Netflix has lined up its next Korean crime drama, Paper Man (working title), starring Cho Jung-seok, Park Hae-soo and Claudia Kim, from director Lee Il-hyung.
The series follows Cha Myung-jo (Cho), a downtrodden husband who works at a maker of knockoff character stickers and lives in the shadow of his far more accomplished wife. When he turns out a counterfeit bill so flawless it can’t be told from the real thing, he is pulled into a dangerous world he never imagined. The show is pitched as a crime thriller laced with drama and humor, exploring “the value of money, human desire and the thin line between what is considered ‘real’ and ‘fake’ in society.”
The project reunites Lee with Park, who starred in the director’s recent Netflix series Karma. Lee’s other credits include the 2016 hit A Violent Prosecutor.
Cho (Hospital Playlist) plays the everyman center of the story, whose surprising gift for counterfeiting sets the story in motion. Park, of Squid Game and Narco-Saints fame, plays Oh Seung-eop, the first deputy director of the Anti-Counterfeiting Division at the Korea Mint and a dogged investigator closing in on Myung-jo. Claudia Kim (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Gyeongseong Creature) plays Ko Hye-seok, Myung-jo’s polished wife and an elite judge whose own dilemmas lurk below the family’s presentable surface.
Netflix said Paper Man is now heading into production, but hasn’t revealed a target launch date.
Netflix unveiled a stacked Korean content slate for 2026 in January, spanning 33 series and feature films. The company, by far the biggest non-domestic producer of Korean content, has continued to add to that lineup in the months since, unveiling titles like rom-com Messily Ever After with Kim Min-ha and Noh Sang-hyun; romance series Long Vacation from Crash Landing on You director Lee Jung-hyo; and political thriller The Generals from Narco-Saints director Yoon Jong-bin, among others.
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