"Nambeol," Lee Hyun-se's mega-hit comic that captivated South Korea's comics scene in the 1990s, is returning as a musical 32 years after its release. Several attempts to adapt the work into a film fell through, making this its first stage production.
Production company Gamtansa said the original musical "Nambeol" will run from the 23rd through Nov. 14 at the TicketLink 1975 Theater in Seoul.
Released in 1994, "Nambeol" is a war comic drawn by Lee Hyun-se and written by Ya Seol-rok. Set against a fictional war with Japan, it drew wide attention at the time for its portrayal of ethnic conflict, the brutality of war, and individual love and conviction.
Buoyed by its popularity, the work was repeatedly pitched for film adaptation. In 1994, production house Shin Cine planned a war film with a 3 billion won budget, aiming for a release in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of Korea's liberation, but the project never materialized. In 2008, Do & Mo Pictures signed a rights deal with Lee and pursued a blockbuster with a 20 billion won budget. Production was halted, however, as the fallout from the global financial crisis that year made it difficult to secure investment.
The musical centers on Oh Hye-sung, a young man enduring discrimination and poverty in a foreign land who throws himself into battle after witnessing tragedy at an internment camp. It condenses the sprawling narrative of the original through Oh's perspective, focusing on the choices made by characters trying to keep their promises to the people they love even in the midst of war. Large-scale war sequences from the original, including the camp escape, bombings and gunfights, will be staged using modern stage mechanics and action choreography.
Oh Jong-hyuk and Sun Yul will alternate in the lead role of Oh Hye-sung. The newly released poster depicts Oh's transformation through two personas, an urban outlaw and a special forces soldier, symbolizing how a young man hardened by life overcomes the grief of losing his family to be reborn as a warrior.
Park So-eun and Lee Jae-rim have been cast as Choi Eom-ji, Oh's lover and a police officer. Choi holds to her convictions and carves out her own fate even amid the grim reality of the camp. Kim Min-chul and Jung Si-wook play Kaoru, an elite strategist in Japan's Self-Defense Forces who stands in opposition to Oh. A ruthless figure who stops at nothing to achieve his aims, he heightens the tension of the drama.
The cast also includes Lee Jong-young as Baekdusan, Park Min-kwan as the special forces commander and Kim Min-soo as the president.