Stream It Or Skip It? 

Mr. Kim kept his nose to the grindstone and did everything he was supposed to. So how come money’s always tight and his job is never secure? In The Dream Life of Mr. Kim, a South Korean series created for Netflix by Jo Hyun-tack (The Atypical Family), Kim Hong-ki, and Yoon Hae-sung, Ryu Seung-ryong stars as Kim Nak-su, a dedicated middle manager at a large telecom who wants the best for this wife and college-age son. But as we soon learn, Kim’s office culture is like a big basket of snakes, his family is pushing back on his authority, and his inner life is full of turmoil. The Dream Life of Mr. Kim also stars Myung Se-bin, Cha Kang-yoon, and Yoo Seung-mok.  

Opening Shot: In one of the periodic flashbacks Dream Life features, Kim Nak-su (Ryu) remembers his childhood, when his brother belittled him for losing an elementary school election. Years later, as he dresses for work, Nak-su’s still thinking about the slight. “I’m moving up to managing director,” he tells his brother’s photo. “I’ll be an executive soon.”  

The Gist: We were already getting the sense Kim’s promotion isn’t as sure as he believes it is, and when he arrives at work, we learn very quickly that it is an environment full of petty hierarchies and personal grievances. Nak-su feels he deserves the promotion to managing director. But he also covets the expensive leather briefcase of current director Baek Jeong-tae (Yoo Seung-mok) to increasingly obsessed levels, and feels increasingly worried about his professional standing. A younger colleague could be favored for the promotion, and Heo Tae-hwan (Lee Seo-hwan), Kim’s team member, is being forced out for lack of performance. Nak-su and Tae-hwan started at the same time. Kim tries to distance himself from his friend. Wouldn’t want their fates intertwined. 

For all the work stress he constantly ruminates over, Nak-su tries to present a united front to his wife Ha-jin (Myung) and son Su-gyeom (Cha Kang-yoon). At home, he wants credit for his role as breadwinner, but this is also a demand that diminishes Ha-jin’s contributions. And while Nak-su presses Su-gyeom to apply for his company’s internship program, Su-gyeom doesn’t want to become just another mid-level salaryman like his father. When he runs into his childhood crush Han-na (Lee Jin-yi) at university, she introduces him to Lee Jeong-hwan (Kim Su-gyeom). The kid is arrogant, with a fast-moving haircut, and probably vying for Han-na’s affections. But he drives a Porsche and embodies a kind of startup hustle Su-gyeom admires.

Surviving for two decades in the corporate grind, securing comfortable lodging, and sending a kid to college. “That’s greatness,” Nak-su tells Su-gyeom. But as his professional and personal worlds begin to quaver and blend together – the stresses of one informing the other until Mr. Kim is spending more time mumbling to himself than noticing his wife or sucking up to his direct boss – Dream Life begins to skewer what such a phrase could even mean. Success in life might not hinge on a big promotion or the use of that hard-earned college fund. It could mean a new definition of fulfillment on an entirely personal level.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ryu Seung-ryong hits Dream Life after starring in the terrific period South Korean series Low Life, where his thief is as cagey as he is curmudgeonly. And Ryu plays well off Yoo Seung-mok whenever Kim is dealing with Baek Jeong-tae, his direct boss. Both actors were also in Chicken Nugget, an absolutely silly Korean series where a woman is transformed into a version of the little breaded fast food treat. Really!

Our Take: In this series, we can think two ways about that “Dream Life” in the title. First, there is what Kim Nak-su has definitively accomplished. His wife, son, a comfortable apartment in Seoul, and 27 years of stellar corporate service. Taken together, it is a dream life – representative of what you’re supposed to do in a society. But as his circumstances shift, we also become witness to Nak-su’s more fraught, personal dream life. His unchecked internal monologue, where he’s always comparing himself to work colleagues and friends’ bank accounts, which is also our way into how Ryu Seung-ryong is playing this guy. His mumbled jabs at himself are funny, and they’re even funnier when work people catch him doing it. These aren’t quite depicted as fantasy moments, but they do suggest Kim’s existential crisis as it begins to overtake his reality.  By the end of the first episode of The Dream Life of Mr. Kim, we felt like we understood the main character inside and out. The picture of success he presents to the world, and the conflicted inner life that’s getting harder and harder to keep quiet. 

We’re not giving anything away by saying Kim’s facing significant change in his life. And as his supposed dream life starts to falter, we started comparing the screwed-up faces he makes, his obsessive behavior, and bouts with inner mania to another recent entry in the middle manager-meets-personal-hell category, Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company. How far will Nak-su take his obsessions before they threaten his position at work? How much of his inner life will fold inside-out, and reveal him to his wife and family in ways he never thought possible? We’re rooting for Mr. Kim – he’s not exactly likeable, but we feel like we know him. The question becomes which one of his dream lives has the best chance to sustain itself.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: “I’ll be an executive next year; I’m 99% sure of it!” In scenes from upcoming episodes of The Dream Life of Mr. Kim, we catch Nak-su being extremely confident. But he does not know what corporate forces could be working against him. 

Sleeper Star: We really liked Myung Se-bin in Doctor Cha, and she’s great in Dream Life as Ha-jin, a woman who wants to support her husband and their life together, but who is also feeling the emergence of an independent streak. 

Most Pilot-y Line: Kim Nak-su strives to explain what he values to his disaffected son. “I seem very average to you, don’t I? But do you have any idea how hard it is to lead an average life? You won’t get it until you step into the real world.”

Our Call: Stream It. The Dream Life of Mr. Kim combines flashbacks, some really effective comedic writing, and a lot of first-person existential stress as it tracks big changes in the lives of its main character and his family.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.