A Korean-language remake of acclaimed FX spy drama The Americans has been confirmed to be in production at Disney+, setting into motion what might become one of its most ambitious international originals to date.
Originally created by Joe Weisberg, The Americans premiered in 2013 and ran for six seasons until 2018, following two deep-cover Soviet spies posing as an American married couple in suburban Washington, DC, during the Cold War. Matthew Rhys starred as Philip Jennings and Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, with the series exploring both espionage operations amid the strains of their fabricated domestic life.
Critically acclaimed throughout its run, the show won the Golden Globe for best television series – drama in 2019, and was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards, including outstanding drama series, and won four.
Disney+ has confirmed that the remake, which will be titled The Koreans, will relocate the story to Seoul in 1990, reimagining the central couple as North Korean agents embedded in South Korean society.
Squid Game star Lee Byung Hun will lead the series as Kim Myung Jun, an elite operative who has lived undercover in the South for more than a decade, opposite Our Blue’s Han Ji Min as Yoon Hak Kyung, an agent who becomes his wife as part of their cover, while Lee Hee Joon will play an anti-espionage detective investigating the couple.
The series’ official plot line reads: “While seemingly ordinary citizens in the eyes of their friends, neighbours, and even their children, both parents are actually elite North Korean spies working to bring down the South from within. Highlighting the stark difference between these two formerly united countries, the series will follow the spies as they wrestle with conflicting feelings of patriotism, loyalty, identity, and love, while a ruthless Korean counterintelligence agent draws ever closer to discovering their identities.”
The series is directed by Ahn Gil Ho and written by Park Eun-kyo, and will be released in 2027, according to The Korea Herald. The adaptation will follow a Korean production model, with the same writer and director overseeing the entire series rather than the writers’ room and rotating director system typical of US television.
Moving the setting to Seoul is a significant departure from the original series’ Cold War backdrop, replacing the US-Soviet rivalry with the unresolved tensions of the Korean peninsula. The Koreans is set in a period shortly after South Korea’s transition to democratic governance after the June Democratic Uprising of 1987.
“The similarities of the two premises – North Koreans embedded in the South, instead of Russians spying in 1980s America – started to make sense to me,” Eric Schrier, Disney’s head of international local originals told The Hollywood Reporter.
“But it was really the passion of our Korean team that got me excited – and I could see that, because Korea is still divided, this could be a very culturally relevant story for the local audience, which is always the primary priority for our local original content.”
This dynamic reflects the peninsula’s unresolved conflict, with North and South Korea technically still at war as the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War was never followed by a formal peace treaty, leaving the border heavily militarised and relations between the neighbours defined by periodic tensions and diplomatic stand-offs.
Schrier said Rhys and Russell, as well as creators Weisberg and Joel Fields, had all given their support. “Joe and Joel were very curious, but chose not to be involved – for emotional reasons, I think,” he said, adding that they declined to read scripts but “want to visit the sets”. “They’re fun, curious guys – I suspect they just want to get to Korea for the first time to check out the culture and eat some Korean food.”
