Disney+ has given a series greenlight to “The Koreans,” a reimagining of the FX series “The Americans,” starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys.
“The Koreans,” which has officially begun production, will star Lee Byung-hun (“Squid Game”) and Han Ji-min (“Heavenly Ever After”) as the next generation of undercover spies.
Park Eun-kyo (“Made in Korea,” “Mother”) is adapting the show from “The Americans,” while Ahn Gil-ho (“The Glory”) is set to direct the series. IMAGINUS and Studio AA produce “The Koreans.”
The series, which will stream exclusively on Disney+ internationally and on Hulu in the U.S., is set during the wave of democratization and cultural modernization that swept across South Korea in the early 1990s, with “The Koreans” narrowing its focus on a middle-class family hiding a treasonous secret.
The official logline is as follows: “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.”
“The Koreans” joins a slate of Korean original projects, which include “Tempest,” “Made in Korea” and “The Tyrant.”
Created by Joe Weisberg and showrun by Joel Fields and Weisberg, “The Americans” ran for six seasons from 2013 to 2018. The series won the Golden Globe for best drama television series and was named AFI TV Program of the Year for five consecutive seasons.
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