General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Connect (커넥트)

Connect (커넥트) is a 2022 South Korean science-fiction horror thriller series directed by Takashi Miike for Disney+, based on the Naver webtoon of the same name by Shin Dae-sung. It follows Ha Dong-soo, a member of an immortal new human species called "Connect", whose stolen eye is transplanted into a serial killer, linking the two men through shared vision.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	커넥트 (Keonekteu)³
Platform and run	Disney+ original, 6 episodes, all released December 7, 2022; status ended¹
Director	Takashi Miike, the first Japanese director to direct a Korean drama series⁴
Source material	Webtoon Connect by Shin Dae-sung, serialized 2019–2020 via Naver³
Main cast	Jung Hae-in (Ha Dong-soo), Go Kyung-pyo (Oh Jin-seop), Kim Hye-jun (Choi I-rang)⁵
Production	Studio Dragon with Studio HIM and Lezhin Film⁶
Reception	86% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes (7 reviews); 6.5/10 on IMDb⁷^•³

Spoilers

Premise

Ha Dong-soo (Jung Hae-in) is a "connect", a member of a new type of human whose body can rapidly heal itself and reattach severed limbs and body parts. He leads a solitary life uploading music to the internet until he is kidnapped by a gang of black-market organ harvesters, who cut out his eyes. His body reassembles itself and he escapes, but one eye is left behind and transplanted into Oh Jin-seop (Go Kyung-pyo), a serial killer who arranges his victims' corpses as art across Seoul. Through the shared eye, Dong-soo sees Jin-seop's vision from a first-person point of view, and he pursues the killer to recover his eye.²^•⁸^•⁹

The series frames the two men as contrasting monsters: one who seeks immortality through his perverted art, and another who has had a literal immortality thrust upon him. Dong-soo is also hunted by the organ-trafficking gang and the police, including Detective Choi (Kim Roe-ha), while a mysterious figure named Choi I-rang (Kim Hye-jun) repeatedly intervenes to help him, and a pharmaceuticals corporation operates in the background.⁸

Cast and characters

Jung Hae-in as Ha Dong-soo, the immortal "connect" whose eye is stolen⁵
Go Kyung-pyo as Oh Jin-seop, the serial killer who receives the transplanted eye⁵
Kim Hye-jun as Choi I-rang, a would-be novelist who helps Dong-soo⁵
Kim Roe-ha as Detective Choi Do-hoon⁵
Yang Dong-geun as Z⁵
Jo Bok-rae as Mr. Kim⁵

Production and direction

The series was planned by Studio Dragon and produced with Studio HIM and Lezhin Film, with Disney+ as the streaming platform.⁴^•⁶ Takashi Miike, the Japanese director of films such as Audition (1999) and 13 Assassins, directed the series, making him the first Japanese director to direct a Korean drama series.⁴ Miike said he was drawn to the Korean webtoon's spare visual style, in which backgrounds are minimal and expression relies on lines, silhouettes, and brief dialogue, and he applied that economy of storytelling to the screen adaptation.¹⁰

Working across the language barrier, the production relied on repeated translation and review of the Korean script and on interpreter support on set; Miike reported no problems with communication and said he trusted the actors' performances.¹¹ Music became a distinctive element: the song Dong-soo sings in the first episode is arranged within the story by the character Z and also appears in an original version by singer Sunwoo Jung-a.¹¹

Release and reception

The first three episodes premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in October 2022, and all six episodes were released on Disney+ on December 7, 2022.¹²^•¹ Episodes average about 43 minutes, and the series carries a TV-MA rating for its graphic violence and disturbing imagery.¹^•²

Critical response was mixed to positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds an 86% Tomatometer from 7 reviews, with an audience score of 79%.⁷ Nick Schager of The Daily Beast scored it 90, writing that Miike "directs it to the hilt" with sleek, menacing visuals; Kayti Burt of Paste Magazine scored it 83, calling it part serial-killer detective drama, part supernatural horror, and part low-key musical.¹³ The South China Morning Post's review gave it 3 of 5 stars, judging that the strong opening was not sustained through the back half of the narrative.¹² On IMDb the series holds 6.5/10 from about 2.8 thousand user ratings.³

Reviewers highlighted the first-person shared-vision device as the show's most striking idea. Common Sense Media called the concept of an innocent bystander seeing from the killer's point of view "chillingly horrific", while noting that revealing Jin-seop as the killer early removes any mystery about his identity.² Sight and Sound's Anton Bitel read the series as a genre hybrid, suturing together serial-killer thriller, gangster film, police procedural, and mutant superhero elements in Miike's transgressive style.⁸

Significance

Connect was noted as an example of Korean capital and intellectual property joining a foreign director to reach global audiences through an OTT platform, extending the reach of K-content.⁴ Producer Song Jin-seon of Studio Dragon said that the "connect" ability left room for the story to be extended, and that a second season was discussed with Miike during the making of season one.⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Korean contemporary drama › Fantasy, supernatural, and science fiction series › Premiered 2010 to 2022

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

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