Cho Jung Seok prints trouble as Park Hae-soo closes in on Paper Man

Netflix's new series Paper Man has confirmed the casting of Cho Jung Seok, Park Hae-soo and Soo Hyun. The project is a crime drama about an ordinary man who creates counterfeit money and is pulled into a dangerous world, while the expert pursuing him and fractures within his family become tied to the same chain of events. Netflix has not yet announced a release date or episode count.

What is currently confirmed is limited but significant: the production is moving forward, the three lead actors' roles have been identified, and Lee Il-hyung will direct the series. No main footage or still images have been released yet, so it is still too early to judge Paper Man as a completed crime drama.

The crime story begins with the counterfeit bills made by Cha Myeong-jo. In Paper Man, Cha is a man who works at a company that makes knockoff character stickers. He is introduced as someone who has always felt diminished beside his wife, a capable judge. The plot begins to move when he creates counterfeit currency that almost no one can easily tell apart from real money.

What Cha Myeong-jo makes is fake money, but the drama places more than cash inside that act. His counterfeiting is also linked to a desire to be recognized and a wish to have choices of his own. The story is likely to hinge not only on how the money is obtained, but also on how money changes the faces people show to the world. Whether Cha will be portrayed simply as a villain, or as a man whose collapsed self-esteem spreads into crime, is something that can only be confirmed after the series is first released.

Cho Jung Seok will play Cha Myeong-jo. Cho is known as an actor strong in comedy and everyday-life acting, but Paper Man requires him to show more anxiety and greed than laughter. For the series' tension to work, the transformation of an ordinary head of household into someone with a criminal face has to feel convincing.

Park Hae-soo will play Oh Seung-eop, a senior anti-counterfeiting researcher in the currency counterfeiting investigation office at the mint. The character is an expert who detects and blocks fake money. Park has already left a strong impression on Netflix viewers through works including Squid Game, Narco-Saints and Karma. Oh Seung-eop could become more than a simple pursuer, standing as the person who presses Cha Myeong-jo's lies to the end.

Soo Hyun will play Go Hye-seok, Cha Myeong-jo's wife and an elite judge. For Paper Man to move beyond a chase between two men, her profession as a judge, her position as a successful spouse and the cracks inside the family all need to move together. That is how the drama can widen into a story about money and saving face reaching all the way into the home.

Paper Man also arrives within Netflix's broader Korean crime-drama lineup. The platform's Korean slate is not limited to romance and variety shows. In Netflix's 2026 Korean lineup announcement, works such as chase thrillers, mysteries and crime action titles were grouped as one major axis, showing that the path for Korean dramas to reach overseas viewers is not narrowed to melodrama alone.

The strength of Korean crime and thriller titles can also be seen in Netflix's official Top 10 data. In the all-time ranking for non-English TV, Squid Game Seasons 1, 2 and 3 all placed near the top, with first-91-day totals recorded at 265.2 million views, 192.6 million views and 145.8 million views, respectively.

Paper Man is not yet at the stage where its performance can be discussed in the same terms as Squid Game. Still, a premise that puts money, family, pursuit and rules on the same line is a story international viewers can immediately understand. Once the first stills and trailer are released, it should become clearer how Cha Myeong-jo's transformation, Oh Seung-eop's pursuit and Go Hye-seok's choices fit together in tone.