Han Jun-hee, the director behind Netflix’s upcoming South Korean military series D.P., has discussed his upcoming live-action adaptation of Kim Bo-tong’s popular webtoon.
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D.P., which is an acronym for “deserter pursuit”, stars Jung Hae-in as Private Ahn Joon-ho, a military personnel who is assigned to capture army deserters. The all-star cast is rounded out by Koo Kyo-hwan, Kim Sung-kyun and Son Seok-koo.
During a press conference earlier today (August 25), director Han said that he had put in a lot of thought while adapting Kim’s 2015 webtoon, D.P. Dog’s Day, for the screen.
“There were some social issues that were incorporated into the series for the webtoon and it’s a little more dark and somewhat deep in terms of [the storyline],” Han said, “so we wanted to make sure that this was scalable so that it could be brought onto screen.”
He added: “I wanted to make sure it was a humanistic drama and I thought a lot about how we could portray writer Kim Bo-tong’s mind and his perspective on screen.”
Han also revealed that it was “important” to him to bring Kim’s webtoon to life because of the story’s relatability and the camaraderie between its characters. “Young men in their early 20s all go serve in the military and I think people can really resonate with the story and put themselves in the shoes of the characters,” the director explained.
Han said that details of the live-action version of Ahn Joon-ho were also changed slightly in order to make him a more relatable protagonist to the audience. “In the webtoon, Jun-ho is a corporal but when I thought of this series, I wanted people to resonate with the story and I wanted them to consider Jun-ho as a friend who just started his military service.”
D.P. will premiere globally on Netflix this Friday (August 27). The series marks the latest in a slew of K-drama adaptions of popular webtoons. Other 2021 releases based on webtoons include Taxi Driver and Nevertheless.