
The series stars Kim Min-ha (Pachinko) as a hard-working accountant and Lee Joon-ho of the boy band 2PM as a young man forced to quickly give up his playboy ways.
Kim is Oh Mi-seon, the book-keeper of Typhoon Trading, a small but successful company in the suburbs that is on the cusp of great things.


The show begins with a news report about the company, positioning it as a symbol of the success of the Miracle on the Han River – the name given to South Korea’s post-Korean-war economic boom.
At the company’s helm is Kang Jin-young (Sung Dong-il, The Tale of Lady Ok), a man who has the best interests of his family and employees at heart. But in the risky world of business and with a crisis looming, good intentions can only get you so far.
Jin-young’s family includes his club-rat son Kang Tae-poong (Lee). Tae-poong is the Korean word for typhoon, which goes to show how much Jin-young dotes on his son.
How great must his disappointment be that rather than follow him into business, his flesh and blood spends his father’s hard-earned money on flashy threads and getting into brawls in nightclubs.

What Jin-young does not see is the tender and caring man under the nightclub flash, one who gets home in the morning because he has spent the night tending to his beloved flowers.
On the eve of the IMF bailout that would define the crisis, Typhoon Trading gets swept up in the financial storm, and one day Jin-young steps into his office and collapses from a heart attack.
Tae-poong dutifully stays by his father’s bedside, but one evening he goes back to the club to help his friends, and during that brief time Jin-young dies.
With desperate creditors circling and the company on the brink of collapse, Tae-poong decides to fill his father’s shined shoes and continue his legacy.

Typhoon’s crisis also gives the quiet Mi-seon an opportunity to shine. Her senior colleagues generally look to her to freshen up their coffee, but as things go from bad to worse, she steps up and shows everyone that in Jin-young’s absence, she may know Typhoon better than anyone else.
While the film Default plunged into the inner workings behind the IMF crisis – a bit like The Big Short, but with more melodrama – K-dramas have largely used this devastating historical episode as a dark moment in time.
It is something that their characters experience, rather than a full backdrop, in shows that include Twenty-Five Twenty-One and When Life Gives You Tangerines.
In Twenty-Five Twenty-One, the story kicks off in the late 1990s and stays there long enough for the male lead to go from riches to rags as the son of a businessman who is cleaned out overnight before progressing through the years.

Typhoon Family starts in a similar place but it stays in the late 1990s and charts the course of a new generation and their attempts to navigate an uncertain economic reality.
Like many shows set in recent history, such as the currently airing A Hundred Memories, nostalgia is a key factor in Typhoon Family. The economic events ravaged the country, but people can still look back fondly at the era’s fashion, music and TV, all of which are front and centre here.
Much of the era’s culture is shown through Tae-poong and his Apgujeong Boys dance group friends, but once he steps into the offices of Typhoon Trading, his leather duds and platinum-streaked hair stand out for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully, it only takes him a few days to rectify his attire.
All that period detail is brought to life under the watchful eyes of co-directors Lee Na-jeong (Mine) and Kim Dong-hwi (Hide).

Not seen in a leading role since King the Land, Lee acquits himself well in the role of Tae-poong, but it is not a terribly demanding role at first. Despite his playboy ways, it is abundantly clear from the start that Tae-poong is a good kid, which does not give him much room to grow over 16 episodes.
When asked what his favourite flower is, amateur horticulturist Tae-poong answers “cosmos”. And when told that cosmos are common, he shoots back that they are resilient.
This seems to set up a future romance with the ordinary but stolid Mi-seon, whom the ever-magnetic Kim imbues with natural charisma.
Typhoon Family is streaming on Netflix.


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Kim Min-ha and Lee Joon-ho star as an accountant and the playboy heir of a trading company during the late 1990s’ Asian financial crisis


Kim Min-ha and Lee Joon-ho star as an accountant and the playboy heir of a trading company during the late 1990s’ Asian financial crisis.


Netflix K-drama Typhoon Family: Kim Min-ha, Lee Joon-ho in ’90s financial crisis K-drama

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Kim Min-ha and Lee Joon-ho star as an accountant and the playboy heir of a trading company during the late 1990s’ Asian financial crisis

Kim Min-ha and Lee Joon-ho star as an accountant and the playboy heir of a trading company during the late 1990s’ Asian financial crisis