Parasite star Lee Sun-Kyun has been cast in a brand-new Korean-language series on Apple TV+.
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According to Variety, the series will be a live-action adaptation of the popular webtoon Dr. Brain, which follows an obsessive brain scientist determined to research new technologies to access the consciousness and memories. Lee will star as the title character, while director Kim Jee-Woon of I Saw The Devil fame will helm the project.
Production is currently underway in South Korea and is expected to arrive on Apple’s streaming service later this year. Details about the rest of the cast have not yet been revealed.
Kim will also serve as executive producer, alongside Samuel Yeunju Ha, Ham Jung Yeub, Daniel Han and others, per Deadline. Dr. Brain will be the latest in Apple’s expansion of foreign-language offerings. It had previously ordered a series adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko and a new Spanish- and English-language comedy series Acapulco.
Lee, on the other hand, is a veteran actor in South Korea, best known for his roles in hit dramas like Pasta, Coffee Prince and My Mister. His most recent project was Byun Sung-Hyun’s political thriller Kingmaker.
In 2019, Lee starred in Bong Joon-Ho’s award-winning film Parasite as Park Dong-Ik, the patriarch of the wealthy Park family. Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In a five-star review of the film, NME hailed it as “nothing short of a masterpiece”.
Bong recently confirmed that he has finished writing the script of one of two follow-up films to Parasite. One of the scripts is written in Korean, and the other in English, he revealed.