Earlier this week, tvN announced the production of Whale Star: The Gyeonseong Mermaid. The upcoming TV series is named after the famous webtoon that’s the source material of its live adaptation.
Per the announcement, actors Choi Woo-shik, Moon Ga-young, and Heo Nam-jun will be starring in the series as its three main leads. Woo-shik will portray Kang Eui-hyun, Ga-young will play Heo Su-a, and Nam-jun will play Song Hae-su.
The show’s casting reveal has come as a pleasant surprise for the K-netizens, many of whom have taken to X to express their excitement:
“The Whale Star character descriptions alone were enough to get me invested. The cast is incredible, the characters sound fascinating, and the emotional potential of this story seems limitless. I fear this drama has already taken over my brain.”
Many K-fans have already read the critically acclaimed webtoon Whale Star (which ran on Naver between 2019 and 2021) years ago and are eagerly awaiting its live adaptation.
Heo Nam-jun, whose acting skills have won the hearts of countless K-fans in Netflix‘s new rom-com My Royal Nemesis, has gathered a separate fanbase who can’t wait to see his portrayal of Song Hae-su in the upcoming TV series.
Whale Star is set to premiere in 2027, and will follow the love story of an independence activist and a housemaid of a pro-Japanese family set in 1926 Gyeongsong.
A closer look at the cast of Whale Star
While the production of Whale Star’s live adaptation is a work in progress, here’s a closer look at the upcoming show’s main cast and the characters they will embody in it:
Choi Woo-shik will portray the webtoon’s lead character, Kang Ui-hyun. Ui-hyun is an independence activist born to a pro-Japanese collaborator father.
Meanwhile, Heo Nam-jun will play Song Hae-su, another activist and a friend of Ui-Hyun, who has lost his family to the Jeju Massacre and is prepared to sacrifice his own life for the greater good.
Both Ui-hyun and Hae-su are working in an operation when Ui-hyun comes across Heo Soo-a (played by Moon Ka-young). Soo-a rescues Ui-hyun from drowning in the sea, and the couple starts to develop feelings for each other from that point onwards.
Kang Han-na is set to play Han Yeon-kyung in the show. Yeon-kyung is another victim of the independence movement, having lost her husband and family to it. Despite it all, she continues to march towards independence.
Another important character in the plot is Hwang Soon-im. Soon-im is the owner of the Whale Star Cafe, a safe spot for all the independence activists to converge in Gyeongseong. Soon-im has a family-like bond with all activists and will be portrayed by Kim Yeo-jin in the TV series.
With such powerful casting, director Heo Jin-ho has certainly raised the bar for the upcoming show.
Edited by Akanksha Mishra