The Weekend Choo Young-woo Owned Both Netflix and Korean TV

Featured photo: Choo Young-woo at the press conference for The Tale of Lady Ok, November 28, 2024. Photo: K-POPIT 케이팝잇 via YouTube / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY.

The last weekend of January 2025: two screens

On Friday, January 24, 2025, Netflix released all of The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call. Next to Ju Ji-hoon’s genius trauma surgeon Baek Kang-hyuk, the first disciple who cries, runs and holds on was Choo Young-woo. Two days later, on Sunday night, JTBC aired the final episode of The Tale of Lady Ok. The man opposite Im Ji-yeon, playing two roles at once, Cheon Seung-hwi and Seong Yun-gyeom, was also Choo Young-woo.

The numbers from that weekend: the Lady Ok finale hit a series-high 13.6% nationwide (Money Today, Jan. 27, 2025), and The Trauma Code went to No. 1 on Netflix’s Korea Top 10, made the Top 10 in 26 countries, and drew 4.7 million views in its first week, enough for a top-three spot among non-English TV shows worldwide (Money Today IZE, Feb. 1, 2025). One Korean outlet ran the headline “A Byeon Woo-seok-level syndrome: now it’s your turn” (OSEN via Daum).

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In his fourth year as an actor, Choo held the ending of a TV drama and Netflix’s No. 1 series in the same weekend. His 2025 started there and ended on the stage of the rookie awards. I’ll be honest: that weekend I flipped between the two screens shouting “who is this actor?” more than once. Discovering someone all at once, and this happily, is rare even for a fan.

Where to watch: The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call on Netflix (U.S. and Korea). The Tale of Lady Ok on Kocowa and OnDemandKorea in the U.S.; Netflix, TVING, Wavve and Watcha in Korea (JustWatch, checked Oct. 27, 2026).

Also read: Lee Jae-wook Was the Second Lead Viewers Picked. In Netflix's Dead-End Job, He Is the Lead

1999 to 2021: from drama school to Police University

Choo was born on June 5, 1999, and studied acting at the Korea National University of Arts. In 2021 he started to get noticed as Song Si-on in the web drama You Make Me Dance and as Park Min-kyu in KBS2’s Police University (Wikipedia). His older brother, Choo Jung-woo, is also an actor; he later worked on The Tale of Lady Ok as his younger brother’s stunt double (Newsen, 2024, cited by Wikipedia).

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2021 to 2023: a school, a village and Oasis

After Jung Young-joo in KBS2’s School 2021, he played Han Ji-yul, a veterinarian who moves to a country village, in Kakao TV’s Once Upon a Small Town (2022), and won the Excellence Award for a web drama actor at the 2023 APAN Star Awards. In KBS2’s Oasis (2023) he played Choi Chul-woong, a young man getting through the 1980s, opposite Jang Dong-yoon and Seol In-ah, and won Best New Actor at that year’s KBS Drama Awards (Wikipedia).

2024: two men in one face

The turning point was JTBC’s weekend drama The Tale of Lady Ok, which began in November 2024. In a story about a slave with no name or status who lives under someone else’s name, Choo moved between two completely different men: the storyteller Cheon Seung-hwi and the nobleman Seong Yun-gyeom. The show opened at 4.2%, passed 11.1% by episode 10 (Wikitree) and ended at 13.6%.

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2025: the year of the rookie awards

The awards followed that weekend. On May 5, at the 61st Baeksang Arts Awards, he won Best New Actor in television for The Tale of Lady Ok and passed the credit on, saying the award felt “like a gift from the director, the writer and the actors I worked with” (Nocut News). In July, at the 4th Blue Dragon Series Awards, he won Best New Actor for The Trauma Code (iMBC). Cine21’s New Actor of the Year, the Korea Drama Awards’ Best New Actor and Best Actor at the Asia Artist Awards all came in the same year (Wikipedia).

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He didn’t stop working in between. In June he played Lee Geum-son in Netflix’s noir Mercy for None with So Ji-sub, and from June 23 he played Bae Gyeon-woo, a high school boy who carries bad luck everywhere he goes, opposite Cho Yi-hyun in tvN’s Head Over Heels. The premiere drew 4.3% and won its time slot (Money Today), and in August the show topped Korea’s drama brand reputation rankings (Wikitree).

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Where to watch: Mercy for None on Netflix (U.S. and Korea); Head Over Heels on Prime Video in the U.S. (JustWatch, checked Oct. 27, 2026).

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On Christmas Eve his first film came out. In Even If This Love Disappears Tonight he plays Jae-won, who fills in the days of Seo-yun (Shin Si-a), a girl whose memories are erased every night. It drew 850,000 moviegoers and went worldwide on Netflix on February 4, 2026 (Daum).

October 2026: a PhD student who lost a leg

Right now Choo is Park Min-jae in ENA’s Monday-Tuesday drama Between Steps: a doctoral student who lost one leg to illness, who meets master’s student Im Yu-jin (Kim So-hyun) as she agonizes over her future. It premiered on October 5, and it is the last work of director Ahn Pan-seok, who made One Spring Night and The Midnight Romance in Hagwon, completed before his death in September (Newspim).

Where to watch: Between Steps on Hulu in the U.S.; in Korea on ENA (Mon–Tue 10 p.m.), Genie TV and Disney+ (JustWatch, checked Oct. 27, 2026).

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Next: Demon No. 3375

His next project is the Netflix series Long Vacation. Choo plays Demon No. 3375, who knows nothing of love, and Lee Se-young plays Lee Deul-pan, a hotel worker who knows how to get by. It is directed by Lee Jeong-hyo, who made Crash Landing on You (YTN). No release date has been announced.

A year and nine months ago, Choo was two men and one disciple in a single weekend. Next he’s a demon. Whatever face he comes back with, I’m already waiting for episode one.