The star of Oldboy is now the nicest employee in the office. Choi Min-sik, one of South Korea’s most celebrated screen actors, plays the Robert De Niro part in Warner Bros.’ Korean remake of The Intern, and the film opened at number one at the Korean box office.
The remake, titled 인턴 (Inteon) in Korean, was written and directed by Kim Do-young. Han So-hee plays the young boss, the role Anne Hathaway took in Nancy Meyers’s 2015 original.
Same idea, new office
The setup will feel familiar to anyone who saw the American film. Lee Seon-woo (Han) founded the fashion startup Woo22, which hit 10 billion won in sales within three years. Her pace is thrown off by Kim Gi-ho (Choi), a “silver intern” with 37 years of work experience who struggles with the company’s digital tools and casual culture. His patience and steadiness win her over, and the two end up leaning on each other.
In the 2015 version, De Niro’s Ben Whittaker was a 70-year-old widower who joins a Brooklyn fashion website as a senior intern. That film grossed about $197 million worldwide on a $35 million budget, which helps explain why Warner Bros. went looking for new versions of it.
One script, three countries
The Intern has turned into a small franchise of local remakes. Here is how the versions compare:
- United States, 2015: Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, directed by Nancy Meyers.
- Japan, 2022: a television series, Riding a Unicorn, with Hidetoshi Nishijima in the senior role and Mei Nagano as the boss.
- South Korea, 2026: Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee, the first project from a Warner Bros. deal to rework its English-language films for Asian audiences.
- India, in development: a Hindi remake produced by Deepika Padukone, with Amitabh Bachchan in the senior role; Padukone stepped back from acting in it in 2025 and a new female lead was being sought.
The Korean version is the casting surprise of the group. Choi built his name on intense, often frightening roles: the lead in Oldboy (2003), a serial killer in I Saw the Devil (2010) and Admiral Yi Sun-sin in The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014), still the most-watched film in South Korean history. A gentle office comedy is a sharp turn for him.
How it has done so far
Released on September 16 to line up with the Chuseok holidays, the film took the top spot on its opening day with 61,038 viewers and passed 400,000 admissions in its first weekend. By October 10 it had sold 868,465 tickets and grossed about $6.4 million. It then opened in nine more Asian markets in October, beginning with the Philippines on October 14; Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong followed two days later.
Korean cinema has had a busy autumn on Badiyaa, from Bong Joon Ho’s The Host returning to US theaters in 4K to the run of official KPop Demon Hunters dance videos. Viewers outside Asia will have to wait: Beijing-based Blossoms Entertainment holds worldwide sales rights outside Asia, and no US or UK release date has been announced.
Further reading
Illustrative image. Image: USAGI_POST, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
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