{"id":668782,"date":"2026-09-02T13:24:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668782\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:24:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:24:26","slug":"hyun-bin-woo-do-hwan-turn-on-each-other-in-made-in-korea-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668782\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyun Bin, Woo Do-hwan Turn on Each Other in ‘Made in Korea’ Season 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAt a some KRW70 billion ($51 million) across two seasons, \u201cMade in Korea<\/a>\u201d ranks among the most expensive K-dramas ever made. <\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 2 premieres six episodes on Hulu<\/a> and Disney+<\/a> Sept. 9, closing the story in 1979, the year Korean politics came apart in 10 weeks.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 1 left viewers in the 1970s, inside the Korean Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s anti-communist propaganda machine and alongside Baek Ki-tae\u2019s expanding drug operation. Season 2 jumps forward nine years, to a presidential assassination, military coups and an unstable state that changes hands many times in the months that follow.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was one of the most chaotic and tumultuous times in modern Korean history,\u201d says director Woo Min-ho (\u201cHarbin\u201d), who saw the period as the natural endpoint for his characters\u2019 ambitions. Woo has also already been here before. His 2020 feature \u201cThe Man Standing Next\u201d dramatized the 40 days leading to the assassination.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe gap was a deliberate choice. \u201cNine years seemed like an appropriate number of years, and it\u2019s a long period of time that can change people significantly,\u201d says Woo. Besides history, the main draw of the season is how changed all the characters are. Ki-tae is now second-in-command at the KCIA, closer than he has ever been to the top job. \u201cWhile rising through the ranks, he has met and dealt with many people and his methods have changed,\u201d says Hyun Bin<\/a> (\u201cCrash Landing on You,\u201d \u201cHarbin\u201d), who plays Baek Ki-tae. The character\u2019s wealth and status have reshaped his relationships and the way he treats the people around him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat drift is what drives the season\u2019s central conflict: the widening gap between Ki-tae and his younger brother, Baek Ki-hyun, the once-timid recruit now risen through military ranks. Woo Do-hwan (\u201cBloodhounds,\u201d \u201cMr. Plankton\u201d), who plays Baek Ki-hyun, says his character\u2019s social position has changed and he has gained some power of his own, allowing him to talk back to his brother more, adding, \u201cHis beliefs have become stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Jang Geon-young, the relentless prosecutor at the center of Season 1, his fate is left as a mystery. But expect him to \u201cride the tide of an emerging power, to return with the goal of exacting his revenge,\u201d teases Jung Woo-sung (\u201cSteel Rain,\u201d \u201c12.12: The Day\u201d), who plays the character. The show\u2019s noir movie aesthetics still serve its story of political ambition, where revenge is disguised as justice and greed hidden behind lofty lies of patriotism.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Season 1, each episode featured a different event and a different story, revolving around different characters,\u201d Woo says. \u201cSo each episode almost felt like a standalone film. Season 2 consists of six episodes, but they progress in a way that will make them feel like parts of one continuous movie. I think viewers will find Season 2 tighter in narrative and faster-paced compared to Season 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat compression reflects a broader shift. Disney+, like Netflix, Coupang Play, Wavve, Watcha and Tving, has been steadily dismantling the Korean broadcast standard of a single 16-episode season, and are recruiting film directors for shorter prestige runs.<\/p>\n

\n\tHyun Bin built his early career on 16-episode dramas in the 2000s, and says the appeal of a returning role is specific: finding out what the years did to his character. \u201cBeing able to experience an era of our own country that I couldn\u2019t experience in real life is something I can only do thanks to this job of being an actor,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMade in Korea\u201d will end here, but the century does not. Park Eun-gyo, who shares writing credit on the series, is already moving into the next decade with \u201cThe Koreans,\u201d a Korean take on FX\u2019s award-winning \u201cThe Americans,\u201d due on Hulu and Disney+ next year and set in the 1990s, another period of tumultuous politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a some KRW70 billion ($51 million) across two seasons, \u201cMade in Korea\u201d ranks among the most expensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[1887,18,117,13930,101008,19,17,101009,128],"class_list":["post-668782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-disney","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-hulu","tag-hyun-bin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-made-in-korea","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117201670470025225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}