When Lim Eun-jung left her job at CJ ENM in 2023 and started her own production company, her goal for the film she'd been developing since 2019 was simply to break even.
That's not what happened.
"The King's Warden" has now surpassed 12 million admissions, making it one of the biggest Korean box office hits in recent years and a rare success story for a first-time production company working in a market that has been struggling for years. Lim, CEO of Onda Works, told The Korea Times she still finds it hard to take in.
"Before the release, the director and I cautiously whispered to each other that we hoped to double the break-even point since it was a holiday season," she said. "But the actual response from the public has been beyond our wildest dreams."
Set during the early Joseon Dynasty, the film follows deposed King Danjong — played by Park Ji-hoon — who is exiled to Yeongwol in Gangwon Province and finds an unlikely bond with the village chief Eom Heung-do, played by Yoo Hae-jin. Lim described it as a "grassroots historical drama," one that deliberately steps away from the palace-politics narratives that dominate the genre.
"It is not just about political fights in the palace," she said. "I saw it as a story about ordinary people, which is quite rare in Korean historical movies. I wanted to break the prejudice that historical films are only for a niche audience."
The path to the screen was not straightforward. Lim had been developing the script with screenwriter Hwang Seong-gu since 2019 while at CJ ENM. When the project was cancelled there, she negotiated formal permission to take it with her, started Onda Works, and found a new partner in Showbox — which, she says, was the first to believe in the project. She had promised the writer she would get the film made within five years, inside or outside her former company.
Casting was another calculated risk. Lim said signing veteran actor Yoo Hae-jin first gave the production enough credibility to bring Park Ji-hoon on board for the lead. Director Jang Hang-jun reportedly needed only one look at Park to be convinced — he said the actor's eyes were exactly those of the young monarch.
The film's success has also triggered what Lim called "Yeongwol syndrome," with fans travelling to the Gangwon Province locations where King Danjong was exiled and buried. Map apps reportedly struggled to handle the volume of searches for the sites.
"People are no longer just watching movies — they are actively consuming the culture," Lim said.
She kept the budget deliberately tight, and is now using part of the film's earnings to improve the CGI on a tiger scene that drew some criticism from audiences. Her next projects include a historical action film with Hwang and a train-set thriller with director Kim Ui-seok.