‘The Trunk’: Gong Yoo’s Awaited Mystery K-Drama Wraps Filming

The Trunk, a mystery K-drama starring Gong Yoo together with Seo Hyun-jin, allegedly wrapped up filming and will likely be released in the fourth quarter of 2024. 

The Netflix original began to gain steam much before the production kicked off following the announcement that Gong and Seo would be collaborating on the show as a couple.

The Trunk also remains in talks over its director, Kim Kyu-tae, who’s made multiple seasons of hit dramas including A Love to Kill (2005), Iris (2009), Padam Padam (2011), That Winter, the Wind Blows (2013), It’s Okay, That’s Love (2014), Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016), Live (2018), and Our Blues (2022).

Kim effectively conveys subtle emotional undertones in his works, enhancing their veracity with optimal shots and deft narration. It is worth seeing how he blends a somber and weighty story with tender moments to alleviate the tension.

With its impressive cast, The Trunk will only serve as an expansion of Kim’s creative capacities. His visual style, which is noted for capturing the smallest of facial expressions in actors—especially Gong’s—excites me to watch it in action.

Han Jung-won, his character in the drama, is a music producer who deals with depression and isolation as part of his heartbreaking past, while Seo portrays Noh In-ji, an employee of NM, a matchmaker firm that connects people to spouses of their choosing for a one-year fixed-term wedding.

Jong-won enters a contractual marriage with In-ji while still grieving for his ex-wife. As the two skeptics of marriage gradually work over their emotional baggage, both parties gain a deeper understanding of and grow more at ease and drawn to each other.

Nevertheless, the truth and traumas they had been holding dormant are revealed by an enigmatic trunk that washes up on a lakeshore one day, dragging them down a rabbit hole of mysteries surrounding the NM firm.

Gong, a proponent of radical shifts, is most recognized for his starring roles in the films Silenced (2011), Train to Busan (2016), The Age of Shadows (2016), and Seo Bok (2021), as well as the television dramas Coffee Prince (2007), Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016–2017), The Silent Sea (2021), and Squid Game (2021–present). Using his innovative insight and lucidity, he builds up his characters, broadening the scope of different narratives.

Likewise, Seo became a household name for her turn as Oh Hae-young in the romantic comedy TV series Another Miss Oh (2016). She has since been seen in the medical melodrama Doctor Romantic (2016–2017), the romance dramas Temperature of Love (2017), The Beauty Inside (2018), You Are My Spring (2021), and the courtroom drama Why Her (2022). With each portrayal she has taken on, the acclaimed Korean actress has diversified her repertoire of roles.

The potent pairing of Gong and Seo in a plot that is just as potent, as seen through the lens of director Kim, The Trunk, is what I believe to be a rare synergy, bringing to the table an opus of profundity, poignancy, and romance— albeit one that departs from the norms of the genre.