Eom Jung-hwa Brings Legendary Spy Miyoung Back in 'OK Madam 2', Six Years After COVID Derailed the Original

When OK Madam opened in August 2020, Eom Jung-hwa's character Miyoung had one scene that landed squarely: inside an airplane lavatory, she neutralizes a kidnapper with her bare hands and then looks genuinely surprised at herself. The joke, and the film's central premise, is that this woman has spent years selling fried dough at a market stall, burying a past life as a legendary North Korean operative codenamed 'Magnolia'. The sequel, OK Madam 2, opens in Korean cinemas on August 12.

Six years is a long gap between chapters, and not entirely a planned one. The original drew 1.22 million admissions but was cut down after a week in theaters when South Korea tightened COVID-19 distancing measures in the summer of 2020. That truncated run left the cast and director with unfinished business, and by Eom's account, they agreed almost immediately to keep going.

"While we were filming the first one, we all made up our minds to make it a series," she told a reporter at a Seoul café on August 4. "Fortunately the audience response was good when it opened. And because the director and cast are all close, we started thinking through the next one together from the beginning."

That involvement extended to the development stage: Eom and co-star Park Sung-woong both participated in the project's planning, an unusual step for actors of their profile. The closeness between the returning ensemble, which also includes Lee Sang-yoon and Bae Jung-nam, shows in the way the film was put together. Even the stunt team from the original came back.

Child actor Jung Soo-bin, who played Miyoung's daughter Nari in the first film, returns in the same role. Six years of visible growth between installments gives the mother-daughter relationship a texture that is harder to manufacture: it simply exists because the production waited.

The biggest deliberate upgrade is the action. Eom was direct about what she felt the first film lacked. "I thought there wasn't enough action in the first one," she said. "I didn't want to soften it just because it features a woman doing the fighting. I wanted genuinely impressive action."

The setting has also expanded. Where the original confined much of its best physical comedy to an aircraft, the sequel moves the action onto a luxury cruise ship that Miyoung's family boards after receiving an unexpected invitation. Director Lee Chul-ha's team chose to shoot on an actual cruise vessel rather than build sets, using the ship's full range of spaces, which gives the film's set-pieces a sense of scale the first entry couldn't match.

"We used every space on the ship," Eom said. "I wanted audiences to enjoy sightseeing on the cruise while also watching the action and laughing."

The film opens against stiff competition. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is currently performing well at the Korean box office, and Christopher Nolan's Odyssey opens on August 5. Eom did not pretend the timing is convenient. Her pitch is a different one: that OK Madam 2 offers something the tentpoles do not, specifically a film comfortable enough to watch with family, built around warmth and physical comedy as much as spectacle.

There is a more personal reason for the attachment, too. Eom has been candid about the downturn in Korean film production in recent years, describing a wait for projects that has grown uncomfortable. "As an actor waiting for films, there's just not enough work out there," she said. "For other films to get made, OK Madam 2 needs to do well. That's part of why I care so much about it."

She is hoping the sequel's success might loosen the conditions for a wider range of stories. Her recent work has leaned toward comedy, including Dazzling Her in 2023, but she is clearly ready for more variety. "I want to tell deeper, more serious stories too," she said. "I'd like to see diverse films made regardless of age or gender. Our lives are that varied."

Eom debuted as a film lead in 1993 with When the Wind Blows, Head to Apgujeong-dong and has been a consistent presence in Korean cinema and pop music ever since, building a career substantial enough that younger performers cite her as a role model. She takes that seriously. "When people say I'm their role model, it makes me happy but also gives me a sense of responsibility," she said. "I thought that having a senior still active in the field would give them strength, so I decided to be that kind of presence."

OK Madam 2 opens in South Korea on August 12.