In Money Heist Korea, available on Netflix, a nod to La Casa de Papel, the Spanish series from which it is drawn, slipped. Fans of the planetary phenomenon will surely have spotted it. And you? Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is recommended that you have seen episode 3 of Money Heist Korea before continuing to read this article.
Korean remake of La Casa de Papel, Money Heist Korea more or less takes up the plot of the original Spanish series. Available since June 24 on Netflix, this new version also follows a gang of robbers led by The Professor and each of the members of the gang took over the names of cities like Tokyo, Berlin or Denver to hide their identities during the heist at the Factory of the Currency.
Obviously, the creators of Money Heist Korea adapted the story of La Casa de Papel to Korean culture and incorporated geopolitical issues inherent to the two Koreas, while distilling some contrasting differences and subtleties with the source material.
But the screenwriters also slipped a small reference to La Casa de Papel, which only fans of the Iberian series will be able to spot. This is a nod that is found in episode 3, when the amnesiac mother of negotiator Seon Woojin (Kim Yun-jin) searches for a way to contact her daughter urgently. She finds a small card and a piece of paper that shows the number of Woojin’s boyfriend, who is none other than The Professor (Yoo Ji-tae).
Bella Ciao!
The latter seduces the negotiator to have exclusive police information in order to help the robbers in the Factory of the Currency. And to hide his real identity, he pretends to be a restaurant owner who runs a café called… Bella Ciao! This information is indicated on his business card which Woojin’s mother finds to contact him.
Screenshot / Netflix
And for fans of La Casa de Papel, “Bella Ciao” has a special resonance since it is an Italian partisan song born in anti-fascist communities, which became an anthem for Italian communist groups in the 20th century. The song, translated into different languages, is a symbol of the workers’ demonstrations in the 1960s and, later, of the cultural revolution of the government of Salvador Allende and Popular Unity in Chile.
“Bella Ciao” has been covered in different versions in Spain but also in other European countries since. And in La Casa de Papel, The Professor (Álvaro Morte) and Berlin (Pedro Alonso) also sing it – in Italian – in an episode of the series and make it a new modern anthem of resistance and freedom and which has marked of his imprint the Iberian series.
The origin of the song “Bella Ciao”:
