General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Chicken Nugget (닭강정)

Chicken Nugget (닭강정) is a 2024 South Korean comedy-mystery streaming series in which a young woman steps into a mysterious machine at her father's company and is transformed into dakgangjeong, a piece of fried chicken glazed in sweet and spicy sauce, and her father and her secret admirer set out to turn her back into a human being. It was released on Netflix on March 15, 2024, with all ten episodes available the same day.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	닭강정 (Dakgangjeong), released internationally as Chicken Nugget¹
Platform and release	Netflix, March 15, 2024, all 10 episodes at once¹^•²
Source material	Naver webtoon Chicken Nugget by Park Ji-dok, serialized 2019 to 2020³
Director and writer	Lee Byeong-heon, director of Extreme Job and Be Melodramatic¹
Main cast	Ryu Seung-ryong (Choi Sun-man), Ahn Jae-hong (Ko Baek-joong), Kim Yoo-jung (Choi Min-ah, special appearance)¹
Episode length	Roughly 28 to 36 minutes per episode⁴
Production	Studio N and Plus Media Entertainment¹
Ratings	IMDb 5.1/10 from about 5,900 votes; Rotten Tomatoes 100% Tomatometer (5 reviews) and 65% Popcornmeter⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise and story

Choi Min-ah (Kim Yoo-jung) visits her father's office and enters a strange machine, undergoing a transformation into a dakgangjeong. Her father Choi Sun-man (Ryu Seung-ryong), the owner of a company called More Than Machine, and Ko Baek-joong (Ahn Jae-hong), an intern at the company who secretly has a crush on Min-ah, panic and begin searching for a way to restore her.¹^•⁴

The ten episodes follow the pair as they trace the machine's delivery, learn of a scientist who may know its origins, and investigate the missing Dr. Yoo In-won; later episodes bring in Yoo Tae-man, who steals the machine, and a figure named Baekjung whose own lost machine enters the story through a viral video.⁴ The final episode follows a decades-long wait after Baekjung's departure and a difficult decision about Min-ah's fate.⁴ Netflix's own logline describes the series as "a tearful and comic mystery of two men struggling to save their lover/daughter."⁷

Title and translation

The Korean title refers to dakgangjeong, a Korean dish of fried chicken coated in a sticky, sweet and spicy glaze, which differs from the breaded Western chicken nugget the English title suggests.⁸ Netflix's media center glosses the transformed object as "Dakgangjeong (sweet & sour chicken)."⁷ Localized titles include Nugget de pollo in Spanish-speaking regions and タッカンジョン in Japan.⁹

Cast and creative team

Lee Byeong-heon directed and wrote the series. He was previously known for the 2019 film Extreme Job, which Netflix's announcement describes as the second highest-grossing film in Korea, and the television series Be Melodramatic.¹ Ryu Seung-ryong and Ahn Jae-hong had both worked with the director before, and the pairing of the two actors was promoted as a central draw.¹ Kim Yoo-jung appears as a special appearance, since her character spends most of the series as a piece of fried chicken, and Jung Ho-yeon appears as the culinary columnist Hongcha.¹^•¹⁰ The series also features numerous cameos, including Park Jin-young (Jinyoung of GOT7) as Tae-man's older brother.¹⁰

At a March 13, 2024 production press conference in Seoul, Ryu Seung-ryong said he played the role with the immersion of Liam Neeson in the 2008 action film Taken, and that Kim Yoo-jung's performance made the dakgangjeong feel like a real daughter.¹¹ Ahn Jae-hong said he aimed to look as though he had come out of a comic, noting his resemblance to the webtoon character.¹²

Adaptation from the webtoon

The source webtoon was serialized on Naver Webtoon by Park Ji-dok from 2019 to 2020 and became known as a representative work of absurdist, so-called "byeongmat" Korean web humor, with a simple drawing style and unpredictable thrills.³ Lee Byeong-heon said he added a substantial amount of new narrative to the original, expressing it through theatrical language and strange behavior.¹³ The series sits within a broader wave of Korean webtoon adaptations, a market in which Kakao Webtoon alone has sold about 50 video-adaptation licenses per year since 2021 because adaptation news itself provides marketing value and brings a verified fan base.¹⁴

Reception

Critical and audience responses diverged. Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 100% Tomatometer from five critics against a 65% Popcornmeter audience score; Pierce Conran of the South China Morning Post wrote that the series stands out among Netflix's Korean catalog for its saturated colors, heightened tone, and absurd humor.⁶ On IMDb the series holds 5.1/10 from about 5,900 votes, with per-episode ratings declining steadily from 6.2 for the first episode to 4.9 for the tenth.⁵ Korean coverage noted that the absurd premise and the "B-grade" sensibility divided viewers.¹² Reviewers frequently highlighted the comic chemistry of Ryu Seung-ryong and Ahn Jae-hong as the series' strength, alongside its pop-culture references to the director's own works, including Be Melodramatic and parodies of Interstellar.¹⁰^•¹⁵

The series carries a 15 rating in Korea and TV-MA in the United States; Common Sense Media recommends it for ages 15 and up, citing frequent strong language and sci-fi threat.¹⁶^•¹⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026