Director: Jo Yong
Grief comedies rarely let their leads be this prickly, but Mr Plankton leans into the discomfort of a man who finds out his life is ending and decides the last person he wants beside him is also the one he can't shake.
What is Mr Plankton about?
Woo Do-hwan plays a man confronting a sudden, narrow window left in his life, and instead of reconciling with loved ones gracefully, he tracks down his ex-girlfriend, played by Lee You-mi, on the eve of her wedding to someone else. What starts as an impulsive, almost spiteful request for company turns into a chaotic road journey neither of them planned, dragging up old resentments, unfinished apologies, and the reasons their relationship fell apart in the first place. The series moves between the dry comedy of two exes forced to cooperate and the disquiet of one of them keeping a countdown from the other, letting tenderness surface only after both characters have exhausted their sarcasm.
Cast & crew
Woo Do-hwan carries the title role with a mix of deadpan bitterness and buried panic, while Lee You-mi plays the reluctant bride-to-be with enough exasperation to keep the central pairing from tipping into sentimentality too early. Oh Jung-se and Kim Hae-sook round out the supporting cast, adding texture to the family and friend circles pulled into the pair's unplanned trip.
Context & significance
Mr Plankton comes from director Jo Yong and pairs a premise built for melodrama with a script that keeps undercutting itself with jokes, a tonal balancing act common in recent Korean romantic comedies that use terminal illness or a ticking clock as a structural device rather than pure tragedy. The 2024 series runs a tight episode length of roughly an hour, closer to a film's pacing than a sprawling drama arc.
Where & how to watch
Mr Plankton is available to stream on K-Time with a free account login, and the platform's Persian-language interface, dubbing, and subtitle tracks make it easy to follow for Farsi-speaking audiences without losing the show's comic timing.