Separated as children by their parents’ divorce, In-jae grew up to be cold, arrogant and ruthless; Dal-mi, close to her grandmother, developed the sort of humane characteristics that repeatedly saw her trampled on. Those are the qualities that In-jae, now Dal-mi intends to rival her in the business world, is only too happy to exploit once again, just as she did on the rare occasions that the sisters met post-divorce.

This being a K-drama, love can’t keep its pesky nose out of matters for long, although intriguingly, it begins as virtual love between young Dal-mi and homeless orphan and mathematics genius Nam Do-san (Nam Joo-hyuk), who is taken in by Dal-mi’s grandmother.

The two go through years as penfriends and never meet – meaning that when eventually they do, the scriptwriting possibilities for making their relationship saccharine sweet, or sending the pair careering off a cliff of romantic catastrophe, are legion. Especially when Do-san is himself bound for career glory as an Asian Silicon Valley company head.

In the meantime, the sleeper star of the show, stealing scenes with abandon, is Kim Hae-sook. She is plain-speaking grandma Choi Won-deok, whose own grand business-expansion strategy sees her trade in her snack shack for the Cheong-Myeong Corn Dog food truck, which she parks on a bank of Seoul’s Han River. Proof that some of life’s greatest pleasures remain definitively offline.

Eullenia: twisted dark fantasies play out in Amazon Prime’s British-Thai thriller

We interrupt this column to bring you some breaking news: money can buy you happiness.

This marvellous mantra introduces psychological thriller and modern-day horror series Eullenia (Amazon Prime) – but will prove sadly illusory, for some anyway, as the plot thickens with cash, desire and bloodlust. Filmed in Bangkok, the British-Thai production features the effortlessly creepy Alec Newman (seen recently as a ruthless Russian agent in Strike Back ) as uncompromising businessman Marcus Hammond, the supremely affluent CEO of Asean microfinance bank Eullenia.

Marcus’ pitch, and the bait in his treacly television commercials, questions why the rich should line ever-deepening pockets as the exploited continue to suffer. But while he portrays himself as a rebel who wants to destroy a rigged global financial system, it’s all a front for him to play a one-sided power game in which the hopeless feed his gruesome, depraved fantasies.

An unsettling hypothesis on what the “1 per cent” could feasibly do with their obscene wealth, Eullenia began life as a movie but quickly swelled into a six-parter when the character of Marcus outgrew the confines of a film script. The first half is streaming now, but if you wish to embroil yourself in the seedy schemes of a merciless, Patrick Bateman-inspired sociopath – and chances are, you will – you’ll have to watch this space, because the release of episodes four to six is pandemic-pending. And not even the super-rich can boss a virus around.