Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Apartment 404’ on Prime Video, A South Korean Variety Show Where Celebs Bumble Through Solving Mysteries

In Apartment 404 (now streaming on Prime Video), a group of variety show entertainers, comedians, and actors band together to solve the fact-based mysteries that revolve around a decades-old apartment complex in Seoul. The mood here is chatty and a little kooky, with the celebs joshing each other while they perform mildly embarrassing challenges, play party-style games – don’t spill this water while tied to your neighbor, etc. – and work to put pieces of the mysteries together, all while wearing approximations of fashion from the year where an episode is set. And while all the participants have got their share of celebrity juice, it’s Jennie from girl group powerhouse Blackpink who has the cast of Apartment 404 a little starstruck.   

APARTMENT404: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: With the apartment setting of this variety show, why not establish a little history? Apartments first appeared in Seoul in the 1930s, by the ‘60s large complexes were common, and today, the price to purchase an apartment in the city has skyrocketed.  

The Gist: it’s not unheard of for variety shows in South Korea to just drop its participants into a format blind, and as Apartment 404 kicks off, nobody knows exactly what they’re doing. Will there be a murder to solve? What kind of challenges will they face? Asking these questions of each other are Yoo Jae-suk and Yang Se-chan, who both appear on the variety show Running Man; Jennie of girl group stars Blackpink (Jennie also teamed with Yoo Jae-suk on Village Survival, The Eight); and actors Oh Na-ra, Lee Jung-Ha (Moving), and Cha Tae-Hyun. Presented with two pristine relics of 1998 dealer stock, the group pile into the Pontiac LeBaron and Kia Pride and head for an aging apartment complex. An incident occurred there in ‘98. Clues are hidden throughout the units, sometimes in plain sight. And working in teams of three, participants will “solve” the mystery of what occurred and escape the apartment with the prize.

It’s not that simple, of course. Each player is given a corresponding signifier – Jung-Ha is Kiwi, Jennie is Goose, Jae-Suk is Toad, and so on – and will notice those names next to random things in the apartments, which because it’s supposed to be 1998 are decked out with the finest in GoldStar appliances, touch tone phones, and VHS home video. “How did we ever use tape machines?” Jae-suk wonders, while Jennie, who was only two years old in 1998, marvels that it all looks like a museum. 

As things progress, there’s lots of laughter between the contestants, and there are fun detours into meal prep and light conversation. But the pace of Apartment 404 flags as they deduce and infer their way through repetitive tidbits about the central mystery, or participate in clunky games designed to help them win clues. Apartment 404 enjoys a good replay of its funnier celeb moments – how about from three different angles? – and its onscreen prompts, while they occasionally contain helpful info, also slow down the action considerably.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Zone: Survival Mission takes a similar set of Korean celebs and tosses them into a simulated survival environment. And Yu Jae-suk is also part of Busted! on Netflix, where contestants must band together to solve little mysteries adding up to a season-long cliffhanger.

Our Take: While we’ve enjoyed our share of Korean television programming, whether K-dramas or rom-coms, zombie stuff or game shows, our grasp of the country’s pop culture landscape has its limits. While most of the crosstalk in Apartment 404 is enjoyable in a variety show way, it seems like it might be more enjoyable if we knew more about the participants and their past work. And because the clue-gathering and game-playing portions of the series aren’t that compelling, we’re left with a sense of longing for the moments when the celebs are just hanging out and bullshitting with each other. If they were sitting around on a chat show couch, it would be just as interesting, maybe even moreso. Couple this with the halting pace of Apartment 404, and the issue compounds. Its nearly two-hour runtime is severely padded. And while it’s humorous to see Na-Ra literally ROTFL, and some of the show’s needling of the participants with its onscreen graphics lands, there isn’t enough there to salvage this thing.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The continuing hook of Apartment 404 is that its cast stays the same but the year keeps changing, as does the secret they’re meant to solve. In a few glimpses of scenes from the next episode, we catch the participants in approximations of 1986 fashion as they spazz out while “solving” a kidnapping. 

Sleeper Star: Jennie of Blackpink fame (maybe you caught her as Dyanne on the The Idol?) is quite charming in Apartment 404, having fun with her celebrity status – Let this K-pop idol cook!  With 1998 appliances! – and generally remaining active in the game play no matter how random it gets.

Most Pilot-y Line: Similar to other reality shows with a competition component, participants receive periodic messages from the Apartment 404 gamemasters.“Woosang Apartment holds a secret. The resident who unveils the mystery by 5 P.M. will receive an amazing benefit.” But because the setting is 1998, the messages appear on VHS tape or as part of terrestrial radio broadcasts.  

Our Call: Apartment 404 offers a good bit of lighthearted and natural chemistry between its celebrity participants. But it enters SKIP It territory with its sluggish pace and uninteresting mysteries and clues. And in order for most of the jokes to land, you’re also going to need a working knowledge of pop culture in South Korea. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.