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Netflix Teases Live-Action Korean Parasyte Show for 2nd Quarter of 2024

Netflix announced on Tuesday that Parasyte: The Grey (Kiseiju: The Grey), the South Korean live-action adaptation of Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte (Kiseiju) manga, will debut in the second quarter of this year. Netflix also shared a still from the project showing main character Jeong Su-in (played by Jeon So-nee).

Jeon So-nee, Koo Kyo-hwan, and Lee Jung-hyun star in the adaptation. Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan, Peninsula) is directing the project, and is also penning scripts with Ryu Yong-jae (Peninsula, Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area).

The upcoming production is based on the manga, but will tell its own new story. Jeon plays Jeong Su-in, who was attacked by a parasite, but "when it fails to take over her brain, she enters a bizarre coexistence with it.". Koo's character Seol Kang-woo is pursuing parasites to find his missing younger sister. Lee plays the leader of The Grey (a task force battling parasites) whose husband was killed by them.

Hitoshi Iwaaki's original manga serialized in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine from 1990-1995. The manga takes place in a world where alien beings called Parasites come to Earth and start taking over humans by entering in through their noses and ears and attaching themselves to their brains. One alien called Migi is only able to take over high school student Shinichi Izumi's right arm, and is unable to control Shinichi completely. Migi and Shinichi learn to co-exist, and the two battle other Parasites who see humans only as food.

The manga most recently inspired a television anime adaptation in 2014, and two live-action films in 2014 and 2015.

Sources: Deadline (Sara Merican), Netflix Twitter account