When Project Y came out on January 21, 2026, it arrived at an interesting moment for Korean crime cinema. Director Lee Hwan’s film about two women orchestrating a heist in Gangnam wasn’t breaking new ground conceptually—we’ve seen the “desperate friends, one last score” story before. But what made this 1h 49m film matter was how deliberately it focused on the human cost of that setup, and how fiercely Han So-hee and Jun Jong-seo committed to making their partnership feel real and urgent.
The film opened strong, topping the box office for its opening weekend and maintaining that position for five days straight. It earned at the box office, which on an unknown budget meant the studios behind it—Climax Studios, Wow Point, and Plus M Entertainment—had put together something audiences wanted to see. That opening performance wasn’t just about star power either. Early audiences praised the pacing and the performances, which suggested Lee Hwan had actually made something that worked on a fundamental level.
What makes Project Y resonate is its refusal to romanticize the struggle. Mi-sun and Do-kyung aren’t lovable rogues or charismatic antiheroes. They’re people in Gangnam’s most dangerous neighborhoods who’ve been grinding to save enough money to escape. The film doesn’t ask us to root for them because they’re cool—it asks us to understand them because they’re real. That distinction matters. Too many crime films treat desperation as a character trait to be admired. Lee Hwan treats it as what it actually is: exhausting and dehumanizing.
The creative collaboration between Lee Hwan and his leads is where the film finds its heartbeat:
Han So-hee brings a kind of controlled intensity to Mi-sun. She doesn’t overplay desperation; instead, she conveys it through small choices—the way she holds her shoulders, how she measures her words. There’s no wasted energy in her performance.
Jun Jong-seo complements this with a different texture. Do-kyung has a restlessness that contrasts with Mi-sun’s steadiness. Their dynamic isn’t built on witty banter or romantic tension, but on the understanding of two people who’ve survived terrible circumstances together.
Kim Shin-rock rounds out the cast in a role that seems designed as a pressure point for the larger narrative—someone whose presence complicates the women’s plans in ways both predictable and surprising.
The film works because Lee Hwan knows how to pace a heist story that’s really about something else. Crime dramas live or die on whether we care about the characters, not whether we understand the mechanics of the job. Project Y invests its runtime in showing us why these women feel they have no choice, then watching what happens when they reach for something better. The actual heist is almost secondary to the emotional stakes.
> The film maintains focus on its central relationship rather than getting lost in convoluted plot mechanics, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.
It’s worth noting that the film earned a 8.0/10 rating from 1 votes on release. Early critical and audience reception centered on performance and structure—people appreciated that the film didn’t waste time and understood what story it was telling. This wasn’t a film trying to be everything to everyone. It knew its lane and executed within it.
Beyond the opening weekend success, Project Y got selected for the Korean Cinema Today – Special Premiere section at the 30th Busan International Film Festival in September 2025, which tells you something about how the industry assessed it before theatrical release. That kind of festival recognition doesn’t guarantee box office performance, but it signals that filmmakers and programmers saw something worth championing. The film lived up to that validation.
What lingers about Project Y is this: it’s a reminder that crime dramas don’t need to be about spectacular heists or morally complex antiheroes. They can be about the smallest, most human question—what do you do when everything has been taken from you? Lee Hwan answered that by making a film where two women decide to take something back, knowing the odds and accepting the consequences. Han So-hee and Jun Jong-seo made that decision feel inevitable and earned, which is all you can ask from actors in a story like this.
The film is exactly what it promised in its tagline: two women, one heist, zero regrets. Not because the characters don’t suffer or pay prices, but because the film earns the right to that defiance. It’s a solid crime drama that understands its own priorities and executes them cleanly. In 2026, that’s more valuable than it sounds.
