Jin Sun-kyu and Gong Myoung reunite for family action-comedy “Husbands in Action”
The whacky cop comedy is the stuff of Korea’s most reliable crowd-pleasers, a playbook run into the ground by everything from “Veteran” to the “Roundup” franchise. Upcoming Netflix original “Husbands in Action” locks right into that groove, then leans on the warm-fuzzies by reuniting the two leads from that genre’s high-water mark: “Extreme Job.”
The 2019 smash hit — about a narcotics squad that runs a fried chicken joint as a stakeout front — drew more than 16 million admissions and still ranks among the most-watched Korean films ever made.
Jin Sun-kyu and Gong Myoung, who played two of its bumbling detectives, are back at it again, this time as an ex-husband and a new husband forced to team up when the woman they married gets abducted by a drug gang.
The bottom line is that Netflix is betting the dumb fun honed for Korean multiplexes will work just as well across the 190 territories it reaches.
Which raised an obvious question at Monday’s press conference at the Ambassador Seoul Pullman in central Seoul: How do you reunite the “Extreme Job” guys without making it a knockoff?
Jin brushed off the worries. “I was never worried it’d feel like a remake. The story’s too fresh for that,” he said. “It was like starting from scratch, and that start was already a blast.”
Jin, a versatile character actor who got his break in his 40s and has barely stopped working since, spent more time gushing about his co-star. “Gong’s grown so much since,” he said. “I’d throw him a different read every take, and he’d catch every one. The whole thing just clicked.”
Gong, for his part, called the reunion a no-brainer. It’s been seven years since “Extreme Job,” and the 32-year-old has taken off in the interim, headlining series like “Lovers of the Red Sky” and turning up in films from “Hansan: Rising Dragon” to last year’s Netflix original “Love Untangled.”
“Getting to work with Sun-kyu again after ‘Extreme Job’ meant the world,” he said. “There was no reason to say no.” He added that he was happy on set every single day, “down to the minute.”
Director Park Gyu-tae was after more than a callback. Best known for “6/45,” the 2022 feel-good comedy about North and South Korean soldiers squabbling over a winning lottery ticket along the border, Park pitched this as a sitcom scaled way up.
“My movies have always been about clashing groups and the comedy that spills out of that,” he said. “What’s new here is the action. It blows up into this family-rescue thing — land, sea and air. Watch the action alone and you’d swear it was ‘Mission: Impossible.'”
The supporting bench carries its share of the chaos, and it’s a deep one stacked with familiar faces. Kim Ji-suk (“Another Miss Oh,” “When the Camellia Blooms”) plays the tech-savvy boss of an upstart drug ring, and he packed on five kilos for the part. Yoon Kyung-ho (“The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call”), another scene-stealer who’s been everywhere lately, plays a rival kingpin scheming to claw back his old turf. He likened the character to oil that won’t mix with water and “the freshest role I’ve played.”
The women hold their own in the mayhem. Kang Hanna (“Start-Up”) trained with a stunt team on judo throws as the abducted Si-nae, while Lee Da-hee (“The Divorce Insurance”) turns villain as the gang’s real brains.
Rounding out the ensemble is Jeon So-min of “Running Man” as a reporter chasing a scoop and crushing on Jin’s detective. “I’m the only one here without a husband,” she joked, adding that the lineup of co-stars sealed it for her: “Getting to be one of them seemed like too good a chance to pass up.”
“Husbands in Action” drops on Netflix Friday.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
