The Release Date Is Set
This was the new JC ENM building — and more specifically, the PR office, the beating heart of the entire company.
"Yes, the materials have just been sent over. Please give them a look when you can!"
"The release date is confirmed. We'll sort out the press screening schedule separately and get back to you soon. Yes, yes. Of course — Reporter Heo gets the exclusive first, naturally. Yes!"
Everyone was busy contacting someone, somewhere. Today was the day the official release date of the film JC ENM had invested in and was distributing finally went public.
"Rookie Shiiin~. Did you finish the SNS upload?"
"Yes, sir! Checking the view count now!"
Rookie Shin pulled up a new window on his monitor. Sure enough, the video was already displaying the caption he'd written at the end of it.
GRAND RELEASE — JULY 24
They picked the release date perfectly.
A major release had to choose its opening date with extreme care — the whole point was to maximize the marketing payoff and the box office boom that followed. Rookie Shin mentally ran through the formula.
First rule: a Wednesday release. It was the most favored day in the Korean film market, and starting midweek let a movie ride its momentum straight into the weekend, dramatically raising its odds of success. And above all else—
It gets audiences into theaters early, on a weekday.
Then word of mouth would carry them into the weekend. And the final week would land on Culture Day, when plenty of casual moviegoers would give it a try on a whim.
Second rule: pick the right season. A classic choice. Opening in July or August — summer vacation and holiday season — meant chasing maximum attendance, though it came with a bit of a gamble.
Overlap with a foreign blockbuster and it's game over.
December through January worked the same way, drawing in family audiences, and targeting the long holiday stretch could sustain a run for weeks.
Third rule: the golden holiday. Aiming for stretches of three or four consecutive public holidays, like Children's Day or Liberation Day. And historically, more ten-million-admission movies had premiered in July and December than in any other months.
And opens in July too!
Holiday-season bonuses, Culture Day, and a cathartic action film that fit the summer perfectly. Every condition had snapped into place at once.
Rookie Shin's gut told him this was going to be great. The ideal formula for a ten-million-admission hit was complete, down to the last piece.
"Man, they really did nail the teaser trailer."
Amid the whirlwind of the office, Rookie Shin murmured at his monitor.
"Just one thing to complain about…."
He quietly played the teaser trailer from the top.
Beyond the dark screen, a siren swelled louder and louder, until at last a deep, weighty drumbeat settled underneath it.
The first to appear was Yoon Hyun-jo in a crisp white shirt — a clean, polished face that read elite at a single glance.
Before him stood a furious police commissioner.
"How the hell am I supposed to work like this, you crazy bastard!"
He hurled the documents at Yoon Hyun-jo. The papers scattered through the air like white feathers. Then, with a heavy thud!, the screen showed a gangster's face caving in.
BANG—!
The gangster hit the floor. The ground was already a sprawl of gangsters punched senseless. The camera p slowly upward.
And there stood the man responsible for it all — Gwak Cheol-sik, covering his mouth with one hand.
"Look at these guys milking it? Big bro hit 'em real soft, I swear."
Behind him, his teammates let out weary sighs one after another. The head of Violent Crimes Unit 1 bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"HEY, YOU CRAZY BASTARD!!!! How the hell are we supposed to work like this!"
With a jaunty sound effect, a caption popped onto the screen.
[ Subtitle: The detective who uses his head. The detective who uses his fists. ]
[ Subtitle: The mission handed to them both? ]
"The Funny Series?"
A close-up of Yoon Hyun-jo holding the documents cut sharply to Gwak Cheol-sik.
He was dressed in the exact opposite of Yoon Hyun-jo — a khaki field jacket, and the scar on one cheek said everything about his years in violent crimes.
"What's this?"
With a crashing sound effect, bold lettering slammed onto the black screen.
[ Subtitle: A plague has spread across Gangnam ]
Across from Gwak Cheol-sik, a junior detective downed a paper cup of instant coffee in one gulp and answered. Like Gwak Cheol-sik, he was a violent crimes detective, in a khaki vest.
"It's the hottest thing going in the Gangnam clubs right now,"
The junior officer across from Yoon Hyun-jo answered, rubbing his forehead. The elite detective and the brawling violent-crimes cop made for a study in contrasts.
"and once you do it, you just start laughing like a lunatic, sir."
[ Subtitle: End the rampage of the Funny Series ]
The screen split in two, showing Yoon Hyun-jo and Gwak Cheol-sik side by side. Both faces twisted in disgust.
"But why do I—""That son of a—""With this meathead—""—have to work the same case?"
The screen cut swiftly to a nightclub.
Inside the dark, garish space, red lights flashed to a rapid beat. The camera wove inward through the chaos, pushing deeper with the deafening club music.
[ Subtitle: Special Mission — ]
Climbing to the second floor, the camera aimed for the deepest corner of the club. There, balloons marked with smiley faces bobbed above a crowd of laughing, shouting people. The tables were a mess of liquor bottles and envelopes plastered with smiley stickers.
CRASH—!
Someone on screen shattered a bottle with a sharp, piercing crack. The music cut out for a beat. The person gripping the broken bottle, heedless of the blood dripping from their hand, swung it again.
