Whodunit, the Korean way
Treasure hunt, vampire island, urban chase – what could be more exciting? Time for ‘Busted.’
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – How would you like going to work every morning not knowing what your tasks are but you are expected to deliver on them anyway?
That is the challenge for the cast of Netflix’s first K-variety series “Busted!” Consisting of 10 episodes, it stars Yoo Jae-suk, Ahn Jae-wook, Kim Jong-Min, Lee Kwang-soo, Park Min-Young, Sehun of EXO and Kim Sejeong of Gugudan. They play bumbling detectives who must solve mystery cases spontaneously and in a fun way, onto the Korean-Style black comedy.
“There are no scripts. They just say ‘Action!’ then they start filming, just watching us solve the cases,” Yoo Jae-suk said through a translator. “Sometimes it takes us two days to solve a case, maybe 10 days at times. There’s nothing to prepare except our stamina – we do a lot of running – and our time.”
The episodes consist of diverse range of topics from forewarned murder, treasure hunt, vampire island, magic show, detective battle, and urban chase.
Producer Cho Hyo-jin hinted, “An easily overlooked clue may be the starting point of an incident or it can be helpful in solving a case. The story and tension will build up as the settings and cast members in the earlier episodes connect to the latter episodes.”
One of the stars’ favorite episodes has someone suddenly “die” in front of them.
“It’s really surprising,” said Ahn Jae-wook. “We know the person is not really dead but for us, it feels like he is and now we suddenly need to solve the case.”
A total of 56 special guest actors are featured on the show. Depending on the concept of each episode, the filming takes place in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province and Jeju Island.
Lee Kwang-soo pointed out that beyond solving cases, the feeling of accomplishment comes from the team work they do.
Sehun, who was in the Philippines for a concert with EXO just a few days prior to the “Busted!” conference, thinks he has become even more professional just by watching his co-actors work.
“There are a lot
We know the person is not really dead but for us, it feels like he is and now we suddenly need to solve the case.
that I could learn from them but if I were to pick one of them, well, there was a very difficult scene to shoot because of one mission. I took much longer than anyone expected and everyone was tired and even the producer said that maybe we should do it quickly and get it over with. But my coactors were like, ‘No, let’s try it again.’ And I was like ‘Wow! This is what real professionals are.”’
Since Netflix is shown in over 190 countries, the cast and producers were asked if they think “Busted!” would be embraced globally. Netflix has over 125 million subscribers worldwide.
“We’re curious ourselves, we don’t know,” said Yoo Jae-suk. “We think the show is really fun, ‘Busted!’ is fun for us, and we think laughter is (something) global.”
Kim Jong-min added: “I think at the very least there’s one in the seven characters that a member of the viewers can relate to.”
On “Busted!,” Ahn Jae-wook is the big brother detective, Kim Jong-min is detective who used to be an errand boy, Lee Kwang-so was a former detective, Park Min-Young’s character was a former flight attendant – in short, each coming from a different background.
The show produced by Company Sangsang premieres today on Netflix, with two episodes released every Friday for five weeks.