The cast and director of Gold Land unpack desire, mistrust, and the moral weight of 150 billion won in the gripping new K-drama from Disney+.
Global audiences continue to embrace stories that transcend language and borders, and Korean dramas remain at the centre of that shift. From romance and fantasy to crime and survival thrillers, K-dramas have carved out a distinctive space by combining genre storytelling with emotional force.
Disney+’s Gold Land enters that landscape with a tense premise. The series follows a woman who unexpectedly comes into possession of gold bars worth around 150 billion won after crossing paths with a smuggling organisation. What begins as an encounter with fortune quickly turns into a nightmare of pursuit, betrayal and survival.
FACT Magazine attended the press conference in South Korea, where the cast and director discussed the ideas driving the show. For director Kim Sung-hoon, the story is not simply about gold. It is about what people become when desire takes hold.
“Desire is never just one thing,” director Kim Sung-hoon said. “It grows, shrinks, clashes. Among all emotions, it is the strongest.”
That idea sits at the heart of Gold Land. Starring Park Bo-young, Kim Sung-cheol, Lee Hyun-wook, Kim Hee-won, Moon Jung-hee and Lee Kwang-soo, the series examines desire as something instinctive and dangerous. It shifts behaviour, clouds judgement and exposes the parts of people they would rather keep hidden.
The scale of the gold is important. Weighing one ton and valued at approximately 150 billion won, it is less a prize than a burden. Kim explained that the exact amount matters less than the weight it places on the characters. In Gold Land, no one really wins through desire. Instead, it consumes, distorts and changes them.
Park Bo-young plays Kim Hee-joo, the woman at the centre of the chaos. Speaking about the role, she described the process as one of removing layers rather than adding them. Makeup was kept minimal, and the character’s presence was intentionally pared back.
“Hee-joo isn’t someone who grew up happily,” she explained. “She spends most of her time running. I had to strip everything away.”
Her casting plays with audience perception. Kim noted that Park carries the image of someone who would “return the gold.” The drama lies in watching that belief come under pressure, as a seemingly upright person is pushed into increasingly difficult choices.
Elsewhere, Kim Sung-cheol plays Woo-gi, a character described as direct and honest, although that honesty becomes strangely unsettling in a world defined by deception. “There’s a mystery in how straightforward he is,” he said.
Lee Hyun-wook’s Lee Do-kyung begins the story already unravelling. Rather than following a clean transformation, his character continues a downward spiral. Moon Jung-hee’s Seon-ok carries emotional exhaustion, shaped by regret and distance rather than warmth. Lee Kwang-soo, best known for comedy, takes on a darker, more physical role, complete with gold teeth, markings and details that suggest a man overtaken by obsession.
Kim Hee-won’s Jin-man may be the show’s bleakest figure. “He’s someone trapped in a swamp he can’t escape from,” Kim said. “He just keeps living in it.” The director added that Jin-man represents what happens when desire is no longer something a person chases, but something that has already taken root.
Trust was another recurring theme during the press conference. When asked who they would trust with 150 billion won, the cast rejected the idea almost immediately. “No one,” Park Bo-young said. Kim Sung-cheol joked, “I’d give it to the director so he suffers.” Lee Kwang-soo added, “I’d trust Park Bo-young and absolutely not the director.”
The responses drew laughter, but they also reflected the central tension of the series. In Gold Land, trust is fragile, morality is unstable, and survival often comes at a cost.
Park Bo-young summed up the show’s moral ambiguity best: “There are no purely good or bad characters. You’ll keep asking yourself, what would I do?”
Gold Land is now streaming on Disney+ across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and London.
Contact: www.apps.disneyplus.com