General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Smugglers (밀수)

Smugglers (밀수) is a 2023 South Korean crime action film directed by Ryoo Seung-wan, in which women divers (haenyeo) in a 1970s fishing village turn to smuggling after a chemical factory destroys their livelihood.¹ It opened in South Korea on July 26, 2023, runs 129 minutes, and stars Kim Hye-soo, Yum Jung-ah, Zo In-sung, Park Jeong-min, Kim Jong-soo, and Go Min-si.¹ The film sold about 5.14 million admissions and became the third-highest-attendance Korean release of 2023.²

Key fact	Detail
Release	July 26, 2023 (South Korea); 129 minutes; rated 15¹
Director and writers	Ryoo Seung-wan; screenplay by Ryoo Seung-wan, Kim Jung-youn, and Choi Cha-won³
Setting	1970s, the fictional West Sea port town of Guncheon (군천)⁴
Lead cast	Kim Hye-soo (Jo Choon-ja), Yum Jung-ah (Eom Jin-sook), Zo In-sung (Kwon Sang-sa), Park Jeong-min (Jang Dori), Kim Jong-soo (Lee Jang-chun), Go Min-si (Go Ok-boon)³
Box office	5,143,751 admissions; total gross $36,976,349 (KOFIC data)¹
2023 ranking	Third among Korean films by admissions, behind 12.12: The Day (13,125,169) and The Roundup: No Way Out (10,682,813)²
Festivals	Locarno (Piazza Grande), Toronto (Special Presentations), Sitges, Udine, SXSW 2024, Asian Film Awards 2024¹

Spoilers

Plot

In the mid-1970s, a chemical plant opens near the peaceful seaside village of Guncheon, and the haenyeo who live by diving for seafood lose their means of survival.⁵ The gambler Choon-ja (Kim Hye-soo) learns that retrieving goods dropped into the sea can bring large sums, and proposes the scheme to Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah), the leader of the village divers.⁵ The two were once close as family, but a customs raid on a smuggling operation ended in arrests, the deaths of Jin-sook's father and sibling in a boating accident, and mutual resentment: Choon-ja swam away and escaped prison, while Jin-sook served time blaming her.⁶

Two years later Choon-ja returns from Seoul transformed, pressured by the national smuggling kingpin Kwon Sang-sa (Zo In-sung), and she and Jin-sook become criminal partners again despite their grievances.⁶ Around them gather the customs officer Lee Jang-chun (Kim Jong-soo), the boatman-turned-businessman Jang Dori (Park Jeong-min), and the tea-house owner Go Ok-boon (Go Min-si), each with their own stake in the deal.⁷ A one-time chance at a fortune, a 300-million-won diamond dropped at sea, sets off deception and betrayal on all sides.⁶

The resolution hinges on a reversal: the person who had reported the earlier smuggling site to customs was not Choon-ja but Jang Dori, who had let Jin-sook bear the blame for years.⁸ Choon-ja, Jin-sook, and Ok-boon turn the diamond salvage operation against Jang Dori and Jang-chun, and the final battle takes place underwater, where the divers hold every advantage.⁸ A post-credits scene shows Kwon Sang-sa alive in a hospital, with Choon-ja arriving carrying the diamond.⁸

Cast and characters

The ensemble centers on the two women leads. Kim Hye-soo plays Choon-ja, a drifting former diver who becomes a schemer, and Yum Jung-ah plays Jin-sook, the proud leader of the Guncheon haenyeo; their relationship moves through misunderstanding, betrayal, and reconciliation.⁹ Zo In-sung's Kwon Sang-sa, a legendary smuggler recently returned from Vietnam, appears in a supporting but widely discussed role; reviewers credited his charisma and action sequences with much of the film's appeal.¹⁰ Park Jeong-min plays the treacherous Jang Dori, and Go Min-si, cast against her usual reserved image, supplies much of the comedy as Ok-boon.⁶ The supporting haenyeo are played by Kim Jae-hwa (Pig Mom), Park Jun-myun (Yanggeum-nyeo), Park Gyeong-hye (Ttoksun-i), and Joo Bo-bi (Eokcheok-i).³

Production

Origin. The project began with a short historical record: producer Cho Sung-min of Ryoo's company Filmmaker R&K (외유내강) saw, in a Gunsan museum during location scouting for Seondal-adjacent work, a brief note that haenyeo had taken part in the rampant smuggling of the 1970s.¹¹ Ryoo had separately read a story in the magazine Mysteria about a women's smuggling ring based in Busan, and after the script draft emerged during post-production of Escape from Mogadishu he decided to direct it, reasoning that an underwater haenyeo action film was something he had never seen on screen.¹¹ It was his twelfth feature.¹²

Underwater action. The film bills itself as the first action film centered on haenyeo.¹³ Kim Hye-soo and Yum Jung-ah could not swim at the start and showed panic symptoms in water, but after three months of training they performed in a tank six meters deep; Kim Hee-jin, a former national artistic swimming team member, coached their underwater movement.⁶ The climactic underwater sequences, in which armed men attack the divers and are defeated in their own element, were shot to look realistic, and Kim Hye-soo said even real haenyeo were surprised by the underwater scenes.⁶^•¹⁴

