Image source: JTBC (Seung-hyun Oh) — via Anime News Network
Jung-woo Ha, Bo-hyun Ahn, Hae-joon Park, and Sung-il Jung have been cast in Inside Men: The Birth of Villains (working title), a prequel to the 2015 South Korean film Inside Men, production company Hive Media Corp announced on August 20.
Set in the late 1980s, the film will explore the origins of the power cartel portrayed in the original movie, tracing how the worlds of media, capital, and politics became intertwined.
Ha willplay Kang-hee Lee, a newspaper reporter who is pushed into a less prominent position after pursuing a major corporate corruption story. The character was played by Yoon-sik Baek in Inside Men.
Ahn will play Sang-goo Ahn, an entertainment agency executive who rises from the bottom while pursuing success and revenge. Byung-hun Lee played the character in the original film.
Park will portray Pil-woo Jang, a first-term lawmaker and ambitious politician seeking to rise to the center of power, while Jung will playHyun-soo Oh, the chairman of Mirae Group who seeks to establish himself at the top of theemerging cartel.
While previously the staff had stated the work would be a film trilogy, this latest announcement of the cast did not include mention of a trilogy, soit is currently unclear how many films will be in the project.
Based on theunfinished webtoon created by Tae-ho Yoon, who is known for webtoons like Yahoo and Misaeng: Incomplete Life, Inside Men was previously adapted into the 2015 hit film of the same name.
The story follows a network of powerful figures — a presidential candidate, a corporate tycoon, and a media strategist — entangled in deep political corruption and backdoor dealings. A small-time enforcer who once served them becomes a scapegoat aftera secret slush fund scheme is exposed, leaving him broken and seeking revenge.
Meanwhile, an ambitious prosecutor with no influential background gets a rare chance totake down the country's biggest corruption ring, only to have his investigation derailed. As the two men's paths collide, each driven by his own sense of justice and ambition, a dangerous power struggle unfolds beneath the surface of politics, money, and the media.
The Inside Men webtoon does not currently have an official English release, but other series by Yoon such as The Hooligans, Eorin, Moss, Operation Chromite, and Misaeng: Incomplete Life have English releases.