Bargain review: Buckle up for this bonkers K-drama binge

Noh Hyung-soo (Jin Sun-kyu) arrives at a remote hotel in the mountains thinking he's meeting high school student Park Joo Young (Jeon Jong-Seo) for sex. But his creepy deed does not go unpunished: In fact, Hyung-soo has stumbled into an organ-harvesting ring, and it isn't long before he finds himself strapped to a gurney while a group of strangers bid on his kidneys.

Now for the shocking part: This all happens in the first 25 minutes — and Hyung-soo's bad day is about to get unfathomably worse. Written and directed by Jeon Woo-sung, Bargain (premiering Oct. 5 on Paramount+) goes hard from the jump, blending bleak humor with hold-your-breath suspense.

The bidding is up to $132,500 for Hyung-soo's first kidney when a massive earthquake leaves the hotel half-destroyed. Hyung-soo, Joo Young, and a handful of bidders — including the desperate Geuk-ryul (Chang Ryul), who will do anything to secure a kidney for his dying father — emerge alive but definitely not safe. The organ operation's cold-blooded lieutenant, Hee-sook (Park Hyoung-soo), seizes the disaster as his chance to usurp his sinister boss (Jung In-Gyeom), and soon the survivors are scrambling to escape the wreckage as well as Hee-sook and his enforcers.

Bargain fosters an oppressive sense of claustrophobia from the very first shot, as Joo Young stares grimly out the hotel window while smoking a cigarette. Director Jeon Woo-sung designed the entire series to look like one long take, letting the camera hover close to the increasingly frantic action as Joo Young and Hyung-soo pick through the rubble, plunge several stories through a hole in the partially demolished building, and scurry through the filthy basement to elude the two demented henchmen (Kang Gil-woo and Park Jin) who dispose of the harvested bodies.

As dire as the situation gets, Bargain never loses its sense of humor. Hyung-soo tries to position himself as the leader of the survival party — but his authority is severely undermined by the fact that he's running around wearing nothing but red boxer briefs and bright orange rain boots. Meanwhile, battered and bloody "good son" Geuk-ryul continues to pester Hyung-soo about collecting on his grotesque purchase of the latter's kidney. "I paid my money!" he wails at Hyung-soo. "You need to take responsibility!"

None of the characters take responsibility for anything. They're all hustlers, each of them absurdly focused on finding a way to advance their selfish interests even as the world quite literally falls down around them. Viewers, like the characters, find themselves on shaky ground; it's impossible to figure out who, if anyone, is telling the truth about who they are or what they plan to do next. Writers Jeon Woo-sung, Choi Byeong Yun, and Kwak Jae Min allow all the characters to remain thoroughly unlikable, confident that the propulsive thrills of their story will keep viewers invested until the last frame.

As Joo Young, Jeon exudes the frosty composure of a girl whose existence is an exercise in survival, while Jin keeps Hyung-soo — who oscillates between frantic indignation and apoplectic anger — from becoming buffoonish. The worse their odds of survival look, the calmer Joo Young gets, which makes Hyung-soo spiral even more. "At least I'm a better human being than you!" he sputters, clinging to the moral high ground that he squandered the moment he stepped into the hotel.

The six episodes, all around 35 minutes each, are over far too quickly, and the cliffhanger ending is unexpectedly abrupt. And if Netflix's Squid Game is any indication, it could be years before we get a second season of Bargain, if it happens at all. Whether the story continues or not, Bargain is an unbeatable binge, holding our attention the way Jeon Woo-sung's camera holds its gaze, never wavering — even when faced with the worst of humanity. Grade: A-

All six episodes of Bargain premiere Thursday, Oct. 5 on Paramount+.

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