Lee Min-ho Jokes About Finally Being The Youngest On ‘the Assassin(s)’ Set

Lee Min-ho has spent years playing powerful CEOs, heirs and larger-than-life romantic leads. In his upcoming film The Assassin(s), however, he finds himself in an unfamiliar position both on screen and off: the rookie.

At a press conference in Seoul on August 10, Lee Min-ho introduced his character Young-il, an inexperienced newspaper reporter who becomes drawn into an investigation surrounding one of the most shocking political events in modern Korean history. And despite being 39 years old internationally, Lee Min-ho also found himself becoming the youngest member of the film’s three-man lead cast alongside Yoo Hae-jin and Park Hae-il.

“It’s not easy to be the youngest at this age,” he joked, drawing laughter from reporters. The comment immediately added a lighter moment to what is otherwise shaping up to be one of Lee Min-ho’s darker and more politically charged film projects.

Lee Min-ho plays a privileged young man who chooses uncertainty

Young-il begins the story with advantages many people would hesitate to abandon. Lee Min-ho described him as a young man raised in a well-off family with a comfortable future already laid out for him. Instead of following that predictable path, however, Young-il enters a newsroom because of his desire to pursue truth and live according to his own beliefs.

Lee Min-ho said he deliberately avoided concentrating too heavily on performing the recognizable mannerisms of a professional journalist. He was more interested in showing a young man encountering the realities of society for the first time and gradually changing because of them. He compared Young-il’s energy to that of something intensely alive and constantly moving, describing the reporter as someone who appears to have everything but still feels that something is missing.

Through journalism, Young-il begins searching for that missing purpose.

Director Hur Jin-ho similarly describes the character as a rookie reporter from an affluent background who pursues both truth and freedom.

Lee Min-ho at The Assassin(s) showcase / News 1

The story begins with a real 1974 tragedy

The Assassin(s) is inspired by the August 15, 1974 assassination attempt targeting then-President Park Chung-hee during a Liberation Day ceremony in Seoul.

The shooting resulted in the death of First Lady Yuk Young-soo and became one of the most traumatic and politically sensitive incidents of the period. Hur said he had considered turning the event into a film for more than a decade but remained cautious because it involved a real tragedy and people connected to the incident were still alive.

Rather than presenting the movie as a straightforward historical reconstruction, the director has built a mystery thriller around unresolved questions and competing attempts to uncover what happened.

Yoo Hae-jin plays Cheol-gu, a police detective working security at the ceremony who witnesses the shooting. Park Hae-il plays Jae-hwan, an experienced newspaper editor who questions the official account, while Lee’s Young-il becomes the younger reporter drawn directly into the investigation.

Hur stressed that the three central characters are not direct portrayals of specific real people. Instead, they were created from historical research, interviews and multiple sources. That distinction may be important for international viewers unfamiliar with the event: The Assassin(s) uses a real historical tragedy as its foundation but incorporates fictional characters and dramatic interpretation.

Lee Min-ho says the veteran cast actually made him feel comfortable

Being the youngest could have made the set intimidating. According to Lee Min-ho, it had the opposite effect.

Working with Yoo Hae-jin and Park Hae-il gave him an unusual sense of freedom, and he said The Assassin(s) was one of the rare productions where he felt completely comfortable while filming. Yoo also praised Lee as a particularly “smart” actor both professionally and in everyday conversation.

For Lee Min-ho, that environment helped him approach Young-il without trying to make every movement feel perfectly controlled. He said the film’s locations and situations felt “raw,” allowing him to react naturally to what the character was experiencing instead of emphasizing the mechanics of being a reporter.

The approach could give audiences a version of Lee Min-ho noticeably different from the composed romantic leads many international viewers associate with dramas such as The Heirs and The King: Eternal Monarch. His more recent work in Pachinko had already shown a darker, more restrained side of his acting. The Assassin(s) places him in another historical setting, but this time as an idealistic young journalist moving deeper into a political conspiracy.

Lee Min-ho at The Assassin(s) showcase / News 1

Fans are especially excited about “reporter Lee Min-ho”

Early fan discussion has focused strongly on Lee Min-ho’s transformation into Young-il. After a new still from the film circulated online, one international fan wrote, “Who better than Lee Min-ho to play the role of a reporter!”

Other fans have been counting down to the September release and celebrating the project’s international festival selection. On Lee Min-ho’s fan community, one supporter wrote that “September 2026 can’t come soon enough,” while others shared repeated messages of excitement about seeing him as Young-il.

The reactions should not yet be treated as a broad critical consensus the movie has not been publicly released but they show that fans are curious about a Lee Min-ho performance built around journalism and political suspense rather than conventional romance.

Film enthusiasts have also responded positively to the wider combination of Hur Jin-ho with Yoo Hae-jin and Park Hae-il, with discussion particularly interested in seeing the director continue exploring thriller territory after his more recent work.

‘The Assassin(s)’ is heading to Toronto

The film will receive its world premiere in the Gala Presentations program at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.

TIFF describes the 131-minute Korean-language film as a large-scale procedural centered on police officers and journalists attempting to penetrate an apparently impenetrable conspiracy. That international premiere gives Lee Min-ho another opportunity to meet global audiences through a project very different from the K-dramas that originally established his enormous overseas following.

Following TIFF, The Assassin(s) is scheduled to open in South Korean theaters during the Chuseok holiday period. For Lee Min-ho, perhaps the most interesting part of the project is the reversal it creates. He may be one of South Korea’s most internationally recognizable actors, but in this cast he gets to be the inexperienced one the youngest colleague and the rookie reporter learning how dangerous the search for truth can become.

And judging by the early fan response, viewers seem more than ready to see what “rookie Lee Min-ho” looks like at this stage of his career.