Made in Korea

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A Disney+ Original crime drama set in 1970s Korea and Japan about the clash between Baek Ki-tae, a section chief at the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, and Jang Geon-young, a Busan District Prosecutors' Office prosecutor who goes after him, Made in Korea is the first series directed by Woo Min-ho, the filmmaker behind Inside Men, The Man Standing Next and Harbin.

Disney+ released episodes 1 and 2 on December 24, 2025, followed by episodes 3 and 4 on December 31, episode 5 on January 7, 2026, and episode 6 on January 14. The Disney+ Korea title page lists the rating as 15+. The screenplay was written by Park Eun-kyo, co-writer of the film Mother and writer of The Silent Sea, together with Park Joon-suk, and the series was produced by Hive Media Corp, the company behind Inside Men and The Man Standing Next. Each episode is built around a different story set against real events, and the one used in episode 1 is the so-called Yodo-go hijacking of 1970, in which the Japan Communist League's Red Army Faction hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351.

Woo Min-ho directed Inside Men (2015), The Drug King (2018), The Man Standing Next (2020) and Harbin (2024). At Disney+ Originals Preview 2025, held in Hong Kong in November 2025, he said he drew on his previous films to recreate the 1970s, and that they are all stories about people racing toward twisted human desires and convictions. At the launch press conference, he said he was born in the 1970s and wanted to properly bring that era to life, adding that he had always wondered where Korea's distinctive, dynamic energy came from and thought it might have started in the 1970s.

Hyun Bin plays Baek Ki-tae, chief of the intelligence section at the KCIA's Busan branch, and Jung Woo-sung plays Jang Geon-young, a prosecutor with the Busan District Prosecutors' Office. As a child, Ki-tae was looked down on for being an ethnic Korean in Japan while he took responsibility for his two younger siblings, and he leads a dangerous double life to get ahead. In episode 1, "A Businessman," a passenger plane bound for Fukuoka is hijacked in midair in a scenario based on that incident, and Ki-tae, who has an important deal coming up, gets involved. In episode 2, "The Power of the Dog," Geon-young, who has long been chasing a drug-smuggling ship, picks up on suspicious moves by the KCIA. Woo Do-hwan plays Ki-tae's younger brother Baek Ki-hyeon, an army officer who graduated from the Korea Military Academy; Seo Eun-soo plays Oh Ye-jin, an investigator just starting her career who works with Geon-young; and Won Ji-an plays Yuji Ikeda, the second-in-command of Japan's Ikeda organization. Jung Sung-il plays Cheon Seok-joong, chief of the Presidential Security Service; Park Yong-woo plays Hwang Guk-pyeong, Ki-tae's direct superior; Roh Jae-won plays Pyo Hak-soo, who joined the agency in the same intake as Ki-tae; and Kang Gil-woo plays Kang Dae-il, underboss of the Manjae gang. Cho Yeo-jeong and Japanese actor Lily Franky also appear.

At the launch press conference, Hyun Bin described Baek Ki-tae as the character with the strongest desires of any he has played, saying that in Harbin he had felt a heavy responsibility because he was playing a real person, but that this time the character was fictional, which made the work fun. The series is Hyun Bin's first OTT project. Jung Woo-sung described it as an imagined story that places fictional characters inside real events and steers the story toward things that never actually happened. Disney+ said the series set the record for the most viewing in Korea among the Korean originals released on Disney+ in 2025 (based on its first 14 days), and that based on its first 28 days, it was also the most-watched Korean original released in 2025 in the Asia-Pacific region. For the series, Hyun Bin won Best Actor in the Broadcasting category at the 62nd Baeksang Arts Awards in 2026 and Best Actor in the series category at the 24th Director's Cut Awards.

See alsoHarbin 2024The Man Standing Next 2020Inside Men 2015

Drama Lineup editors · Fact-checked against: sports.khan.co.kr, twig24.com, enews.imbc.com, nocutnews.co.kr, wikitree.co.kr, news.tf.co.kr, newsis.com, segye.com, heraldk.com, disneyplus.com · 2026-10-18