[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Killer's Shopping List" Episode 1

With inaugural ratings of 3.625% in its first episode, "The Killer's Shopping List" is doing pretty OK considering how weird and offbeat the premise is. The show's an eight episode mystery comedy, starring Lee Kwang-soo as the hapless Dae-seong, the namesake of Daeseong Mart. His hapless mother Myeong-sook (played by Jin Hee-kyung) started Daeseong Mart as a modest bodega since her husband Yeong-choon (played by Shin Sung-woo) wasn't exactly cut out to be a provider for his family.

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The opening of "The Killer's Shopping List" details how as a schlubby kid, Dae-seong's obsession with numbers enables him to identify a counterfeiter. The cute period piece throwback to nineties-era South Korea bodega life identifies the centrality of choco pies to South Korean nostalgia culture. We then transition to the present day, where Dae-seong has inexplicably decided to try and pass the civil service exams- a task for which he has no aptitude. Yet Dae-seong's reflexive love of counting pops up constantly even in his adult life.

"The Killer's Shopping List" goes far just on the fairly unique nature of its premise. Family owned grocery stores like Daeseong Mart are a quirk of South Korean culture- at least from my perspective in the United States, where non-chain grocery stores are almost entirely unheard of. The competition between these family stores and major corporate grocery stroes in South Korea is a story unto itself...which "The Killer's Shopping List" doesn't seem that interested in addressing.

Indeed, despite the fact that "The Killer's Shopping List" is the name of the show, we don't even run into a murder until the end of the episode. The pacing isn't especially bad- "The Killer's Shopping List" spends most of its runtime setting up the various character relationships. It's odd that the main premise just lingers in the title, with even subplots like Dae-seong's strained relationship with his girlfriend Ah-hee (played by Kim Seolhyun) premised as long-term problems rather than immediately solvable conflicts.

The contrast as Lee Kwang-soo and Kim Seolhyun as the leads is also unintentionally awkward, as Lee Kwang-soo looks older than his character and Kim Seolhyun younger than hers. This makes the ten year age gap between the two particularly obvious, despite the fact that they're pretty clearly supposed to be about the same age. I'm also not really sure what to make of them being together for twenty years. So like, since elementary school? Presumably more flashbacks will eventually explain this.

Review by William Schwartz

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"The Killer's Shopping List" is directed by Lee Eon-hee, written by Han Ji-wan-I, and features Lee Kwang-soo, Kim Seolhyun, Jin Hee-kyung, Shin Sung-woo, Kim Mi-hwa-I, Oh Hye-won. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/04/27~Now airing, Wed, Thu 22:30 on tvN.