Disney+ K-drama Han River Police: action comedy starring Kwon Sang-woo and Lee Sang-yi struggles to get its feet wet

The premise of this original series is promising – a team of river police including beefy Han Du-Jin (Kwon Sang-woo) dealing with a range of incidents

Yet a festering grievance, unrequited crushes and displays of machismo can’t make up for its stereotypical characters and lack of action in the early episodes

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Kwon Sang-woo (left) as river policeman Han Du-jin and Kim Hee-won as fellow officer Lee Cheon-seok in a still from “Han River Police” on Disney+. Photo: Disney+

Published: 7:15pm, 14 Sep 2023

Lead cast: Kwon Sang-woo, Kim Hee-won, Lee Sang-yi

For its latest Korean original, Disney+ takes us to the watery artery bisecting South Korea’s capital for a good old-fashioned tale of cops and robbers.

Han River Police follows a team of salt-of-the-earth police officers young and old who patrol the river. They chase down speeding party boats, fish out bodies from the water, and go head to head with a ferry corporation.

The action comedy focuses on one of the teams patrolling the Han River, made up of beefy Han Du-jin (Kwon Sang-woo, Curtain Call), grizzled and tired Lee Cheon-seok (Kim Hee-won, Moving) and clean-living young buck Kim Ji-soo (Shin Hyun-seung).

They take their orders from Captain Do Hyun-il, played by Sung Dong-il, Kwon’s co-star in police-themed action-comedy franchise The Accidental Detective. The parallels don’t stop there; Seo Young-hee, who plays the wife of Kwon’s character in the films, is also part of the main cast here.