Good News (2025) Review

“Good News” Netflix Poster

Director: Byun Sung-hyun
Cast: Sul Kyung-Gu, Hong Kyung, Ryoo Seung-Bum, Takayuki Yamada, Shiro Sano, Show Kasamatsu, Nairu Yamamoto, Eita Nagayama, Hinata Hiiragi
Running Time: 136 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Korean cinema rarely ventures into the realm of satire, however on the few occasions it has it’s done it well. 2002’s Fun Movie saw the Korean film industry going the Scary Movie route and lampooning its own blockbusters of the era (with Shiri being the main target!). In 2004 the assassination of President Park Chung-hee was controversially sent up in The President’s Last Bang, and more recently 2020’s Steel Rain 2: Summit saw the leaders of the North, South, and the U.S. humorously forced to converse while being held captive on a submarine. 2025’s Good News puts satire at the top of the agenda once more, taking a leaf out of The President’s Last Bang playbook by also basing itself on an actual event, and uses it to poke fun at everything from communism to the bureaucracy of South Korea’s own government.

The Yodogo Hijacking Incident refers to Japan Air Lines Flight 351 on 31^st March 1970, when members of Japan’s Red Army hijacked the flight, demanding to be flown to Cuba where they intended to be trained up by communist military groups. When the pilots advised the plane didn’t have enough fuel to go to Cuba, they opted to be taken to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, instead. Most famously, the pilots were secretly given directions to Gimpo Airport in South Korea, where authorities on the ground scrambled to give it a cosmetic facelift so it could be passed off as Pyongyang. A plane with over 100 hostages, hijackers armed with katanas, and an airport in disguise – what could possibly go wrong? To go into any further detail would risk spoiling the movie itself, however needless to say it’s a story ripe for a cinematic retelling.

Korean cinema already offered up a ‘based on a real-life flight hijacking incident’ retelling in 2024 with Hijack 1971 (which similarly saw the hijacker demanding to be taken to North Korea!), so it’s a relevant question to ask if only a year later is too soon to be subjecting audiences to another. Thankfully though Good News is not so much about the flight itself, as it is the man on the ground who’s been tasked with bringing the incident to a peaceful conclusion, a mysterious fixer played by Sol Kyung-gu (Phantom, The Moon). Appropriately named ‘Nobody’, it would seem he’s the man the Korean Central Intelligence Agency reaches out to when a problem needs to be fixed quietly, and the fact that the hijacking has taken place over South Korean airspace puts the problem in their court to fix.

One of the most enjoyable elements of Good News is that it reunites Kyung-gu with Ryoo Seung-beom (Human, Space, Time and Human, The Berlin File), 15 years after they co-starred in No Mercy together in 2010. Playing the head of he KCIA, with the exception of a brief cameo in 2021’s Hostage: Missing Celebrity, Good News marks the first time for Seung-beom to return to acting in a feature length production since his turn as the title character in 2019’s Tazza: One Eyed Jack. Proving he’s lost none of his onscreen charisma, his more boisterous performance plays well off Kyung-gu’s intentionally subdued presence, and it’s a pleasure to see two of the early 2000’s Korean Wave’s most recognisable faces sharing the screen again.

The pair aren’t the only reunion in Good News though, with Kyung-gu once more collaborating with director and scriptwriter Byung Sung-hyun for a 4^th time, following 2017’s The Merciless, 2022’s Kingmaker, and 2023’s Kill Boksoon. You could technically call it a 5^th if you count the 2025 Kill Boksoon spin-off Mantis, since Sung-hyun contributed to the script for that one, but we won’t. Sung-hyun has tackled a variety of genres as a director since debuting with the hip-hop drama The Beat Goes On in 2012 (which also offers a rare chance to see him in an acting role), and with Good News heralding his 6^th feature, the production signifies his most entertaining work to date.

It’s both a blessing and a curse that it also marks his 2^nd foray into Netflix territory, following Kill Boksoon’s debut on the streaming giant, as there are frequent moments where I found myself wishing I was watching Good News in the cinema. However considering the current state of cinema attendance in South Korea, it’s understandable how an increasing number of filmmakers are turning to streaming platforms for funding, where the broader audience outreach makes budgets more accessible compared to relying purely on box office receipts. The trade off for old school movie fans like me, is that it robs the audience of the opportunity to watch a movie the way it’s meant to be seen – on as bigger screen as possible.

The canvas that Sung-hyun paints his latest on is certainly worthy of a theatrical showing, with the drama playing out as much on the ground as it is in the air. The hijackers blatant lack of preparedness proves a constant source of amusement, while on the ground delegates from both the Japanese and Korean sides seem more concerned with fretting over which country will get credit for solving the crisis over any regard for the hostages. Tasked with playing the straight man in the middle of it all is an air lieutenant played by Hong Kyung (Troll Factory, Innocence), whose experience in the air force sees him semi-coerced into helping out, spurred on by the promise of medals and news coverage if the situation is resolved without incident.

Kyung clocks in a worthy performance, pulling off a role that requires remaining poker faced while surrounded by the eccentricities of Kyung-gu and Seung-beom’s scenery chewing, essentially acting as the guy who’s tasked with executing whatever plans they manage to come up with. In fact the entire cast is stellar, with Sung-hyun pulling together one of the most star-studded rosters in recent memory. From Kim Sung-oh (Unstoppable) and Kippei Shina (Outrage) as the pilots of the hijacked plane, to a whole bevvy of cameos and guest appearances. We get Park Ji-hwan (Handsome Guys) as Kyung’s father, Yoong Kyung-ho (My Daughter Is a Zombie) as a film director enlisted to disguise Gimpo as Pyongyang, and even Jeon Do-yeon (Revolver) and Kim Si-ah (Miss Baek) make appearances (who after appearing as mother and daughter in both Ashfall and Kill Boksoon, here finally get a break from being related).

The stacked cast is a pleasure to watch, and despite clocking in with a weighty 140-minute runtime, the narrative maintains a brisk pace and never lulls. In fact the only time Sung-hyun puts a foot wrong is in an ill-advised fantasy sequence, where a stand off between the South and North radio frequency controllers is re-imagined as a western quick draw duel between the pair, decked out in cowboy threads in a dusty desert. It would likely have worked if it was a technique that was employed throughout, but since it’s done as a one-off it ends up coming across as out of place, relying more on novelty to raise a laugh than the quick wit and visual gags that take place in the actual setting of the story. However this is a minor gripe, and entirely forgivable when looking at the movie overall.

There should be no doubt though that Good News belongs to Kyung-gu through and through. His measured nonchalance, combined with an over familiarity towards everyone around him, serves to make Nobody one of the more unique characters to come out of Korean cinema in recent years. From breaking the 4^th wall, to addressing topics as diverse as Clint Eastwood, haemorrhoids, and if there are any black people in Russia, he imbues the character with the old duck adage of looking calm on the outside, while paddling frantically just underneath the surface.

Good News opens with the quote “Sometimes the truth lies on the far side of the moon. But that doesn’t mean what’s on the near side is fiction”, a reflection on the belief that truth is often stranger than fiction. With Good News Sung-hyun shows us his satirical side for the first time, and it proves to be an unexpected pleasure. Ruthlessly taking aim at everything from social ideologies to the pettiness of human nature, the result is one of the best movies of 2025.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8.5/10