Typhoon Family so far: Lee Jun-ho's charm hits like a storm, Kim Min-ha lights up this fun K-Drama

It’s Lee Jun-ho again folks! It has been a while since the heavily candyfloss King The Land, where he dazzled us with charm and er…very bright suits, and now he’s back with piercings and razor-sharp  wit. He’s clearly having a blast in the series, along with the reliable Kim Min-ha who might have broken our hearts more than once in Pachinko, the Korean-American drama based on the book.

We’re still halfway through the series and despite the first episode being a little all over the place, the series is quite entertaining: Quite like the awkward friend who shows up at a party that he wasn’t invited to, and still endears himself to everyone.

The premise from the first episode: We’re dropped straight into 1997 Korea—right before the floor caves in. The Asian Financial Crisis is rumbling in the distance, but at Typhoon Trading, a modest import company, everyone is still pretending the storm is manageable. Employees work eleven-hour days just to keep the lights on, and a visiting news crew eagerly frames them as a heartwarming symbol of grit.

But before we can dwell on the company’s murky business model, we meet the Orange Tribe—Gangnam’s rich kids who are oblivious to the storm brewing in the markets. Flashy outfits, louder attitudes, and pockets full of their parents’ money. And among them is Kang Tae-Poong, (Junho), all Armani swagger and carefully highlighted hair. He’s the only son of Kang Jin-Young (Sung Dong-il), Typhoon’s.

You know something bad is going to happen as the progression turns rather narratively overblown: And it does, as an interaction between the father and son becomes the last that they will ever have. His father collapses the next day from the strain, and the next day, IMF’s bailout is announced on the news.  And so begins Tae-poong’s effort to rebuild himself and the company and that, leads him to collaborating with Kim Min-ha’s Oh Mi-seon.

A slow and steady love story blooms between the two, with a lot of ‘accidental’ hand-holding, literally, and without giving much away, it’s safe to say that despite wobbling along the way, Min-ha and Jun-ho’s acting are a real feast for the eyes. It’s raw, serious, funny and wholesome to watch. And hey, there's Thailand too (again), if you remember the chaos of King The Land.

There’s still a lot more to go and given that K-Dramas of late have tended to disappoint halfway, this one’s still whooshing upward. Here’s to believing.