Hyun Bin earns acclaim for darker turn in Disney+ series

“Whenever I saw senior actor Hyun Bin on set, I jokingly told him that he looked like Tom Hardy,” actress Seo Eun-soo said.

“Baek Gi-tae, portrayed by Hyun Bin in this series, is a villain, yet he carries a sense of style, reminiscent of Al Pacino in The Godfather,” director Woo Min-ho said. “There was a genuine thrill in discovering and shaping a new side of him.”

Hyun Bin’s performance in the Disney+ series Made in Korea has continued to resonate strongly with viewers even after the first season concluded on Jan. 14. Through the character of Baek Gi-tae, Hyun Bin, 44, captured both seething ambition and icy rationality, prompting audiences to hail him as “Korea’s Tom Hardy” and “Korea’s Al Pacino.”

Speaking in an interview on Jan. 27, Hyun Bin responded to the acclaim with characteristic modesty. “My wife, actress Son Ye-jin, told me she saw a side of me she had never seen before as a fellow actor,” he said. “Hearing that gave me the confidence to try something different and to express myself more boldly.”

Set in the 1970s, "Made in Korea" follows Baek Gi-tae, who leads a double life as a Korean Central Intelligence Agency agent by day and a drug smuggler by night, and prosecutor Jang Geon-young, played by Jung Woo-sung, who pursues him with relentless determination. Buoyed by strong word of mouth, the series became Disney+’s most-watched Korean original in the Asia-Pacific region last year. Production of a second season has been confirmed, and filming is already under way.

Best known for romantic drama hits such as "My Name Is Kim Sam-soon," "Secret Garden" and "Crash Landing on You," Hyun Bin revealed a markedly different side of himself through the villainous role. He said, however, that he did not approach Baek as a conventional antagonist. Director Woo Min-ho, he added, cited James Bond as a reference point for shaping the character.

“The director wanted Gi-tae to project authority while also carrying a sense of wit,” Hyun Bin said. “As seen in the Yodoho incident in the first episode, in the way he gently treats a child and maintains composure even among members of the Red Army Faction, he is far from a one-dimensional villain. That complexity made the role especially compelling.”

Hyun Bin said the element he focused on most while preparing for the role was his weight, revealing that he gained about 14 kilograms compared with his appearance in the film Harbin. “When I first read the script, I wanted the imposing presence of the KCIA as an institution to be reflected in Baek Gi-tae,” he said. “Seeing myself fill the screen in the way I had envisioned was deeply satisfying.”

He added that Baek Gi-tae, a man willing to stop at nothing to achieve success, was not a character he could easily relate to. Hyun Bin described the series as a meditation on success and conscience. “It poses the question of whether success attained by abandoning one’s conscience is truly wrong,” he said. “Rather than drawing a clear line between good and evil, the drama asks viewers to grapple with that question on their own.”

“While acting, I came to see Gi-tae as a kind of mirror,” Hyun Bin said. “If we let our guard down, characters like him can emerge in many situations even today. Although the story is set in South Korea in the 1970s, it is not confined to that era or place.”


김태언 beborn@donga.com