"Your Excellency, please govern for the whole nation."
That single line, delivered with a gun pointed at the president, upends the balance of power. As the gunman wavers, Baek Ki-tae (Hyun Bin) of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency urges him to head not to the KCIA but to Army headquarters. When Baek settles on Cheon Seok-jung (Jung Sung-il) as the next president and says the presidency is "bestowed by heaven," Cheon is reassured. "Ki-tae, I'm putting all my trust in you now. And after me, it's you." The moment trust takes hold, vigilance disappears — and complacency invites crisis.
Disney+ original series "Made in Korea 2" digs into that kind of human irony. Set in 1979, nine years after the events of Season 1, it unfolds between the Oct. 26 assassination and the Dec. 12 military mutiny, layering fictional characters and their ambitions onto real history. With the presidency vacant, the KCIA and the military begin a struggle for power, and Jang Gun-young (Jung Woo-sung), defeated by Baek in Season 1, returns as a special adviser to the joint investigation headquarters, setting up a taut standoff.
The first two episodes offer the pleasure of peering into the history that sits between the films "The Man Standing Next" and "12.12: The Day." By inserting the question of what might have happened into the gaps between events viewers already know, the series makes it hard even to predict who will side with whom. Director Woo Min-ho said that while "The Man Standing Next" and "12.12: The Day" are told from the perspective of people deeply involved in the events, "Made in Korea" takes the perspective of fictional characters who never intervene directly. The director likened Season 1 to "a children's fight" and Season 2 to "a fight among adults." At the center of it, Baek rises to become the real power inside the KCIA and no longer hides his ambition, hurtling forward unchecked.
What makes the series most compelling is that Baek is not the only character consumed by that drive. Those seeking to seize power, those trying to hold onto it, and those determined to see their convictions through are all propelled by desires of their own. Everyone harbors ambition, but how far one pushes it tends to decide one's fate. The characters, dressing up desire as conviction and charging ahead without hesitation, seem to mirror reality exactly.
