The real-life history that grounds Hulu thriller ‘Made in Korea’

“When I first read the script, I thought it was so intriguing,” Jung Sung-il (The Glory), who plays Chief Secretary Cheon Seok-jeong in the period thriller, tells JoySauce. “It really got me on the edge of my seat, wanting to know more about what's coming ahead.” In addition to the script, Jung was drawn to the project because of the involvement of feature film director Woo Min-ho (Harbin), as well as the opportunity to collaborate with an all-star cast. In addition to Hyun, Jung Woo-sung (12:12: The Day) stars as Busan-based prosecutor Jang Gun-yeong, who will stop at nothing to take down Ki-tae. “The director, the script and the cast—all three were just perfect,” says Jung Sung-il.

The best crime dramas contextualize their misdeeds in specific social and/or historical context, and Made in Korea is steeped in period detail, so let’s break down some of the historical background that informs the drama.

A real-life hijacking

In Made in Korea’s first episode, “A Businessman,” Ki-tae is simply a passenger on Japanese Airline Flight 351. He is the titular businessman, complete with a briefcase, and happens to be in the wrong place at the right historical moment—Forest Gump-style, but less goofy. As viewers, we slowly get to know him as the events of the hijacking unfold, and he begins to show his considerable skills as a negotiator, schemer, and fighter.

Aside from Ki-tae’s involvement, Made in Korea more or less follows the events of the actual hijacking. Shortly after departing from Tokyo, the aircraft is forcibly taken over by young members of a militant political organization called Red Army Faction. In real life, they were hoping to be part of an immediate, armed revolution against the capitalist class in Japan. This was obviously unsuccessful, but the hijackers were successful in flying the plane to a Communist country. Their first choice was Cuba, but given that the aircraft was designed for domestic and regional travel, they ended up in North Korea instead. 

The plane really did land in Fukuoka and Seoul on the way, initially tricked by South Korean officials to think the latter city was North Korean capital Pyongyang. Once the hijackers realized the ruse, Japan’s Deputy Minister Shinjiro Yamamura volunteered to take the place of the hostages. He flew with them to North Korea, and returned safely to Haneda Airport in Tokyo after two days.

Koreans in Japan

In Made in Korea, Ki-tae introduces himself via Korean-language voiceover with a Japanese name, Matsuda Kenji, and as “a businessman on a work trip to Fukuoka.” He speaks Japanese to the little boy sitting next to him, and is obviously comfortable conversing in the language. This is because Ki-tae is a “zainichi,” the Japanese term for ethnic Koreans who immigrated to Japan prior to 1945, or are descendants of those immigrants. The term comes up frequently throughout the series in relation to Ki-tae.

The Korean peninsula and Japan are geographically close, leading to the regions’ long, often tumultuous relationship—which came to a violent and oppressive head in the early 20th Century, when Japan occupied Korea. The occupation would last from 1910-45, when Japan lost World War II and was forced to give the Korean peninsula to the Allies. According to an Association of Asian Studies piece by sociology professor John Lie, prior to Japanese occupation, several thousand Korean nationals lived on the main Japanese islands. By 1945, that number grew to two million.

Following World War II, about 600,000 ethnic Koreans remained in Japan, despite the ethnic discrimination and economic exploitation they often faced. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s multigenerational tale and its subsequent Apple TV adaptation, is considered the first English-language novel to depict the lives of zainichi.

In the fictional yet historically based world of Made in Korea, Ki-tae’s zainichi identity is often commented upon by both Korean and Japanese characters. It is alluded to that, upon their return to Korea, Ki-tae and his younger siblings faced discrimination. This background as “coming from nothing” informs Ki-tae's hungry ambition to accumulate money and power, and to protect his brother and sister at all costs.

A corrupt and cruel organization

At the start of Made in Korea, Ki-tae is an aspiring drug kingpin, but already an established KCIA agent. The KCIA is the former name for what is now South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. The organization was officially established in 1961 “with the advice and assistance of the American CIA.” Under military strongman Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian rule, the KCIA was mainly used to suppress and disrupt anti-government and pro-North Korean or pro-Communist movements, both domestically and abroad. In 1967, KCIA agents kidnapped scores of Koreans living in West Germany in an event known as the “East Berlin Affair,” leading to international criticism and condemnation. In 1973, the agency kidnapped dissident Kim Dae-jung, who would later go on to become the president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003 and the country’s first Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2000.

This is some of the political context for the KCIA in Made in Korea. Its historically accurate depiction of the agency as a corrupt and cruel organization in place to keep Chung-hee in power perhaps makes Ki-tae’s betrayal of his employer less damning. However, it also makes the hard work of Gun-yeong—a seemingly incorruptible prosecutor intent on weeding out corruption from within South Korea’s most powerful institution—that much more admirable and ambitious.

Roh Jae-won (Squid Game) plays KCIA middle manager Pyo Hak-su in Made in Korea. When asked by JoySauce what he hopes global viewers who may not be familiar with Korean history will take away from the period drama, he says: “1970s Korea was in so much turmoil. (The country has) been through so much and there was massive confusion in society. So I think it would be nice if you could compare and contrast the Korea that we have now and the Korea in the 70s. We'd be very grateful if you do that.”