The international breakout star of the last 12 months is Lee Jung-jae. The South Korean actor became a global sensation for his role as Seong Gi-hun in Netflix’s Squid Game. For his next move, Lee will make his feature directorial debut with the espionage thriller, Hunt.
Lee stars as Park Pyong-ho, a KCIA Foreign Unit Chief who is tasked with uncovering a North Korean spy known as Donglim. Along with KCIA Domestic Unit Chief Kim Jung-do (Jung Woo-sung), he learns that the spy within their agency is leaking top-secret information that threatens national security. As they search for clues, Pyong-ho and Jung-do begin to investigate each other as they slowly learn about a plot to assassinate the South Korean president.
Set in the 1980s, Hunt is a cat-and-mouse game between the two agents searching for a mole. Although the story is fiction, the circumstances surrounding the film are based on actual events. Some of the events include the Gwangju Uprising, the defection of North Korean pilot Lee Ung-pyeong, and the Rangoon bombing of 1983. Jeon Hye-jin, Go Yoon-jung, Kim Jong-soo, Jung Man-sik, and Heo Sung-tae co-star alongside Lee and Jung.
Squid Game was the phenomenon of 2021 as the survival drama about contestants competing for life-changing money in deadly children’s games became Netflix’s most-watched series of all time. Lee’s critically acclaimed performance earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. In Hunt, Lee reunites with his Squid Game co-star Heo, who played the villainous Jang Deok-su.
Magnet Releasing will release Hunt in theaters and on VOD on December 2.
