Prison Playbook (Korean: 슬기로운 감빵생활) is a 2017 South Korean television series directed by Shin Won-ho and starring Park Hae-soo and Jung Kyung-ho.
The series marks Park Hae-soo's first-ever lead role. It aired on tvN from November 22, 2017 to January 18, 2018, every Wednesday and Thursday at 21:10 (KST) for 16 episodes.
A captivating series revolving around the lives of convicts behind bars, their families and duty officers working in the correctional facilities. It focuses on the story of a superstar baseball pitcher, Kim Je-hyuk, who is convicted of assault after he saves his sister from a sexual assault.
A superstar baseball player who turns into a convict overnight after protecting his sister from an assault. Due to ultimately fatal injuries that the perpetrator suffers, he is sentenced to a year of jailtime. Despite excelling in baseball, he is quite clumsy at everything else, which is a running gag throughout the show.
An elite prison guard and Je-hyuk's best friend. He used to play baseball with Je-hyuk in high school but had to quit because of injuries sustained in a car accident. Other prisoners and guards believe that he is just an avid fan of Kim Je-hyuk.
A veteran chief prison guard who is quick and flexible when it comes to resolving incidents that take place inside the prison, but is known for being corrupt and easily swayed by money or other material goods that inmates can provide him.
Jung Jae-sung as Professor Myung
Lee Ho-chul [ko] as Gal Dae-bong (a.k.a. "Seagull")
Seobu Penitentiary
Choi Moo-sung as Kim Min-chul (a.k.a. "Long-term Prisoner")
A gang member and convicted murderer who was at first, sentenced to life imprisonment before his sentence was shortened to 25 years on appeal a decade after his trial. A model prisoner and father figure to younger inmates, especially to Lee Joo-hyung.
An engineer who was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months’ imprisonment because of a gambling scam. He has a severe lisp, which other inmates (especially Han-yang) make fun of.
A repeat offender for drug usage. He constantly bickers with Kaist and Captain Yoo.
Jung Hae-in as Yoo Jeong-woo (a.k.a. "Captain Yoo")
A commanding officer who allegedly assaulted his teammate, which led to the latter's death. He initially found it hard to live in prison but eventually began to fit in.
Jung Min-sung [ko] as Go Park-sa (a.k.a. "Doctor Go")
A manager of a large company who was imprisoned due to his company embezzling ten billion won and him taking the fall for it.
Kang Seung-yoon as Lee Jong-won, Min-chul’s fellow gang member who strongly resembles Joo-hyung. He, Min-chul and three others were found guilty of the murders of two rival gang members, but unlike Min-chul and two of their fellow co-accused, Jong-won (together with their gang leader) was sentenced to death and executed on 6 January 1996.
A man who frequently goes in and out of prison and the first person in the prison Je-hyuk befriends. He considers Je-hyuk his brother because Je-hyuk secretly paid for his mother's life-saving surgery.
Ahn Chang-hwan as Dong-ho (a.k.a. "Croney")
A prisoner who stabs Je-hyuk in the shoulder, causing his left arm to be injured and unusable for baseball. Eventually, Je-hyuk is able to convince him to be on his side and be his catcher while he trains for baseball in prison.
A friendly and bright prisoner who works in the prison's wood workshop with Je-hyuk and Park-sa. He was sentenced to prison after a fatal car accident.
A prisoner who works in the prison's wood workshop with Je-hyuk, Park-sa, and Min-sung. He becomes the chief of operations in the workshop, replacing Yeom.
Lee Hoon-jin as "Soji" (goods carrier)
Joo Seok-tae [ko] as operations chief Yeom Sang-jae
The wood workshop's operations chief. He always takes the other workers' overtime pay for himself. He is sexually attracted to Je-hyuk.
Ahn Sang-woo as Warden Kim Yong-chul
The prison’s warden who is obsessed with the prison having a good reputation to the public, especially during Je-hyuk's imprisonment.
Prison Playbook is directed by Shin Won-ho, the award-winning director of Reply series, and written by one of the series' junior writers, Jung Bo-hoon.
The first script reading of the cast was held on July 17, 2017, at CJ E&M Center in Sangam-dong, Seoul.
In the table above, the blue numbers represent the lowest ratings and the red numbers represent the highest ratings.
This series aired on a cable channel/pay TV which normally has a relatively smaller audience compared to free-to-air TV/public broadcasters (KBS, SBS, MBC and EBS).
This article uses material from the Wikipedia English article Prison Playbook, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA 3.0"); additional terms may apply (view authors). Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses. ®Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wiki Foundation, Inc. Wiki English (DUHOCTRUNGQUOC.VN) is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wiki Foundation.
