The legendary youth noir comic ‘Beat’ by Korean comics master Heo Young-man, which was also made into a movie starring Jung Woo-sung in 1997, is being reborn as a drama.

On the 11th, the new production company Alt Studio announced, “We are planning and producing the 10-part drama ‘Beat’ based on the webtoon of the same name by Heo Young-man as our first work.”

‘Beat’ is a representative work of artist Heo Yeong-man, serialized in Young Champ from 1994 to 1995, and is a Korean-style noir comic that captures the anger, wandering, frustration, and growing pains of the youth of the time.It enjoyed explosive popularity, recording a cumulative circulation of over 1 million copies at the time of serialization, and even created a ‘Beat Syndrome’ by popularizing props from the work, such as the Honda CBR600F, Zippo lighter, and Marlboro Red.

In 1997, it was produced as a movie of the same name, starring Jung Woo-sung and Ko So-young, and directed by Kim Sung-soo, and once again became a hot topic, surpassing 870,000 viewers(based on Seoul).In particular, it was evaluated as a work that made Jung Woo-sung a youth icon in the 90s, with many famous lines such as “I didn’t have a dream” and “17 vs.1 fight.” In this drama remake, there is also a lot of interest in who will symbolize the new generation of ‘Min’ like Jung Woo-sung did back then.Beyond simple casting, the birth of a new icon that will represent ‘youth of today’ is expected, raising expectations.

‘Beat’ is the first project of production company Alt Studio, which acquired the remake rights, and it is expected to provide nostalgia to the older generation and new empathy to the 1020 generation by reinterpreting the emotions of youth from that time in a modern way.

Alt Studio is a content studio established by the core production team that successfully produced popular IP based dramas such as ‘Model Taxi 1, 2’, ‘My ID is Gangnam Beauty’, ‘Lovely Dog Today’, and ‘I Shopping ‘scheduled to air in July.As a team with the strength of simultaneously bringing to life’ the emotion of the original work and today’s trends ‘, expectations are rising for how they will reinterpret the hit drama of the era,’ Beat ‘.

Alt Studio’s first work, ‘Beat’, is scheduled to enter full-scale planning and production with the goal of being released in the first half of 2026.


Reporter Seungmi smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.