Netflix is keeping its K-drama pipeline pumping. The streamer revealed Thursday that it has begun production on The Facade of Love, a new romance series from Mo Wan-il, the hitmaking director behind the JTBC juggernaut The World of the Married, and veteran writer Ha Su-jin (The Matchmakers, Sell Your Haunted House). Netflix also shared a sneak peek from the show’s first table read in Seoul (above and below).
The series finds Mo again mining the marital meltdown dynamics that made his 2020 hit a cultural phenomenon in Korea and beyond. The World of the Married — a local adaptation of BBC One’s Doctor Foster — struck a chord with its story of an accomplished female doctor who methodically unravels her husband’s affair. The show went on to become the highest-rated drama in Korean cable television history, with a finale that drew a 28.4 percent nationwide rating, a record that still stands. Mo took home the Baeksang Arts Award for best director for the series.
The series builds on Netflix’s established relationship with Mo, whose first project for the streamer, the 2024 mystery thriller The Frog, was a sizable global hit on the platform.
In The Facade of Love, Lee Dong-wook stars as Ji-hun, a man whose ordered life is destabilized after a chance, charged encounter with Hu-kyung (Jeon So-nee), a stranger he meets while traveling abroad. Both return to Korea expecting their old routines to resume; instead, the connection refuses to fade, slowly opening fractures in the lives around them. Jung Yu-mi plays Sun-hee, Ji-hun’s wife; Lee Jong-won is Dae-hee, Sun-hee’s younger brother, whose own unexpected entanglement with Hu-kyung pulls the story in unexpected directions.
The ensemble continues Netflix’s track record of bringing together some of Korea’s most in-demand talent. Lee Dong-wook is internationally known from his Grim Reaper turn in the 2016 fantasy phenomenon Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (also known as Goblin), as well as lead roles in Tale of the Nine Tailed and Disney+’s A Shop for Killers. Jung Yu-mi is among the most decorated film actresses of her generation, with two Blue Dragon Film Awards, a Baeksang and a Grand Bell across credits including Train to Busan, Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 and Jason Yu’s Sleep. Jeon So-nee broke through globally as the slippery lead of Yeon Sang-ho’s 2024 Netflix hit Parasyte: The Grey, while Lee Jong-won has been steadily on the rise through dramas like Knight Flower and The Golden Spoon.
The series adds to what is shaping up as another formidable year for Korean content on Netflix. The streamer rolled out a 33-title Korean slate in January ranging from a new season of Singles Inferno to rom-com Boyfriend on Demand — starring Blackpink’s Jisoo — and Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, the revered auteur’s first feature in eight years and a likely contender at this fall’s major festivals. The company expanded the lineup further in late March with romance series Long Vacation from Crash Landing on You director Lee Jung-hyo.
Korea continues to play an outsized role as one of Netflix’s most reliable content engines outside the U.S. — a reality underscored last month by the BTS comeback concert broadcast live from Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, which drew 18.4 million viewers and topped the Netflix charts in 24 countries.
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