Now, Disney has made a surprise announcement in keeping with this side of their television business, but one that longtime TV fans will almost certainly find intriguing. Disney has confirmed that production has officially begun on The Koreans, a reimagining of the FX series The Americans, which wrapped up after 75 episodes in 2018. The big difference, as you can guess, is that rather than Russian spies hiding in 1980s America, the new series will follow North Korean spies in 1990s South Korea. To make the series even more enticing, the show’s two stars have also been confirmed, with Lee Byunghun (No Other Choice, Squid Game) and Han Jimin (Heavenly Ever After) starring as the two undercover spies.
The Americans Remake, The Koreans, Confirmed for Disney+ and Hulu
“I was the guy who developed The Americans,” Eric Schrier, Disney’s head of international local originals, revealed to THR, noting that his history with the show made him anxious about a remake. “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.”
Schrier noted that the original creators of The Americans declined to be involved, but were eager to visit the set of the series. Ahn Gilho (Netflix’s The Glory) will direct the new series, which features scripts by Park Eunkyo (Made In Korea, Mother).
Set during the wave of democratization and cultural modernization that swept across South Korea in the early 1990s, The Koreans will follow a middle-class family hiding a treasonous secret. While seemingly ordinary citizens in the eyes of their friends, neighbors, 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.
“There are a lot of geopolitical spy thriller-type stories in the market now, but what got us really excited are the couple and family dynamics, and the drama and humor involved in two spies living as husband and wife while trying to bridge the ideological divide of the two Koreas — all of which will feel very relevant for the Korean audience,” Carol Choi, Disney’s Executive VP of Content Strategy and Marketing in the Asia-Pacific region, added. “And obviously, Lee Byung-hun is a big win for us.”
Disney has confirmed that The Koreans will stream exclusively on Disney+ internationally and on Hulu in the United States. It’s unclear how many seasons the new version of the series will have down the road, as FX’s original version of The Americans ran for six seasons in its initial run. Perhaps the success of The Koreans could see this formula be applied to even more international productions in the years to come, as there’s no shortage of specific eras of espionage to exploit in world history.
