Could the first war on drugs on the Korean Peninsula, long considered a drug-free zone, have unfolded like this? "With a father's heart," the first drama chosen by two actors who have undergone personal changes, Jung Woo-sung and Hyun Bin, Made In Korea, turns viewers' attention to the heart of the 1970s.
The new Disney+ original series Made In Korea (written by Park Eun-kyo and Park Jun-seok, directed by Woo Min-ho) is a drama that depicts the story of Baek Gi-tae (Hyun Bin), a man with ambitions for wealth and power, and prosecutor Jang Geon-young (Jung Woo-sung), who throws everything away to stop him, unfolding amid the whirlwinds of the era.
Originally, Made In Korea was known as a spin-off of director Woo Min-ho's 2018 film The Drug King. But the Made In Korea seen through the pre-released first and second episodes is markedly different from The Drug King. If one must find a common point, it is only that it tells the story of a man who seeks astronomical wealth and power by making drugs in 1970s Korea and selling them to Japan, and the prosecutor who pursues him.
To establish such a serialized series, Made In Korea pays close attention to conveying detailed elements from episode one. In the 1970s, when dictatorial power reigned in Korea, there was the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, the dictator's private guard. Even within that, Baek Gi-tae is an ambitious man who always stretches a sensitive antenna toward the core of power.
Yet even in harsh times there are people who lived by the right path. Opposite Baek Gi-tae stands prosecutor Jang Geon-young. Why did philopon first become known in Korea as "hiropon"? In the past, The New York Times reported that the first arrival of the drug philopon in Korea was in the early 20th century during the Japanese colonial period. The Japanese injected drugs into forced laborers to mobilize them for murderous wartime labor.
Although clearly a story of the 1970s, the drama seems to apply to the present as well. Regrettably, 21st-century Korea is still fighting a renewed war on drugs, and martial law was declared only a year ago. Facing a reality that cannot be dismissed as a single page in a history book, Made In Korea adds one thing: the era portrayed through directorial detail and tightly built character settings.
However, because of that, the early structure devotes somewhat more to explaining characters. In particular, using the Yodohō abduction as a motif in episode one evokes the recently released Netflix movie The Good News, in that both take the same subject as a motif. But in Made In Korea, that incident must be considered in the context of a time when contact with the outside world was cut off.
Nevertheless, the era a decade deeper than the 1980s, which has been treated in countless works, evokes some now-broken link. The cast led by Hyun Bin and Jung Woo-sung, and even director Woo Min-ho, were children or not yet born then, and current 2049 viewers either did not know or vaguely recall the fathers and mothers' generation.
1st and 2nd episodes released simultaneously on the 24th, six-part series.
[Photo] Provided by Disney+.
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