The sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” with Marvel star Simu Liu (“Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings”) has been available on Netflix in Germany for some time now. But if you search for them on the streaming service, you may not find them at all. If you then only get shows like “Superstore” or “The Office” as suggested results for the right search, there’s a reason for that:
The full five seasons of “Kim’s Convenience” are available on Netflix in original English only. Optional subtitles are available in a few other languages besides English – but not in German.
And because Netflix probably assumes that there is no interest in this country without German language or subtitles, one hides “Kim’s Convenience” and numerous other contents from the German public, although they are available and many have long preferred to watch series and films in the original sound. But you can unlock these titles with a trick: you have to change your profile language!
With this trick you suddenly have hundreds more titles on Netflix
This is quite simple. For example, log in to Netflix on your PC. If you see all existing profiles at the beginning, there is a “Manage Profiles” button below that. If you already have a profile, you’ll find “Manage Profiles” in the top right corner as a drop-down menu next to your profile picture. And with this link you can easily call up the corresponding page: https://www.netflix.com/profiles/manage.
There you will now see a pen on every profile you have created. Click on this for the profile whose language you want to change. It’s the first point there. Under “Language” you can easily change the corresponding drop-down menu setting from “German” to “English”. Of course, the setting change is also similar across the various Netflix apps.
German films and series will stay with you
By the way, you only change the language for one profile. If your girlfriend or boyfriend you share Netflix with in the same household has their own profile, this will have no effect. You will also not lose German films and series with this change, because you will still find them in the English profile.
Similarly, you can of course also watch the German dubbed version of titles that have it in the English profile. And if you want to be absolutely sure or don’t want to have genre terms and short summaries in English, you can easily create two profiles – one in German and one in English. In any case, now you have hundreds of series and movies – including “Kim’s Convenience”. I would like to recommend the sitcom to you.
Streaming Tip: “Kim’s Ease”
The series is about the Kim family, of Korean descent, who run a small corner shop in Toronto, Canada. The father (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) believes he leads a strict regime and knows everything better, the Christian and God-fearing mother (Jean Yoon) likes to despair about his stubbornness. Daughter Janet (Andrea Bang) finances her studies and dreams of a career as a photographer. Son Jung (Simu Liu) is no longer seen in the store after he got into a fight with his father. On the other hand, he is in the process of getting his hitherto unstable life under control and is now working at a car rental company.
Many other figures revolve around the quartet in the center. There’s Jung’s roommate and best friend, Kimchee (Andrew Phung), and his car rental boss, Shannon (Nicole Power), who has a crush on her handsome employee. Meanwhile, Janet lives with her insecure fellow student Gerald (Ben Beauchemin) and in the corner shop and car rental is also a very colorful mishmash of characters that just keeps popping up. One of my favorites: The gay male nurse Enrique (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll) who calls Mr. Kim a “friend” when Kim just wants to get rid of him asap.
It is based on the play of the same name by author Ins Choi, which premiered in 2011. In 2015, the adaptation of the series was announced, which then ran from 2016. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Jean Yoon played all their roles in the stage version .
Memories of “King of Queens”
What excites me about Kim’s Convenience is the great dynamic between the characters – especially the husbands, whose real names are rarely mentioned. They are only called “Appa” and “Umma” by their children, they also use these words themselves. Mrs. Kim sometimes affectionately calls her husband, sometimes a little angry, sometimes annoyed by the caress “Yobo”. They both bicker in the same way Doug and Carrie do in “King Of Queens” – especially when one of them somehow messes up.
Do you want an example? Great is the episode in which Mr. Kim has to reveal to his wife that he sold his burial place in the cemetery 20 years ago when money was tight – and they reserved extra places next to each other.
Wonderful family dynamic
I love the four main characters of Kim’s Convenience with all their shortcomings and just feel comfortable watching them interact. The wheel is certainly not being reinvented, but how the parents gradually start to look more openly at the world around them and the two offspring realize that their parental home, which feels so cold, is actually a place full of warmth, is told in a wonderfully quiet way.
The series creates a cozy feeling for a long time that I love with good sitcoms – you hang out with people you think you know for 20 entertaining, relaxing minutes and just have fun…
… nevertheless, it should not go unmentioned that “Kim’s Convenience” was met with a controversy and ended. Again and again, but more often in later episodes, racism comes up. For example, there is an episode in the fourth season where Mrs. Kim is held in front of the wait staff by a wealthy patron of the event at an exhibition where Janet, among others, presents her photos. As she swallows this, an enraged Janet demands an apology. The resulting turbulent complications lead to Janet’s photo being awarded an award, though it remains unclear whether she deserved the award or whether the white juror simply made the decision out of guilt…
The four protagonists made it clear that they did not always agree with the way such subjects were dealt with in the series and They particularly complained that the mostly white team of writers always dismissed objections, advice, and comments from the cast. In the end, it was decided to end the collaboration after five seasons. The stars stepped out, the series came to an end. And yes, there are a few weaker episodes where that input may have helped.
Despite this justified criticism, “Kim’s Convenience” is for me a very funny, very affectionate and above all very rewarding family series with a great cast and great characters.