The King's Warden

After barely three years on the throne, King Danjong of Joseon was pushed aside by his own uncle while he was still a teenager. Directed by Jang Hangjun, 'The King's Warden' imagines the months the young monarch spent banished to a mountain village, a stretch of his life that the records say very little about, and tells it through the village chief who was left to keep watch over him.

It's 1457, and Cheongnyeongpo is so poor its people only eat rice on their wedding day. Its chief, Eom Heungdo, finds out that a nearby village has done very well out of an exiled nobleman whose supporters keep sending food, and he sets out to get his own valley chosen as the next place of exile. He gets his wish, but instead of the wealthy lord he was hoping for, he's sent a pale boy who seems to have given up on life: the deposed king, now demoted to Prince Nosan.

At first Heungdo sees the boy as nothing more than a source of income to be kept alive. But through rejected meals, misunderstandings and small moments of trust, the bond between the warden and his prisoner slowly turns into something like friendship, while back in the capital the powerful Han Myeonghoe keeps a close eye on the fallen king.

Yoo Haejin, from 'A Taxi Driver' and 'Veteran', plays Eom Heungdo, a real man who gets only a few lines in the historical record. Park Jihoon, a former member of the Korean pop group Wanna One and the lead of the series 'Weak Hero', plays the king, with Yoo Jitae, Jeon Mido and Kim Min in the supporting cast. Jang wrote the script with Hwang Seonggu.

It opened in South Korea on 4 February 2026, in time for the Lunar New Year holiday, and became a box office sensation: with more than 16.6 million tickets sold, it's the second most watched film in the country's history, behind only 'The Admiral: Roaring Currents', and its highest grossing ever. Critics liked it too, and the seven outlets collected on Movienco give it an average of 7.4 out of 10.

• Drama
• History