Netflix K-drama Cashero review: Lee Jun-ho can’t save this messy superhero spectacle

1.5/5 stars\nLead cast: Lee Jun-ho, Kim Hye-jun, Kim Byung-chul, Kim Hyang-gi\nNetflix Korea closes out a big year with the eight-part series Cashero, a lively but garbled medley of social themes, melodrama and genre spectacle.\nLee Jun-ho (Typhoon Family) leads the cast as the hapless Kang Sang-ung, whose grumpy father foists an unwanted superpower upon him, only too glad to finally be rid of it.\n\n\nThe central conceit of the show, and the webtoon on which it is based, revolves around the unusual power that Sang-ung inherits. He has been given superhuman strength, but he can only access it when he has cash on his person – the more he has, the stronger he gets. The problem is that when he uses his superpowers, it drains his cash.\nThis is quite a pickle for a young man already faced with the daunting prospect of getting on the Korean property ladder. All Sang-ung wants to do is keep his head down and save up for a flat with his accountant girlfriend Kim Min-suk (Kim Hye-jun, A Shop for Killers).\nSang-ung’s father insists that he has to use the power for good. No problem, he just will not use it at all. Formerly a nice young civil servant, Sang-ung now goes out of his way to avoid helping others, but events conspire to keep him off the sidelines until he is forced to become a hero.\nCombining contemporary superhero thrills and pressing social themes, the core concept is a compelling one. There are many ways the show could have played with this idea, and early on, it briefly uses it to tease out the natural tension that already exists between personal need and social responsibility.\n\nSang-ung cannot access his power with a credit card or his savings account, only cold hard cash, so whenever some lands in his lap, the clock starts ticking – can he safely deposit it in Min-suk’s care before it is too late?\nCashero is in such a hurry to become a superhero thriller that it burns through this narrative capital almost immediately when Sang-ung receives a surprise bag of cash from his mother. The walk home proves to be a long and eventful one.\nThe show tries to scale up from there, but the novelty – and crucially the tension – had already been spent in this early set piece.\nThe set-up is also ripe for other creative deployments. Disappointingly, the show does not seem interested in exploring them, save for the occasional low-hanging fruit, such as when Min-suk slips an extra 50,000 won (US$34) bill into Sang-ung’s allowance to test his virility in the bedroom.\n\nKim Hye-jun has become a fixture in big-budget genre fare like Kingdom and Connect, playing assertive female characters.\nWhile Min-suk is marginally more level-headed than Sang-ung, this role plays into familiar local stereotypes of women taking over the household ledger and obsessing over real estate. She is the nagging girlfriend, while Sang-ung gets to be the reluctant hero without making any effort.\nCashero does understand its potential as a comedy, as it expands the superhero pool to Sang-ung’s sidekicks: Byeon Ho-in (Kim Byung-chul), who can move through walls when he drinks alcohol, and Bang Eun-mi (Kim Hyang-gi), whose ability to move objects with her mind is activated by bingeing on snacks.\nBut again, the comedic properties of these characters are seldom satisfyingly mined. Instead, they stay on standby as Sang-ung’s superhero support network.\n\nA classic example of “Konglish” – Korean portmanteaus of English words – the title combines “cash” and “hero” much the same way that the series mashes up social consciousness and superhero thrills, without finesse.\nThe first episode of Cashero is far from terrible; alas, the subsequent episodes falter.\nAs an action thriller, the show is generic, amounting to an underpowered facsimile of superior superhero fare like Moving and The Atypical Family. It even pales in comparison to the already mixed merits of genetic-mutation sci-fi properties such as The Witch and L.U.C.A.: The Beginning.\nBut by far Cashero’s biggest problem is its clumsy writing. Alongside its failure to capitalise on its compelling concept, the show’s inability to craft a narratively and emotionally coherent story is even more critical.\n\nAt one point, Sang-ung is horrified to see civilians fall to their deaths beside villain Jonathan (Lee Chae-min, Bon Appétit, Your Majesty), who eyes him maliciously. The show cuts to Sang-ung arriving home, cueing a lovey-dovey scene of him admiring Min-suk as she sleeps, his trauma quickly cured.\nFrom scene to scene, Cashero never knows what it wants to be.\nAssembling a stockpile of VFX-heavy set pieces and disparate emotional beats, then thrusting the resulting heap in front of us, the show seems content to throw its hands up in the air – leaving it up to the audience to figure out the mess for themselves.\nCashero is streaming on Netflix.\n