Netflix has confirmed that The Match, the latest film by South Korea’s Lee Byung-hun and Yoo Ah-In, will skip a theatre release and be premiered exclusively on the streaming platform. As it stands, we haven’t been given an indication of when the premiere will take place.
The Match stars Lee Byung-hun and Yoo Ah-in as two renowned Go (sometimes known as Baduk) players. Lee stars as real-life player Cho Hoon-hyun, while Yoo will portray his pupil and eventual rival Lee Chang-ho. The biopic is set to explore how the pair’s relationship changes as they compete against one another.
So far, we’ve only seen one still from The Match, which shows the players focusing as they play a game of Go – a complex strategy game – encircled by news reporters. According to reports, The Match finished filming back in April 2021 but has faced severe delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Match will see Kim Hyun-joo in the director’s chair, whose last film, the crime caper The Sherrif In Town, arrived in 2017. More recently, Lee worked on the tvN drama series Our Blues, which was released via Netflix earlier this year in selected regions.
The Match marks Yoo’s third Netflix production, following the actor’s role in the 2021 supernatural series Hellbound and the crime drama Seoul Vibe, starring Park Ju-hyun. Yoo is also set to star in Goodbye Earth – set for release in 2023.
