Stream It Or Skip It: 'Super Rich In Korea' On Netflix, A Reality Series About Five Super-Wealthy People Who Live In Seoul

Reality TV producers are obsessed with how the super-wealthy live, and audiences are eager to watch. In a new series, five uber-rich people who live at least part-time in Seoul hang out with each other and show each other how rich they are.

Opening Shot: We get a quick highlight-laden introduction to the cast of Super Rich In Korea, including one person saying, “I am the one-percent super rich in Singapore.”

The Gist: Super Rich In Korea is a reality series that follows around five super-rich people who live, at least part-time, in Seoul. Three MCs — BamBam, Cho Sae-ho and Mimi, sit down and react to what they’re seeing, mostly watching with their mouths open at just how much money these five people spend on things.

We’re introduced to all five cast members up front. Yoo Hee-ra, aka Aren Yoo, has an entire floor of her family’s five-story villa, and her dressing room is bigger than her bedroom. She is a brand ambassador for couture brands in South Korea, and her philosophy is “Fashion is Pain” and if she wears a dress once, she retires it to her collection and never wears it again. She currently goes to Cornell, and speaks English better than Korean due to the fact that she’s been studying in the U.S. since middle school.

Noor Naim is an Iranian-American influcencer who has over 50 million over all her social media platforms. She’s looking to move to Seoul and her fashion weakness is handbags; she’s got hundreds of them, all from top designers. David Yong is the aforementioned person who said he was one of the top 1% of Singapore’s super rich; he is in finance, but part of a family with generational wealth. He is all about standing out, in his fashion as well as in the general way he conducts himself.

Teodoro Marani is from Italy; his family owns the Henry Beguelin fashion brand, but he’s decided to live independently in South Korea. He does some work for his family’s business, but his main work is as a chef, and he lives on his own money. Kim Anna, whom we only see briefly in the first episode, is a noblewoman in Pakistan.

In the first episode, Noor visits Aren at her family villa and sees her extensive collection of gowns and dresses; Aren isn’t as into bags as Noor is, so they’re stored in a corner, but she still has some pretty rare finds. Teodoro visits David at his apartment, notices all of the brand-forward gaudiness in the high-rise penthouse, and has no idea why David keeps a bill-counting machine on the floor of his living room.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The format of Super Rich In Korea is essentially what you would see in a Real Housewives series. The closest Netflix analogue we can think of is Bling Empire.

Our Take: On first glance, Super Rich In Korea doesn’t really stand out from other shows about super-rich people acting super-rich in cities that are basically there as backdrops to the super-rich activities. We’re pretty sure that the show won’t get a ton deeper than seeing this group interacting with each other and showing them various gaudy homes, fashions, private planes, etc. Maybe there will be some personality conflicts, but we get the feeling that’s not what the show is about.

Maybe it’s because of the presence of the East Asian reality show staple: The panel of MCs who are there to comment on what they see as if they’re the audience sitting on their couches. They’re really the funniest and most interesting part of the show, because, while they’re famous and have financial resources, they’re not nearly as wealthy as the five cast members, and their reactions to such ostentatiousness are entertaining as hell.

One thing we wonder about is the fact that only one of the five cast members is actually Korean. Was that something the producers did on purpose, or did they not find enough ostentatiously wealthy young Koreans to fill out the cast? There are plenty of Koreans with generational wealth, but perhaps none of them were nearly as flamboyant about it as the five people the producers selected.

Sex and Skin: Wealth porn, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: Teodoro looks at a catering menu available to residents of David’s luxury building and notices a fried egg for 19,000 won (about $15). The MCs are blown away by the idea of paying that much for a fried egg.

Sleeper Star: Cho Sae-ho is the funniest of the three MCs. For instance, he tells the other two MCs that the thing he used to care about most in fashion was “how big the brand was” on the piece of clothing.

Most Pilot-y Line: Yes, we get how the boxes that designer gear comes in can be beautiful. But we saw boxes stacked in both Aren’s and David’s living spaces in some sort of organized display. If it were our house, they’d be teetering and knocked over regularly by our cats.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Super Rich In Korea is a pretty harmless series, with 30-minute episodes that are designed to show bling and little else. You have to be in the right mood for it, but if you are, there should be enough there to keep you interested.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.