"AHAHAHAHA!!!"
The deranged laughter rang out, and the music slammed back in, as if nothing had happened at all. That laugh — so utterly wrong for a scene where nothing was wrong — sent a chill crawling up the spine.
The scene shifted: a single car cutting through the streets of Gangnam.
Behind the wheel, Yoon Hyun-jo's icy eyes had gone red with fury. In a perfectly pressed suit, he was shouting into his phone.
"There are limits to how impossible you can be, sir! How exactly am I supposed to get into a party packed with influencers, hm?!"
BANG—!
His whole body lurched hard. Yoon Hyun-jo blinked once in irritation, then knocked on the rear window.
"Come out."
The window slid down with excruciating slowness. There sat Summer, eyes brimming with tears.
"See? Didn't I tell you I'd get it done? You can't just work your brain, you gotta use your body too — your body!"
Over the phone, Gwak Cheol-sik's voice layered on top of hers.
[ Subtitle: What we're really fighting is ]
What followed was a string of exhilarating action scenes.
In the cramped club corridor, Gwak Cheol-sik hammered down every gangster in his path while Yoon Hyun-jo methodically snapped arms at the joints — the two of them cutting back and forth across the screen.
"Aw, shit."
"He really doesn't get hit, does he."
Then the two looked at each other and sighed. The gangsters Gwak Cheol-sik had worked over were a bloody, writhing heap on the floor; the ones Yoon Hyun-jo had subdued were all out cold. Two completely different men, through and through.
"Die!"
"You bastards!"
And yet, when a gang member crept up behind each of them, bottle raised overhead, the other man took care of it for him.
Like solid partners watching each other's backs.
The music underneath had grown heavy without notice. Sirens wailed in overlapping layers — as if to announce that this next opponent was the final boss.
"Hellooooo, officers~"
It was the crew of the 's "Funny Series," the so-called MZ-generation gangsters. Dressed head to toe in luxury logos, their boss gave a playful little wave. Behind his smiling face, smiley balloons drifted like something out of a fairy tale.
"Oh, hey. Big bro's here."
"You here for a little team-building, gentlemen? No need for introductions."
The boss, glancing between the two men, burst into raucous laughter. Then he deliberately crunched the capsule in his hand between his teeth and swallowed it.
"So? Care for a little candy too, old-timers?"
Gwak Cheol-sik glanced briefly at Yoon Hyun-jo, and Yoon Hyun-jo gave a small shrug — suit yourself.
What followed was an action scene of sheer, overwhelming force.
The crack of thick fists landing without mercy filled the screen, and the boss — his face swollen from the blows — sneered wickedly.
The boss, who had been so leisurely a moment ago, screamed.
"Do it by the law, you son of a bitch!"
"Oh? You're telling big bro to go by the law?"
[ Subtitle: They are the ones who stand above the law ]
"Get my lawyer on the phone, NOW!"
"Ahh~. So you're fond of the law, are you?"
Gwak Cheol-sik asked the question; Yoon Hyun-jo delivered the verdict. As Yoon Hyun-jo stood with his hands clasped behind his back, Gwak Cheol-sik was grinding the criminal into the floor.
"This is faster than the law."
The two answered in perfect unison. Then a lightning-fast fist flew into the gangster's face. With a sickening crunch!, he went down, blood pouring, out cold.
[ Subtitle: Faster Than the Law ]
[ Subtitle: GRAND RELEASE — JULY 24 ]
In just one minute and thirty seconds, the trailer showed exactly what kind of film this was.
The chemistry between the two leads was a given, and the action was clean, fast, and thrilling.
The perfect summer movie!
Part of it was that the cast was made up entirely of actors with diction crisp enough to satisfy even Rookie Shin's notoriously sensitive ears.
In most action films, the sound of bodies breaking and collapsing bleeds into the dialogue until the lines come out mumbled and mushy — but had none of that.
The one flaw is that Han Yeo-reum barely shows up at all.
Rookie Shin clicked through the making-of footage he'd been given, mourning the fact that Summer appeared in exactly one scene. Then he refreshed the window and checked the comments.
Someone had recognized Summer. Rookie Shin was smiling with pride when a dark shadow fell over him from behind.
"Our little rooookie~. Everyone else is busting their humps, and what are you doooing? Heh heh…."
It was Team Leader Hong, smiling warmly — though his eyes weren't smiling one bit.
"Get those calls back, fast fast! Invitations for the press screening, the promo event, and did you check the merch production request yet? Did you or didn't you, huh?!"
"On it, sir! Doing it right now, sir!"
And so, the moment the trailer went live, the articles rolled out in force.
Faster Than the Law began its promotion as this year's most anticipated release the very moment it showed its face.
"Well, well… the reaction's not bad…."
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
Diligent fingers drumming away at a laptop keyboard filled the room with a restless clatter.
The short fingernails, jagged with unmistakable bite marks, dug painfully into the flesh at every keystroke — and she couldn't have cared less.
When she saw the post she'd written not even a few hours ago already sitting at the top of the Best board, the corners of her mouth curled upward.