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James Marsh

3/5 stars
Lead cast: Park Eun-bin, Cha Eun-woo, Im Seong-jae, Choi Dae-hoon
A trio of social outcasts unexpectedly develop superpowers in Netflix’s latest original K-drama series, The Wonderfools.
Reuniting with her Extraordinary Attorney Woo director Yoo In-sik, Park Eun-bin takes the lead as a terminally ill misfit known around town as “Lady Trainwreck”, who acquires the ability to teleport.
Joining her on these misadventures are classmate Ro-bin (Im Seong-jae, The Worst of Evil) and hapless neighbourhood florist Gyeong-hun (Choi Dae-hoon, When Life Gives You Tangerines), who also attain superhuman skills. Together, they attract the attention of Lee Un-jeong (Cha Eun-woo, True Beauty), a mysterious new employee at City Hall.


Pinballing merrily from one genre to another, as this unlikely band of heroes inadvertently stumble upon a nefarious plan that threatens the entire city, The Wonderfools proves fitfully entertaining fluff, buoyed by Park’s perennially perky central performance.
Set in the west coast city of Haeseong-si, the year is 1999, and with the imminent arrival of the new millennium, religious fanatics from the Church of Eternal Salvation are whipping the residents into a frenzy, preaching about a fast-approaching apocalypse.
For 27-year-old Eun Chae-ni (Park), however, the end of the world is nothing to get excited about. She has lived with a congenital heart problem her entire life and has been told she could drop dead at any moment.
Chae-ni lives with her wealthy yet overprotective grandmother (Kim Hae-sook), who refuses to let her travel.


Desperate to see the world, Chae-ni ropes in local losers Ro-bin and Gyeong-hun into a hare-brained scheme to stage a fake kidnapping and demand a ransom from Chae-ni’s grandmother to fund her holiday.
Unsurprisingly, the plan goes awry almost immediately, taking a dark turn when Chae-ni ends up dead. In a panic, her would-be kidnappers try to dispose of her body at a nearby lake, which has been polluted by illegal waste.
This results in all three becoming contaminated and Chae-ni being resurrected and feeling better than ever. The whole episode is witnessed by Un-jeong.
This seemingly unassuming civil servant, known by his colleagues as “Mr Oddball”, is harbouring dark secrets of his own, linked to his time at an orphanage that was shut down decades earlier and situated where the Church of Eternal Salvation now stands.
Soon enough, the pollutants are traced back to the same building, and Chae-ni and her friends persuade Un-jeong to train them to master their new-found skills.

Early on, The Wonderfools recalls Kang Hyeong-cheol’s 2025 film Hi-Five, which likewise follows an unlikely assortment of characters who evolve into superheroes.
Later, however, the stage is set for a far more epic showdown after the introduction of three sinister “variants”. They all grew up at the orphanage with Un-jeong, where they were subjected to years of fiendish experimentation.
This has left them wielding incredibly dangerous abilities, and they come in search of a mythical “Child of Eternity” who might hold the secret to a possible cure.
Over the course of eight episodes, culminating in a 90-minute finale, The Wonderfools inevitably proves disjointed and uneven in its execution.
It veers wildly in tone from one moment to the next, embracing slapstick comedy one minute and heart-tugging romance the next, before diving deep into a backstory rife with traumatic childhood abuse. However, it leans as enthusiastically into its action beats as it does its melodramatic scenes of familial relationships.
Gyeong-hun’s painful attempts to reconcile with his wife and teenage daughter, both of whom lost faith in him years ago, are among the show’s more successful dramatic moments.
There is also genuine tension to be wrung from how the villainous trio of Pal-ho (Bae Na-ra), Ju-ran (Jung Yi-seo) and Ho-ran (Choi Yoon-ji) came to embrace their dark side, while Un-jeong appears to have chosen a different path.

Front and centre, however, is Chae-ni, a formidable force of nature who proves defiantly optimistic and irresistible whether skipping down the street or brandishing a roaring chainsaw.
Park proves once again to be a bold performer all too eager to eschew conventional character tropes in favour of abrasive kookiness.
The Wonderfools treads a well-worn path, offering precious few surprises. What it lacks in narrative originality, however, it makes up for with a collection of quirky, sympathetic characters whom you want to see succeed, whether they are wielding superpowers or not.
The Wonderfools is streaming on Netflix.


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Park Eun-bin as Eun Chae-ni, a terminally ill misfit who acquires superpowers, in a still from The Wonderfools. Photo: Netflix

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(From left) Im Seong-jae as Kang Ro-bin, Park Eun-bin as Eun Chae-ni and Choi Dae-hoon as Son Gyeong-hun in a still from The Wonderfools. Photo: Netflix

Cha Eun-woo as Lee Un-jeong in a still from The Wonderfools. Photo: Netflix

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Korean drama The Wonderfools mixes comedy, romance and action as three misfits gain superpowers and grapple with a sinister conspiracy


Korean drama The Wonderfools mixes comedy, romance and action as three misfits gain superpowers and grapple with a sinister conspiracy.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Korean drama The Wonderfools mixes comedy, romance and action as three misfits gain superpowers and grapple with a sinister conspiracy

Korean drama The Wonderfools mixes comedy, romance and action as three misfits gain superpowers and grapple with a sinister conspiracy