Criminal Minds Korean Characters Are Very Similar to US Version

Americans aren’t the only ones wondering whether or not Criminal Minds will be canceled or renewed. One would imagine that the same thing is going on with the South Korea version of the show, which premiered on July 26, 2017, and ran until September 28 of the same year, with 20 episodes in all being produced. Using scripts from the US version of the series (starting with the third season), instead of the FBI, it follows a team from the National Criminal Investigation (NCI), which, for those wondering, is actually a fictional crime-fighting unit in Korea.

Things kick off a year after several members of S.W.A.T. are killed by an explosion set off at a hospital. This does a number on the self-confidence of NCI leader Kang Ki-hyung, who forces himself to take an extended leave. But once he does return, he and his team find themselves drawn into an uneasy alliance with the Violent Crimes Unit of the local police to try and solve a serial murder case.

What follows is a guide to who’s who on the Korean version of show, and who their American counterparts are.

Yoo Min-Young is basically the Korean version of A.J. Cook's Jennifer "J.J." Jareau.

She's played by Lee Sun-bin, and serves as the bridge between the media and the NCI as the one who arranges and is the spokesperson in press conferences. Ever since the death of her sister and brother-in-law, she has been raising their daughter Ha-Eun, and is naturally faced with the challenges of balancing that with her career.

Kim Hyun-Joon can be considered the South Korean take on Shemar Moore's Derek Morgan.

He's a second-generation cop, originally a part of S.W.A.T. (which, of course, Shemar is now a part of in a separate series, but we digress) who comes from a rough background. As a kid, he saw his father murdered by a suspect, and as a member of S.W.A.T., he lost one of his subordinates in a bomb explosion.

Ha Sun-woo is a spin on Paget Brewster character, Emily Prentiss.

She is pretty much a by-the-book officer and can be considered gruff to other members of the team. It's gradually revealed that this is actually her coping mechanism; the only means that she has to deal with the horrific crimes she's witnessed. Originally, she was stuck behind a desk, having been brought aboard merely to fill a quote, but she repeatedly proves herself a valuable member of the group.