In Korean society, your social rank dictates your past, present and future, how you behave and how others treat you.

This is only too clear to Yoon Hyun-woo (Song), a long-time employee of the Soonyang Group who has risen to the post of head of the Future Asset Management Division by dint of his diligence, gumption and unshakeable loyalty.

In Soonyang lingo, Future Asset Management merely means taking care of the family. This makes Hyun-woo a glorified assistant, but he’s a legendary one with a record 10-year tenure. His mantra is: fulfil any Soonyang family request, no matter how unreasonable.

Even in the rarefied milieu of Korean corporate royalty, Soonyang has a particularly intransigent hierarchy. The group was founded several generations ago by Jin Yang-cheol (Lee) and is now run by his eldest son, Young-ki (Yoon Je-moon). But to everyone in the company, Young-ki is simply known as “1-0”.

His wife is “1-alpha”, and his son and successor Sung-joon (Kim Nam-hee) is “1-1”. Young-ki’s younger siblings Dong-ki (Cho Han-chul), Hwa-young (Kim Shin-rok) and Yoon-ki (Kim Young-jae) are “2-0”, “3-0” and “4-0” respectively – the 0s of families 2, 3 and 4.

This makes things difficult for the family members, who either struggle to rise up or feel the pressure of maintaining their rank; but for anyone outside that small group, things are far worse. Not having a number makes you entirely expendable.

Hyun-woo learns this the hard way, despite treating Yang-cheol’s autobiography like his bible and being so hard-working that he keeps his phone in a ziplock bag when he showers.

When his father takes ill, Sung-joon steps in to fill the power vacuum, but succeeds only thanks to Hyun-woo’s help.

Hyun-woo also unearths a slush fund and goes to Istanbul to retrieve it, only to be rewarded for his efforts with a bullet to the head. He is executed above a cliff and cascades down into the surf below – but rather than cross over to the afterlife, he is born anew.

When his vision returns, Hyun-woo is sitting in the back of a car, except he isn’t Hyun-woo. It isn’t even 2022.

He is now a young boy and the year is 1987. He’s not just any young boy, he’s Jin Do-joon, the youngest son of Jin Yoon-ki. But Hyun-woo, who knows everything there is to know about the Soonyang family, has never heard of Do-joon.

As the lowest-ranked offspring of the lowest-ranked child in the family, Do-joon hasn’t registered much on patriarch Jin Yang-cheol’s radar, but with Hyun-woo’s spirit inside him, that’s about to change.

The reincarnated Hyun-woo has travelled to the past with knowledge of the future. Since business is all about predicting what’s going to happen, Do-joon soon makes an impression on Soonyang’s imposing patriarch.

Do-joon can predict elections, knows which business ventures will take off and makes a very shrewd real estate deal when he is given land as a reward and selects Bundang, Seoul’s most affluent suburb, while it’s still farmland, all while still a child.

The story then moves to 1996, when Do-joon (now played by Song) is 20 and attending the prestigious Seoul National University School of Law. One of his fellow students happens to be Seo Min-young (Shin), whom he met during his previous life when she led a raid at the Soonyang office as a senior prosecutor.

Do-joon also helps his father Yoon-ki, who broke away from the family in the hope of making it in the film business. Do-joon gives him a few choice tips, which include importing Home Alone and investing in a small film called Titanic.

The series lacks the visual pizazz of Vincenzo, but, with Song’s charisma and Kim’s breezy script, which incorporates many nostalgic nods and pop culture references, Reborn Rich is a very enjoyable affair that is likely to build on the large audience that tuned in for its popular star.

Whereas most K-dramas air two episodes a week, Reborn Rich will be on three times, every Friday to Sunday. That may sound like a lot, but if the start is anything to go by, viewers will be counting down the hours till each weekend all the way to Christmas.

Reborn Rich is streaming on Viu and Disney+.