Review | Disney+ K-drama review: Big Bet – Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik, Netflix star Son Suk-ku carry meandering crime drama

The Korean crime drama dips back and forth in time for four episodes before finally settling into the show’s main narrative, which may test viewers’ patience

Choi’s central performance is worth watching through the frustration – as is the stellar Son Suk-ku, who turns up at the tail end of the fifth episode

Reading Time:3 minutes

Son Suk-ku in a still from Korean crime drama Big Bet, which stars Choi Min-sik of Oldboy fame.

Published: 7:15pm, 26 Jan 2023Updated: 1:22pm, 28 Jan 2023

3/5 stars

Good things come to those who wait, but if that wait drags on for too long then there is no telling who will stick around.

Disney+’s sprawling crime drama Big Bet focuses on Korean entrepreneurs and gangsters betting big on casinos in the Philippines, but the biggest gamble the show takes is on how far its audience’s patience will stretch.

The story chronicles the rise and eventual fall of flinty entrepreneur Cha Moo-sik, played by celebrated Oldboy actor Choi Min-sik. Moo-sik’s background and steady rise is depicted in exacting detail, but that journey is a chronological zigzag punctuated by wigs that unconvincingly de-age its characters.

Big Bet begins with Moo-sik being apprehended for a murder charge in the Philippines in the near present, before jumping back to his childhood in Korea. It proceeds to skip between his childhood, early adulthood and later career as a bigwig in the Philippines.

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