The Auditors (감사합니다, literally "Thank You", a pun on the Korean word for audit) opened on tvN on Saturday 6 July 2024 at 9:20 p.m. KST. After its first weekend, the editors' verdict is simple: this is a corporate crime drama that knows its spreadsheets are less interesting than the people hiding things in them, and it has the cast to prove it.
An audit team inside JU Construction
The setting is JU Construction, a large builder where embezzlement, kickbacks and fraud have become part of the furniture. Shin Ha-kyun plays Shin Cha-il, the newly installed head of the audit team. He is cool, distrustful of almost everyone and quick to act once he has the numbers. He does not raise his voice. He does not need to.
Lee Jung-ha plays Gu Han-soo, a trusting, warm-hearted new hire who applied to the audit team for a practical reason: he hopes it will lead to a transfer to the company's Florida office. Working under Cha-il quickly complicates that plan. Jo Aram is Yoon Seo-jin, another rookie auditor, an individualist set on getting ahead. She has known the company's vice president since childhood, and the two pretend at work that they have never met.
That vice president is Hwang Dae-woong (Jin Goo), the founder's third son, who wants the president's chair and has two older brothers in the way. Jung Moon-sung plays Hwang Se-woong, the sitting president. Every audit the team opens lands somewhere on the Hwang family's chessboard, and the first episodes make clear that nobody at the top welcomes the scrutiny.
Case of the week, conspiracy of the season
Writer Choi Min-ho and director Kwon Young-il build the series in a familiar but efficient shape. Each case (a fatal tower crane accident, missing money in a housing project) is investigated over roughly two episodes, while a larger power struggle runs underneath. It is a structure that rewards weekly viewing: a case closes on Sunday, and the boardroom stakes have quietly risen by the following Saturday.
What lifts it, in the editors' view, is tone. The show is billed as a mystery with comedy, and the comedy mostly comes from friction rather than gags. Cha-il's flat, surgical questions meet Han-soo's eagerness to believe people, and the gap between them produces both the laughs and the drama's moral argument. Rules or compassion: the show does not pretend the answer is easy.
The comedy comes from friction rather than gags, and the gap between the two auditors is also the drama's moral argument.
Shin Ha-kyun carries it
Shin Ha-kyun, who earned wide acclaim for the 2021 thriller Beyond Evil, is ideal for a character who reveals almost nothing. He plays Cha-il with stillness and timing, and a single raised eyebrow does more work than most monologues. Lee Jung-ha, still fresh from his breakout in Moving, makes Han-soo likable without making him foolish, which is harder than it sounds. Jin Goo has the trickiest job: Dae-woong should feel slippery enough that the audience never fully trusts him, and in the opening weekend he gets that balance right.
Our reservations are small. Some of the corporate villains arrive fully formed and wear their guilt openly, and the Florida running joke may wear thin if it keeps returning. Jo Aram's Seo-jin also needs more room than the first two episodes give her. None of that dulls the main pleasure, which is watching a very good actor take apart a very dishonest company one document at a time.
Key facts
- Korean title감사합니다 (Gamsahamnida)
- NetworktvN, Saturdays and Sundays at 9:20 p.m. KST
- Run6 July to 11 August 2024, 12 episodes
- WriterChoi Min-ho
- DirectorKwon Young-il
- ProductionStudio Dragon, Filcon Studio
- StreamingViki in many regions
Main cast
- Shin Ha-kyunShin Cha-il, head of the JU Construction audit team
- Lee Jung-haGu Han-soo, rookie auditor with his eye on Florida
- Jin GooHwang Dae-woong, vice president and the founder's third son
- Jo AramYoon Seo-jin, ambitious rookie auditor
- Jung Moon-sungHwang Se-woong, president of JU Construction
- Lee Ji-hyun and Oh Hee-joonOk Ah-jung and Moon Sang-ho, senior members of the audit team
- Kim Hong-pa, Baek Hyun-jin and Jung Dong-hwanSeo Gil-pyo, Yang Jae-seung and major shareholder Bang Ki-ho
Update: how The Auditors ended
The first-impressions optimism held up. The Auditors premiered to a 3.5 percent nationwide rating, according to Nielsen Korea, and climbed steadily from there. By 28 July it had reached 7.8 percent and first place in its time slot across all channels, despite competition from Olympic coverage. The final episode on 11 August drew 9.5 percent nationwide and 10.1 percent in the Seoul metropolitan area, the highest of its run, for an average of about 6.6 percent across the 12 episodes.
Spoiler warning for the finale: Cha-il exposes Se-woong as the hidden owner of a design firm at the center of the last case, and Se-woong is held responsible in law. Dae-woong becomes head of the company, Cha-il resigns and leaves JU in the hands of employees he trusts, and the closing scenes point to his work against corruption continuing elsewhere. The ending is tidy rather than daring, but it pays off the partnership the opening weekend set up.
Editor's note: This story first appeared on kpop-fandom on 8 July 2024. It was rewritten and updated in October 2026: we corrected several character names and roles, added the writer and production details, removed the full episode schedule and added an update on the finale and ratings.
Sources Soompi: 3 points to anticipate in upcoming drama The Auditors, Soompi: The Auditors ratings hit new all-time high despite competition from Olympics, Soompi: The Auditors ends on highest ratings of its run, Tenasia: The Auditors ended with 9.5%, Wikipedia: The Auditors.