# Secretly, Greatly (은밀하게 위대하게)
**Secretly, Greatly** (은밀하게 위대하게; romanized *Eunmilhage Widaehage*, literal title *Covertness*) is a 2013 South Korean action comedy-drama directed by Jang Cheol-soo, adapted from the webtoon of the same name by Hun (Choi Jong-hun). It stars [Kim Soo-hyun](https://www.edgepedia.org/kim-soo-hyun), Park Ki-woong, and [Lee Hyun](https://www.edgepedia.org/lee-hyun)-woo as three elite North Korean sleeper agents sent to the South, where they live undercover as a village idiot, an aspiring singer, and a high school student until a regime change in [Pyongyang](https://www.edgepedia.org/pyongyang) turns them into targets.[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992) • [2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly) The film set several Korean box office records on release and finished 2013 as the seventh most-attended Korean film, with 6,959,083 admissions.[3](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131005_0012411033)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | June 5, 2013, South Korea; distributed by Showbox/Mediaplex; produced by MCMC[4](https://asianwiki.com/Secretly_Greatly) • [5](https://cfile213.uf.daum.net/attach/2571143F51D921101EB352) |
| Director / writers | Jang Cheol-soo; screenplay by Kim Bang-hyun and Yoon Hong-gi, from Hun's webtoon[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992) |
| Principal cast | Kim Soo-hyun (Won Ryu-hwan), Park Ki-woong (Ri Hae-rang), Lee Hyun-woo (Ri Hae-jin), Son Hyun-joo (Kim Tae-won)[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992) |
| Genre / runtime | Action, comedy, drama; 123 minutes[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly) |
| Box office | 6,959,083 admissions and 48,700,887,413 won in revenue, seventh among 2013 Korean releases[3](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131005_0012411033) |
| Records | Best opening day for a Korean film (490,000 admissions on June 5, 2013) and best single day (919,027 on June 6); fastest Korean film to 1 million and 2 million admissions[6](https://m.koreanfilm.or.kr/mobile/other/report.jsp?blbdComCd=601008&mode=VIEW&seq=255) |
| Awards | Kim Soo-hyun won Best New Actor at the 50th Daejong Film Awards (2013)[7](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131102_0012482284) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Three agents of [North Korea](https://www.edgepedia.org/north-korea)'s 5446 special operations unit are infiltrated into the South under a mission of national unification. Won Ryu-hwan, an elite agent who beat competition of 20,000 to 1 for his place, lives as Bang Dong-gu, the village idiot of a poor Seoul neighborhood; Ri Hae-rang, son of a senior official, poses as an aspiring rock musician; and Ri Hae-jin, the youngest infiltrator in the unit's history, poses as a high school student.[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992) No orders arrive, and the three grow used to daily life among the neighborhood's poorest residents.[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992)
The film's turn comes after a regime change in Pyongyang: the unit is dismantled, and the agents receive a final order to commit suicide, so that all traces are erased.[21](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20126672) If they fail, an elite hit team will finish the job.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly) • [8](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/secretly-greatly/) From that point the comedy gives way to action and tragedy, as the three decide whether their country is worth their lives.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly)
## Cast and production
Kim Soo-hyun plays Won Ryu-hwan, who maintains his cover by staging pratfalls and other public humiliations while remaining a trained killer; [Park Ki-woong](https://www.edgepedia.org/park-ki-woong) plays Ri Hae-rang and Lee Hyun-woo plays Ri Hae-jin. The supporting cast includes Son Hyun-joo as [Kim Tae-won](https://www.edgepedia.org/kim-tae-won), the colonel who oversees the agents, along with Park Hye-sook, Go Chang-seok, Kim Sung-kyun, and Jang Kwang.[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992) • [9](https://pealesview.com/2015/01/13/secretly-greatly-korea-2014-identity-crisis-and-action-genres-step-on-each-other-in-otherwise-entertaining-film/)
