'Project Y': Han So-hee and Jeon Jong-seo star in riveting female-led heist drama

The cast of 'Project Y' took the outdoor stage at the Busan Cinema Center, drawing a dense crowd for a brisk, image-forward showcase of a heist drama built around two women operating at the edge of survival, according to MK's on-site report.

Director Lee Hwan stood alongside Han So-hee, Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Sung-cheol, Jung Young-joo, Lee Jae-kyun and YooA, positioning the film inside the festival's home-turf spotlight as an immediate conversation piece. The title appears in the Korean Cinema Today-Special Premiere lineup in its first Busan bow, extending pre-release buzz around the central pairing.

A heist under pressure

The plot tracks Mi-seon and Do-kyung, who seize on hidden black money and gold bars to claw past a dead-end existence, a choice that tests loyalty, nerve and the limits of mutual dependence under escalating risk.

Han plays Mi-seon, splitting days at a flower shop and nights in nightlife to scrape by, describing a character who hurls forward toward a singular aim despite divergent methods from her partner. Jeon, as Do-kyung, hinted at a turn from insular bond to sudden professional resolve after a catalytic incident, shaping the duo as operators forged by necessity more than blood.

The director's wager

Lee rejected the damp, plodding cadence often tagged to noir, arguing instead for a funky, neo-realist charge keyed to star presence and unvarnished texture that could jolt audiences at the point where fame meets basement reality.

He said he cast the leads to capture performances that feel "monstrous" and "animal," trusting their icon status to collide productively with a ground-level emotional register. The aim, he suggested, is a dense, concentrated mood-less procedural, more voltage-tuned to the duo's chemistry and the heist's moral abrasion.

Voices from the stage

Jeon called a same-age, female two-top a rarity and said the pairing promised chemistry beyond the page the moment she read the script, a calculation she made instantly at first glance. Han framed the relationship as one that could upend the old notion that blood outweighs all, defining the bond by chosen allegiance and the calculus of survival in a hostile economy. Kim Sung-cheol described his antagonist as absolute malice, a counterweight requiring outsized energy to meet the leads head-on, while YooA teased a sharp-edged big-screen debut far removed from idol polish.