Beef: Ali Wong's thrilling dark comedy is humorously perfect

Beef, a brand-new 10-episode Netflix series from creator Lee Sung Jin, begins with a charged encounter between two strangers in a parking lot. Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) is conveniently attempting to contain it at one end after failing to return a sizable number of hibachi grills and a carbon monoxide detector. He's at a standstill. The L.A. botanical designer Amy Lau (Ali Wong), who is about to sell her business and cash it in, is another. 

After a meaningless honk and middle-finger display, neither of these two is prepared to settle the issue, and the situation escalates into a chase through the suburb of San Fernando Valley. This pursuit effectively devolves into a vicious and absurd rollercoaster ride of who's going to get who. 

The setting of Beef takes time to develop its people over the course of ten episodes. Look closer, and creator Lee Sung Jin and director Hikari skillfully craft a specific cultural perspective: where the predominantly Asian-American cast members make choices that may seem greatly different from one another, but are intricately almost similar in terms of their spiralling self-awareness. The first few episodes struggle to maintain their connection with their protagonists.

Amy, a half-Vietnamese, half-Chinese working mother of a young daughter, she's always on the get-go of things, either feeling too much or not feeling at all. She does this while her husband George (Joseph Lee) is blissfully self-sufficient and is not aware of her internal wrath. While Danny struggles to make ends meet as a struggling contractor, his absent brother Paul (a scene-stealing Young Mazino) is constantly searching for alternatives through cryptocurrency trading. His cousin Isaac (David Choe), who was involved in some criminal activities, reportedly cost his parents their motel, so they relocated back to Korea. David has now been released from prison and is now here to make things right.

Road rage incident happens in the midst of all of this. The first person to retaliate against Amy is Danny, who shows up at her house one fine morning and introduces himself as a plumber. He runs off after finding an opportunity to urinate on the restroom floor. Amy is furious, but she has more vicious ways of getting even. To contact his brother Paul, she makes a false profile using the photo of her white female helper. These two unstable, dysfunctional individuals are just getting started as their hidden motives come to light and explode in a crimson bloodbath.

Yeun, who has recently established himself as one of the most endearing screen presences, is a ball of fire as Danny. Yeun exhibits a wide range of abilities in this role that is really different from anything we've seen him attempt in his career. He can alternately show off his singing prowess in a startlingly emotional moment or accept his buffoonery until it's too late. Wong, who matches Yeun in every move, is in captivating form, balancing the humour, hopelessness, and frustration of her acts with exquisite control. The scenes explode with the charged power of a sudden rainstorm when these two extremes combine.

The arduous task of hustling for existence in an oppressive, brutally capitalist culture where one is never exactly who they seem to be is grasped by Beef. Where one cannot tolerate seeing the same errors in another person. Knife makes deep cuts. Beef steadily assembles its building pieces like a feat of balancing genius as it advances at a heart-pounding rate.