
Title: Cafe Minamdong
Language: Korean
Genres: Mystery, Comedy, Romance
Objectional Content: Mild Violence, Death
Synopsis (from MyDramaList): Nam Han Jun is a former criminal profiler now working as a conman. To run his scams, he disguises himself as a fortune teller with his shop called Minamdang. Clients are drawn to his attractive appearance and smooth-talking manner. While he cheats his customers out of money, he works to solve their issues, all the while providing excellent customer service. He’s partnered up with Kong Su Cheol, who runs a private detective agency, and his younger sister, Hye Jun, an elite hacker. For the last three years, detective Han Jae Hui performed her job with enthusiasm and integrity. Will her involvement with Nam Han Jun jeopardize all of that?
My Review
My honest first impression of this show was “Wow, this is ridiculous!” But, I had recently finished Boyfriend on Demand and wanted more of Seo In-Guk, who plays the lead Nam Han-Jun in this series. So, I stuck with it and I’m not sorry that I did. Although the type of comedy in this show isn’t really to my taste, it was so obvious that the actors were having a blast in their roles that I couldn’t help but enjoy that.
Thankfully, the show does get more serious, as Nam Han-Jun is trying to find the person who killed his best friend. From the beginning I had an idea who the real culprit behind everything was. I second guessed myself a couple of times, but I still kept thinking it was him. When the reveal came I was so happy to be right but there was no one around me for me to brag to so I just sort of carried on with the show.
I didn’t really like the character of Kong Su-Cheol. His mannerisms and way of speaking was odd and kind of got on my nerves. Nam Han-Jun’s younger sister, Nam Hye-Jun also wasn’t my favorite. The relationship the two of them end of up in didn’t really feel like it had substance. I also didn’t really like the stylization around Han Jae-Hui, like she was some kind of super hero with crazy powers.
Seo In-Guk as Nam Han-Jun is the absolute highlight of this show and really shows his acting ability here. Looking at other shows he’s been in, this a very different and entertaining character for him.
My rating for Cafe Minamdang is 3 out of 5 stars and I’d recommendation to those who enjoy a good dose of comedy in their murder mysteries.
Thanks for reading!








