Critically acclaimed director Woo Minho brings the full force of his cinematic sensibilities to the second season of Made in Korea, his television debut on Disney+, a crime drama steeped in the institutional rot of 1970s South Korea.
The director behind Inside Men and The Man Standing Next has long been fascinated by the intersection of state power and human immorality, and moving from film to television has done little to diminish that ambition. If anything, Made in Korea gives Woo more room to examine the machinery of power from every angle.
At the center of this narrative is corrupt government official Baek Kitae, portrayed by Hyun Bin in a multifaceted performance that earned him two ‘Best Actor’ accolades. Baek Kitae is a senior official within the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), using his position as a front for a lucrative side enterprise trafficking meth directly into Japan. He is indubitably the villain of this story.
Interestingly, however, the narrative treats him as its protagonist. It is his perspective the audience inhabits as we witness his thought process, his humble origins, and his struggle for power. By Season 2, he has reached the upper echelons of the government, but his success has done little to satisfy him. Hyun Bin notes that Kitae remains insatiably ambitious and hungry for greater influence.
While Baek Kitae is hardly alone as a villainous protagonist in a crime drama, the audience does not root for him simply because of his tragic backstory. Made in Korea never asks the audience to sympathize. His past explains him, but it does not excuse him. He is not softened by a tragic childhood or given convenient moral loopholes. Instead, he is presented as a monster produced by an ugly world – and one who has learned to thrive within it.: Kitae is appalling, but he is also frighteningly competent, charismatic, and cool. The audience may despise what he does, yet it is impossible to look away.
Jung Woosung as Jang Geonyoung, the upstanding prosecutor whose strong sense of justice pushes him to uncover Baek Kitae’s illegal activities, is far less relatable. Perhaps by design. Where Kitae’s motivations are never in question, Geonyoung operates as an enigma whose idealism nobody truly understands. Not his family, not his colleagues, and certainly not the world. At the climax of the first season, he is jailed on false charges, seemingly crushed by the system he believed he could challenge. However, that is far from the last of him.
In Season 2, Geonyoung returns less like a conventional hero than a vengeful spirit haunting Kitae’s every step. Jung Woosung has described his character’s driving motivation as vengeance against Kitae, though Geonyoung mentally frames that vengeance as justice.
A new player in this duel is Kitae’s younger brother Baek Kihyun, played with vulnerability and edge by Woo Dohwan. Following his swift promotion within the military, Baek Kihyun has matured into an active player in the power struggle. Though Ki-tae continuously leverages their shared blood to manipulate Kihyun, the audience is never quite sure if he’s merely weaponizing familial obligations or if this is also a misguided attempt to protect his brother from the meat grinder of the higher levels of the state.
As Woo Dohwan has emphasized, his character’s deep love for his family ironically becomes the very force that drives him into conflict with his older brother. The more Kihyun attempts to protect what matters to him, the more directly he finds himself challenging the man who has spent years controlling the family’s destiny.
Meanwhile, Baek Soyeong, played by Cha Hee, admires and loves her older brother Kitae more than anyone, having witnessed how he worked himself to the bone to provide for their family. Still, that doesn’t stop her from making her own decisions. Cha Hee said that Soyeong’s personality has flipped 180 degrees in the nine years since Season 1, allowing us to see more dimensions of her character beyond her affection for her brother.
Perhaps the most compelling side character is Ikeda Yuji, played by Won Jian, who previously gained attention for her role in Squid Game Season 2. A prominent figure in the yakuza and Kitae’s primary ally in Japan, Yuji is no less power-hungry. Her position is made even more precarious by the discrimination she faces as both a woman and an ethnic Korean in Japan. Rather than allowing those circumstances to define her as a victim, however, the series uses them to sharpen her determination to seize power on her own terms. Season 2 gives Yuji considerably more screen time and fight sequences. In preparation for this, Won Jian worked extensively with director Woo Minho to build Yuji’s character, particularly her willingness to cross almost any boundary in pursuit of power.
That pragmatism is ultimately what connects Made in Korea’s sprawling cast. Whether they are driven by greed, justice, family, or survival, the characters exist within a political environment where morality is constantly tested against necessity.
Where many contemporary period dramas fall flat is in their setting, treating historical eras as mere window dressing where events and locations phase in and out depending on the needs of the plot. Made in Korea is aggressively grounded in the sociopolitical reality of 1970s South Korea, anchoring its major arcs around real-life historical events that reshaped the nation.
Season 1 opened against the backdrop of the 1970 hijacking of Japan Air Lines Flight 351. Season 2 moves into the political upheaval that followed the assassination of former President Park Chung-hee. These events are not merely historical landmarks inserted between fictional plot points; they actively shape the world the characters inhabit.
With these monumental events as its backdrop, the second season escalates both its narrative pace and its thematic severity. More than ever, the show does not pull punches when exposing the dark underbelly of the authoritarian state apparatus, diving into brutal and unsparing detail. The horror of Made in Korea stems not merely from individual villainy, but from the realization of how effortlessly an institution can turn human lives into pawns on the board.
Even from a purely technical perspective, Made in Korea holds its own. Woo Minho brings his full cinematic toolbox to the project – bold, stark lighting, sharp textures, and wide compositions emphasizing the enormity of the state compared with the individuals struggling to manipulate it.
That cinematic approach does come with a caveat. As Woo’s first television series, Made in Korea occasionally resists the rhythms viewers may expect from conventional episodic storytelling. Woo himself acknowledged that Season 1 could feel like a succession of individual feature films. Season 2, he said, is meant to flow more cohesively.
Made in Korea is not a series built for passive viewing. It demands attention. Its historical references, visual choices, and subtle changes in body language all contribute to the larger narrative. This is not the kind of show that comfortably fades into the background while the viewer tends to errands or chores.
At its best, Made in Korea is less interested in telling audiences who deserves their sympathy than in forcing them to confront how easily ideals become corrupted inside systems designed to reward power. Baek Kitae may be its most obvious monster, but the more unsettling implication is that he is not an aberration. He is the intended product of his environment.
Made in Korea Season 2 will premiere on Disney+ with Episodes 1 and 2 on September 9.