SEOUL –
Choi Min-sik, a veteran of South Korean cinema and television, detailed his transition to Netflix in the lead role of Notes From The Last Row during a press conference in Seoul on June 24.
The production marks a strategic shift for the 64-year-old actor, returning him to a character-driven psychological framework rooted in theater. The project expands the streaming platform’s acquisition of high-profile South Korean talent and underscores a trend toward adapting international stage plays for regional digital audiences at a time when streamers are under closer scrutiny from content and competition regulators such as the Korea Fair Trade Commission.
Theatrical Adaptation and Narrative Structure
The series is an adaptation of a 2006 play by Spanish writer Juan Mayorga, which had previously been staged in Seoul, reflecting Netflix’s deepening use of licensed theatrical IP across its non-English-language slate. Choi noted that the project’s literary origin was a primary draw.
“I heard the pitch over the phone and thought, I know this from somewhere,” Choi said. “Turns out there was an original, a play. I asked for the script. I’d been missing something with a whiff of literature to it.”
The psychological drama casts Choi as Heo Mun-oh, a literature professor who has not written since publishing a single novel 20 years prior. The plot centers on Mun-oh’s interaction with a student, Lee Kang, played by 24-year-old Choi Hyun-wook. After discovering Kang’s exceptional writing, Mun-oh initiates private lessons that devolve into a psychological mind game, blurring the boundaries between mentorship, authorship and surveillance in the classroom.
Set largely within academic and domestic interiors, the series leans on dialogue-heavy scenes and shifting point of view rather than action set pieces, a structure that echoes its stage origins and positions it closer to chamber drama than conventional genre fare.
Career Trajectory and Industry Impact
Choi’s participation in the Netflix series follows a career spanning four decades, beginning in the 1980s in Daehangno, Seoul’s theater district. During this period, he worked with small troupes on limited budgets, reporting earnings as low as 500,000 won (approximately S$420) for three months of work.
His transition to mainstream media included early television successes such as Years Of Ambition (1990), for which he won Best New Actor at the KBS Drama Awards, and The Moon Of Seoul (1994). His profile shifted to international cinema with the 1999 spy film Shiri, a box-office breakthrough that helped define the so-called “Korean Wave” of screen content.
Key milestones in his filmography include:
- Failan (2001)
- Chihwaseon (2002)
- Oldboy (2003)
- I Saw The Devil (2010)
- Nameless Gangster: Rules Of The Time (2012)
- The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014) – the most-watched South Korean film of all time.
Choi returned to television in 2022 with the Disney+ series Big Bet and recently appeared in the 2024 supernatural film Exhuma, reinforcing his status as one of the few South Korean actors who move fluidly between cinema, broadcast television and global streaming platforms regulated under the country’s Broadcasting Act.
His move into a Netflix-led adaptation comes as policymakers across Asia weigh the cultural and economic implications of foreign-owned streamers becoming primary gatekeepers of local scripted content. For Seoul’s creative workforce and film schools, Choi’s decision to anchor a psychologically dense, play-based series on a global platform signals that prestige, actor-driven storytelling remains commercially viable alongside big-budget genre franchises.
Performance Methodology
During the June 24 event, held alongside director Kim Kyu-tae and co-star Choi Hyun-wook, Choi described his approach to the role of Heo Mun-oh through the lens of professional insecurity and self-criticism.
“The grumpy literature professor he plays in the Netflix series Notes From The Last Row is ‘a man who grinds himself down with a complex that borders on self-abuse’, he says, ‘tormenting himself over it’.”
Choi further commented on the emotional requirements of the part, stating, “I’ve got plenty of pathetic in me too. The inferiority, the shame you can’t show anybody – everyone’s felt that at least once.”
He framed the character’s self-laceration as resonant beyond the arts, echoing the pressures felt in South Korea’s exam-driven education system and hyper-competitive professional culture, where status anxiety and fear of failure remain recurring themes in public debate.
Regarding the professional dynamic with his younger co-star, Choi emphasized a lack of competition in the craft.
“I’ve learnt how miserable it makes you, measuring yourself against other people. I’m grateful for what I’ve got. With acting, there’s no point sizing yourself up against anyone. People talk about an ‘acting showdown’, but actors don’t fight. Everyone walks their own road,” Choi said. His remarks also doubled as informal advice to younger performers navigating an industry increasingly shaped by algorithmic commissioning and short-term metrics.
Choi Hyun-wook (left) and Choi Min-sik in Notes From The Last Row.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
Notes From The Last Row is available on Netflix, joining a slate of Korean originals that has become a reference point for cultural policymakers and global audiences alike.
Keep reading