The film was Jang Cheol-soo's second feature. His debut, *Bedeviled* (2010), had been invited to the Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week, and *Secretly, Greatly* marked a deliberate turn toward commercial filmmaking.[6](https://m.koreanfilm.or.kr/mobile/other/report.jsp?blbdComCd=601008&mode=VIEW&seq=255) Shooting ran from October 19, 2012 to March 8, 2013, with production by MCMC and investment from Showbox, Keyeast, and others.[5](https://cfile213.uf.daum.net/attach/2571143F51D921101EB352) The casting drew on three of Korea's most prominent young television actors; before release, Son Hyun-joo, Kim Soo-hyun, Park Ki-woong, and Lee Hyun-woo had all won acting prizes at the 2012 year-end broadcast awards.[10](https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1001561272)
## The webtoon source
The film adapts the webtoon *Covertness* (은밀하게 위대하게) by Hun, serialized on the Daum portal from 2010, where it was among the platform's most popular titles, and concluded in 2011. The webtoon won a Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism prize at the 2011 Korea Content Awards, and news of the film adaptation and casting lifted it back into the portal's top search rankings.[10](https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1001561272) • [11](https://www.mcst.go.kr/servlets/eduport/front/upload/UplDownloadFile?pFileName=%EC%9B%94%EA%B0%84+%EC%BD%98%ED%85%90%EC%B8%A0+%EC%8B%9C%EC%9E%A5%EB%8F%99%ED%96%A5%282012%EB%85%84+10%EC%9B%94%ED%98%B8%29.pdf&pFlag=&pPath=0408010000&pRealName=1351735431365.pdf)
Within the short history of webtoon-based Korean film, which began with Kang Full's *Apartment* in 2006, *Secretly, Greatly* became the genre's commercial high point. Yun Tae-ho's thriller *The Moss* (2010) had earlier passed 3 million admissions, while Hun's *Secretly, Greatly* drew about 7 million and set the webtoon adaptation's box office record.[12](https://oak.go.kr/nl-ir/bitstream/2020.oak/515/1/%EC%9B%B9%ED%88%B0%2010%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC%20%20%EA%B5%AD%EB%A6%BD%EC%A4%91%EC%95%99%EB%8F%84%EC%84%9C%EA%B4%80%20%27%EC%98%AC%20%EC%9B%B9%ED%88%B0%27%20%EC%A0%84.pdf) A 2015 academic study of the adaptation analyzed how the film translated the webtoon's visual composition, comparing scene staging, panel-to-panel transitions, and color and tone between the two media.[13](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART001964883)
## Box office records
The film opened on June 5, 2013 and broke records from the first days. Its opening day total of 490,000 admissions was the best ever for a Korean film, and its second day, June 6, a national holiday, set the all-time single-day record at 919,027 admissions across 1,194 screens. It was also the fastest Korean film to pass both the 1 million and 2 million admission milestones, and it sold over 4 million tickets in its first eight days.[6](https://m.koreanfilm.or.kr/mobile/other/report.jsp?blbdComCd=601008&mode=VIEW&seq=255) • [14](https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/201306071155563) It reached 3.5 million admissions in five days and passed 4 million on June 12, the fifth release of 2013 to cross that mark.[15](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20130610_0012148994) • [16](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20130613_0012157214)
It finished the year with 6,959,083 admissions and 48.7 billion won in revenue, ranking seventh among 2013 releases behind titles including *Miracle in Cell No. 7* (12.81 million), *Snowpiercer* (9.33 million), and *The Face Reader* (8.49 million).[3](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131005_0012411033) Daum named it the most-searched movie term of 2013 based on search counts from January to November, with attention building before release around Kim Soo-hyun, then known as the lead of the drama *The Moon Embracing the Sun*.[17](https://www.edaily.co.kr/News/Read?mediaCodeNo=258&newsId=01236566603037536)
## Reception and later adaptations
Critical response was mixed. Reviewers generally credited the performances and the premise but noted the strain of the film's two-act structure, a broad comedy first half followed by a violent thriller. Jae-Ha Kim wrote that the film "starts off as a comedy & veers off into a drama with a graphic, violent ending" and would have been more effective in a single genre, while Anton Bitel in *Sight & Sound* described it as confounding "the borderlines between domestic banality and covert war." On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a Tomatometer score of 71% from 3 reviews.[18](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/secretly_greatly) At the 50th Daejong Film Awards in November 2013, Kim Soo-hyun won the Best New Actor prize.[7](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131102_0012482284)
