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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Ahn Bo-hyun, Park Ji-hyun
Latest Nielsen rating: 6.9 per cent
The luxurious life of a playboy heir collides with the daily drudge of a detective in the action-comedy procedural Flex X Cop (read flex “times” cop) with Ahn Bo-hyun (Military Prosecutor Doberman) doing double duty as the titular character.
Ahn plays Jin I-soo, the youngest son of the chairman of the family-run Hansu group.


While he should be attending board meetings, I-soo fritters away his days playing extreme sports and delighting his millions of followers with snaps of his upper-crust lifestyle.
One evening he receives notification of a woman being held hostage and, with the help of his loyal butler Choi Jeong-hun (Kim Myung-soo), he suits up, hops onto a motorbike and heads to the scene of the crime.
5 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in February 2024
Wearing a Swat outfit and armed with a machine gun, he proceeds to infiltrate a closed department store and shoot dozens of masked kidnappers until he makes his way up to the roof and saves the girl.
No, Jisoo isn’t quite another K-drama Batman – although he is clearly a fan. This was an elaborate game with hordes of hired actors, staged for his entertainment. Yet soon enough these skills will be put to the test in the real world.
Meanwhile, Ahn’s Yumi’s Cells co-star Park Ji-hyun, in her first leading role, plays detective Lee Gang-hyun. Gang-hyun’s team have been trying to apprehend a vicious killer and, during a stakeout one night, she happens to see I-soo run after a suspicious man.

I-soo, still in his Swat outfit at the after-party of his game, is chasing a man who attacked his friend. He corners the man in an alley and knocks him out in self-defence after the man brandishes a knife. Gang-hyun arrives to see the aftermath, makes the wrong assumption, and arrests I-soo on the spot.
Already in her superiors’ bad graces, Gang-hyun’s arrest of a connected celebrity doesn’t go down very well, particularly when the press catches wind of I-soo stewing in a holding cell.
It’s not a good situation for I-soo either, not because there’s any real danger of him going to prison but because his scandal hits the news on the same morning that his stern father, Jin Myeong-chul (Jang Hyun-sung), holds a press conference announcing his candidacy for mayor of Seoul.

After it is revealed that the man I-soo got into a fight with is none other than the murderer that Gang-hyun was after, I-soo’s older brother, Seong-ju (Kwak Si-yang) – who has always been on I-soo’s side – figures out a solution that will save face for both his father and the police department.
Another press conference is held, this time announcing that I-soo secretly joined the police force two months earlier and actually arrested the killer.
While the announcement may be a cover-up, I-soo is compelled to don a uniform and join the force for the foreseeable future, much to the chagrin of Gang-hyun and her colleagues.

I-soo turns out to be a nuisance, and surprisingly resourceful. Having never done any real work in his life, his office etiquette leaves something to be desired, and despite being everyone’s junior, he has a bad habit of speaking out of turn.
Beneath his careless exterior, however, lie some surprising skills. Seeing him recite legal code to Gang-hyun while she interrogated him earlier, we know that he has a law degree; we also know that he learned MMA professionally, because he boasts about it to his opponent during a fight.
His celebrity status also comes in handy when he enlists hordes of followers to help track down an old man who has gone missing, or when he can gain access to private clubs and hideouts for wealthy criminals.

If the stylised title wasn’t indication enough, Flex X Cop is pure fluff, designed to entertain for the length of an episode and exit the mind as soon as the credits roll.
Ahn is in familiar territory as a cocky heir, while Park’s icy stares perpetually bore into him during the contentious early stages of their working relationship.
Yet as breezy as the proceedings are, the lack of originality, reliance on clichés – including hints of yet another chaebol (Korean family-run corporation) heir’s trauma related to his dead mother – and thin characterisations may pose a challenge when the tone inevitably shifts to something more serious.
Flex X Cop is streaming on Disney+.


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Ji Chang-wook as childhood friend and soulmate Yong-pil in a still from “Welcome to Samdal-ri”.

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Ahn Bo-hyun plays playboy heir Jin I-soo, who enjoys extreme sports and acts like a superhero policeman in a hostage rescue staged for his amusement
Park Ji-hyun co-stars as veteran detective Lee Gang-hyun, who arrests Jin the night before Jin’s father says he will be running for mayor


In this Disney+ Korean drama Ahn Bo-hyun plays Jin I-soo, a rich playboy who acts like a Swat-style police officer for kicks, while Park Ji-hyun plays detective Lee Gang-hyun, who arrests Jin in a mix-up.


Disney+ K-drama Flex X Cop: Ahn Bo-hyun, Park Ji-hyun lead breezy, cliché-ridden procedural action comedy

Ahn Bo-hyun plays playboy heir Jin I-soo, who enjoys extreme sports and acts like a superhero policeman in a hostage rescue staged for his amusement Park Ji-hyun co-stars as veteran detective Lee Gang-hyun, who arrests Jin the night before Jin’s father says he will be running for mayor

Ahn Bo-hyun plays playboy heir Jin I-soo, who enjoys extreme sports and acts like a superhero policeman in a hostage rescue staged for his amusement

Park Ji-hyun co-stars as veteran detective Lee Gang-hyun, who arrests Jin the night before Jin’s father says he will be running for mayor