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Live-Action Adaptation of Whale Star Webtoon Moves Into Production
posted on by Wonhee Cho
Korean entertainment media outlet OSEN reported on Friday a live-action adaptation of Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid, the webtoon series that won the 2021 Korea Content Grand Prize Presidential Award, is officially moving forward with production. Actor Woo-shik Choi, who was in the Oscar-winning movie Parasite, is currently in talks to play the lead role.
According to multiple industry sources on Friday, Whale Star has finalized its production lineup and is currently in the final stages of casting and pre-production.
The story of the original webtoon reads:
The year is 1926 in this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's “The Little Mermaid”, and Joseon (present-day Korea), is under colonial Japanese rule. Su-a Heo is a handmaiden who spends her days working and swimming in the sea. Her work is her whole life, until one day, when she discovers a wounded independence fighter named Uihyeon Kang washed up on the shore. She nurses him back to health, only to lose her ability to speak in a botched murder attempt by Uihyeon's comrade, Haesu Song. As she travels to the capital, Gyeongseong (present-day Seoul), to get revenge, she finds herself growing more and more intertwined with a strange, brave new world and the people within it.
Choi has been offered the role of Uiheyon Kang and is reportedly reviewing the script positively.
No official broadcast date has been announced.
Created by Yoonhee Na, Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid was serialized between 2019 and 2021 in Korea and between 2022 and 2023 in English.
Fans can read the English version of the webtoon on WEBTOON.
Source: OSEN (Soo-jeong Ha)