The film premiered internationally as the Centerpiece Presentation of the New York Asian Film Festival in July 2013, with director Jang Cheol-soo in attendance, and had its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2014.[8](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/secretly-greatly/) • [2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly) The story later returned to the stage: the production company Jeda Culture, founded in 2011 to develop webtoon-based theater, produced the musicals *Secretly, Greatly* and *Secretly, Greatly: THE LAST* among its slate of seven original musicals between 2015 and 2024.[19](https://www.gokams.or.kr/DATA/GO/2-2.%202025%EB%85%84%20%EA%B3%B5%EC%97%B0%EC%98%88%EC%88%A0%20%EC%A7%80%EC%97%AD%20%EC%9C%A0%ED%86%B5%EC%A7%80%EC%9B%90%20%EC%82%AC%EC%97%85%20%EC%9C%A0%ED%98%952_%EC%84%A0%EC%A0%95%EB%8B%A8%EC%B2%B4%20%EA%B3%B5%EC%97%B0%20%EC%86%8C%EA%B0%9C%EC%9E%90%EB%A3%8C_%EB%AE%A4%EC%A7%80%EC%BB%AC%282%29.pdf) The film remains available on streaming services, including Netflix in Korea.[20](https://www.netflix.com/kr/title/80144174)
## References
1. [은밀하게 위대하게, Korean Film Archive (KOFA) video library record](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/00070992)
2. [Secretly Greatly, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2014/films/secretly-greatly)
3. [2013년 영화 흥행작 상위 10위, Newsis (October 5, 2013)](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131005_0012411033)
4. [Secretly Greatly, AsianWiki](https://asianwiki.com/Secretly_Greatly)
5. [한국영화 제작상황판 (2013. 6. 20 기준), KOFIC Production Note](https://cfile213.uf.daum.net/attach/2571143F51D921101EB352)
6. [Box Office: May 30–June 12, 2013, KOFIC Korean Film Biz Zone](https://m.koreanfilm.or.kr/mobile/other/report.jsp?blbdComCd=601008&mode=VIEW&seq=255)
7. [제50회 대종상 영화제 시상식 종합, Newsis (November 2, 2013)](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20131102_0012482284)
8. [Secretly Greatly, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York Asian Film Festival 2013](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/secretly-greatly/)
9. [Secretly, Greatly (Korea: 2013) review, Peale's BL Perspectives (January 13, 2015)](https://pealesview.com/2015/01/13/secretly-greatly-korea-2014-identity-crisis-and-action-genres-step-on-each-other-in-otherwise-entertaining-film/)
10. [은밀하게 위대하게 손현주 김수현 '연기대상' 주역, SBS News (January 2, 2013)](https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1001561272)
11. [월간 콘텐츠 시장 동향 (2012년 10월호), Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism](https://www.mcst.go.kr/servlets/eduport/front/upload/UplDownloadFile?pFileName=%EC%9B%94%EA%B0%84+%EC%BD%98%ED%85%90%EC%B8%A0+%EC%8B%9C%EC%9E%A5%EB%8F%99%ED%96%A5%282012%EB%85%84+10%EC%9B%94%ED%98%B8%29.pdf&pFlag=&pPath=0408010000&pRealName=1351735431365.pdf)
12. [웹툰 10년사: 국립중앙도서관 '올 웹툰' 전, National Library of Korea](https://oak.go.kr/nl-ir/bitstream/2020.oak/515/1/%EC%9B%B9%ED%88%B0%2010%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC%20%20%EA%B5%AD%EB%A6%BD%EC%A4%91%EC%95%99%EB%8F%84%EC%84%9C%EA%B4%80%20%27%EC%98%AC%20%EC%9B%B9%ED%88%B0%27%20%EC%A0%84.pdf)
13. [웹툰의 영화화에 대한 텍스트 변용에 관한 연구, 디자인융복합연구 vol.14 no.1 (2015), KCI](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART001964883)
14. ['은밀하게 위대하게', 이틀 만에 142만 관객 동원, Sports Kyunghyang (June 7, 2013)](https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/201306071155563)
15. ['은밀하게 위대하게' 천하, 닷새만에 관객 350만명, Newsis (June 10, 2013)](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20130610_0012148994)
16. [은밀하게 위대하게 400만↑, Newsis (June 13, 2013)](https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20130613_0012157214)
17. [다음 선정 올해의 영화 검색어 1위 '은밀하게 위대하게', Edaily](https://www.edaily.co.kr/News/Read?mediaCodeNo=258&newsId=01236566603037536)
18. [Secretly, Greatly, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/secretly_greatly)
19. [2025년 공연예술 지역 유통지원 사업 선정단체 소개자료, Korea Arts Management Service](https://www.gokams.or.kr/DATA/GO/2-2.%202025%EB%85%84%20%EA%B3%B5%EC%97%B0%EC%98%88%EC%88%A0%20%EC%A7%80%EC%97%AD%20%EC%9C%A0%ED%86%B5%EC%A7%80%EC%9B%90%20%EC%82%AC%EC%97%85%20%EC%9C%A0%ED%98%952_%EC%84%A0%EC%A0%95%EB%8B%A8%EC%B2%B4%20%EA%B3%B5%EC%97%B0%20%EC%86%8C%EA%B0%9C%EC%9E%90%EB%A3%8C_%EB%AE%A4%EC%A7%80%EC%BB%AC%282%29.pdf)
20. [은밀하게 위대하게, Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/kr/title/80144174)
21. [Secretly Greatly (2013)](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20126672)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works)*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license