Period design and music. The production toured fishing villages nationwide for locations and filmed in Samcheok and Geoje.⁶ Music director Jang Ki-ha, the singer and bandleader, mixed period hits with newly written material; the soundtrack draws on 1970s songs including Sanullim's "Nae Maeume Judaneul Kalko" and, per the Busan press coverage of the era's soundscape, tracks such as Choi Heon's "Aengdu" and Kim Chu-ja's "Muindo."⁶^•¹⁵ The budget was 17.5 billion won, and the producer noted it was the first film of that scale led by actresses in their fifties.¹⁶

Release and box office

Smugglers opened first among the summer 2023 Korean tentpole films that the press grouped as the "Big 4" (with The Moon, Confidential Assignment 2: International, and Concrete Utopia).¹² It passed 5 million admissions on its 36th day, the fourth 2023 release to reach that mark, and finished with 5,143,751 admissions and a gross of $36,976,349.¹ Among Korean films released that year only 12.12: The Day and The Roundup: No Way Out sold more tickets.² International releases followed in Turkey (September 2023), Russia and the CIS (December 2023), Japan (July 2024, as 密輸 1970), and Germany (July 2024).¹⁷ The film later streamed on platforms including Prime Video and Netflix.¹⁸^•¹⁹

Reception and awards

Critics grouped the film as a heist-style ensemble comedy with underwater action rather than a two-hander, praising the six-character interplay and the climactic water sequences.²⁰ On Rotten Tomatoes it held an 88 percent Tomatometer score at the time of the Apple TV listing.⁵ It was invited to the Piazza Grande section of the Locarno Film Festival and the Special Presentations section of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, and later screened at Sitges, Udine, SXSW 2024, and the Asian Film Awards circuit.¹ Go Min-si won Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for her role.²¹ Netflix's listing tags the film as a Baeksang Arts Award winner.¹⁹

Historical background

The film's premise rests on real conditions. In the 1970s smuggling was a serious crime: the Park Chung-hee government classified it among its "five social evils" and ran joint crackdowns against unauthorized foreign goods from 1974, while foreign cigarettes remained contraband to possess until September 1, 1986.²² A Busan customs museum director, Lee Ik-deuk, explained the period practice the film depicts: ships awaiting customs clearance would drop contraband into the sea at anchorage points, and divers would retrieve it, a method used for goods ranging from gold bullion to electronics.²³ Records of haenyeo participation in 1970s smuggling in the Gunsan area, though brief, are what gave the filmmakers their starting point.¹¹

References

Smugglers (2023), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) film database
Korean Movie Reviews for 2023, Koreanfilm.org (KOBIS data)
밀수 출연진/제작진, 키노라이츠 (Kinolights)
'밀수'도 페미? 이 언니들 제대로 노네, 한국경제
밀수, Apple TV
웃음·액션·통쾌함 삼박자…김혜수·염정아 워맨스 빛난 '밀수', 연합뉴스
[[리뷰] '밀수', 영화에 돛을 다는 고민시와 닻을 내리는 염정아, 씨네21](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=103205)
밀수 결말 장도리 배신, 권상사 생존 쿠키 해석, 오늘의 방송노트
[[EN:터뷰] 염정아의 '밀수' 키워드, 노컷뉴스](https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5985816)
조인성, '밀수'·'무빙' 쌍끌이 흥행, SBS 뉴스
[[인터뷰] '밀수' 류승완 감독, 경향신문](https://www.khan.co.kr/article/202307301426001/amp)
[[기획] 호쾌한 승부의 세계, 류승완 감독의 '밀수' 속으로, 씨네21](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=103213)
[[이원 기자의 영화 人 a view] '밀수' 김혜수, 국제신문](https://www.kookje.co.kr/news2011/asp/newsbody.asp?code=0500&key=20230726.22014007999)
김혜수 "영화 '밀수' 수중 장면, 진짜 해녀들도 보고 놀라", 서울컬처
"한때 '밀수의 메카'였던 부산…영화 보니 70년대 감시활동 기억 생생", 국제신문
[[빅4특집] 조성민 외유내강 부사장 인터뷰, 일간스포츠](https://isplus.com/article/view/isp202307170048)
Smugglers (밀수) (2023), The Numbers
Smugglers streaming, JustWatch
Watch Smugglers, Netflix
'밀수' 김혜수x염정아, 서로를 알아본 해녀들의 짜릿한 순간, 조선비즈
2024 무주산골영화제 프로그램북
[[인터뷰] 김혜수·염정아의 바닷속 활귝, 아시아경제](https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2023080207572269837)
이용득 부산세관박물관장은 영화 '밀수'를 어떻게 봤나?, 파이낸셜투데이

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2023–2024 films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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