Good News (2025 film)

Good News (Korean: 굿뉴스) is a 2025 South Korean disaster black comedy film co-written and directed by Byun Sung-hyun for Netflix. The lead roles are played by Sul Kyung-gu, Hong Kyung and Ryoo Seung-bum. The film inspired by the hijacking of a Japanese passenger plane in March 1970,^[1] follows a secret mission led by a committed team intent on safely bringing down a hijacked aircraft, employing whatever tactics the situation demands.^[2]

The film had its world premiere in the Special Presentations section of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2025.^[3][4] The film is available for global streaming on Netflix from October 17, 2025, following its festival release.^[5]

In 1970, soon after leaving Tokyo's Haneda Airport for Itazuke, the passenger plane Japanese Ride 351 is hijacked by members of the Red Army Faction who are armed with guns, bladed weapons, and a bomb vest. The young hijackers, referred to themselves as Ashita no Joe, demand to be flown to Pyongyang in North Korea, where they hope to gather and organize other Japanese communists into a revolutionary army capable of toppling the Japanese government. Captain Takehiro Kubo points out that he and his copilot do not know Pyongyang's location or air traffic control frequency; he also deceives the hijackers about the amount of fuel aboard the plane, claiming it is insufficient to make the trip. The hijackers allow the plane to land at Itazuke in order to refuel and acquire a map. When the plane reaches Itazuke, Japanese authorities hesitate to take action out of fear of endangering the hostages. A fighter jet of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is parked in front of the plane to stall for time, and the hijackers are prevailed upon to release the elderly, infirm, and children, but ultimately the plane is permitted to depart for Pyongyang with 106 Japanese hostages still aboard.

Meanwhile, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency learns of the hijacking, and Director Park Sang-hyeon tasks "Nobody", an undocumented North Korean defector and the KCIA's best fixer, with rescuing the hostages so that South Korea will reap the positive publicity on the international stage and also put the Japanese government in its debt. Nobody opts to trick the hijackers into allowing the plane to land in Seoul by making them think it is Pyongyang. To this end, he recruits Lt. Seo Go-myung of the ROK Air Force, one of a select few ROK military personnel trained in the RAPCON system of United States Forces Korea, to take on the role of a North Korean air traffic controller and guide Japanese Ride 351 to Seoul. Both Seo and a North Korean Air Force counterpart simultaneously attempt to use an emergency public frequency to communicate with the plane and get the pilots to switch to a private frequency, but Seo is faster on the button and the pilots switch to the South Korean frequency, ensuring the plane is guided to Gimpo International Airport.

On the ground at Gimpo, Nobody arranges for the facility to be disguised as Pyongyang International Airport and brings in propaganda film actors to play soldiers and dancers for the North Korean welcoming party. When Japanese Ride 351 lands, however, the high-strung hijackers refuse to disembark and quickly spot discrepancies: an American airliner parked among outlying buildings, an African-American military officer eating hamburgers at a window, and Louis Armstrong music playing over a local radio station. With the ruse exposed and the plane now trapped at Gimpo, the situation reverts into a stand-off.

That night, Seo is sent aboard the plane to hear the hijackers' demands. One of the hijackers stabs the lead hijacker in the abdomen to demonstrate their resolve; the lead hijacker explains to Seo that if the plane has not resumed flying to Pyongyang before either his death by internal hemorrhaging or noon the next day, the hijackers will detonate the bomb vest and blow up the plane. Seeing that the South Korean officials handling the crisis want to avoid responsibility for the lives of the Japanese hostages by sending the plane on to Pyongyang, Seo downplays the hijackers' fanaticism to his superiors, and Director Park assumes it will be possible to negotiate the hostages' release by granting the hijackers safe passage out of the country. Nobody plants a false news report that one of the hostages is of Korean descent and draws comparisons to the 1969 Korean Air Lines YS-11 hijacking, igniting a public outcry for the hostages' immediate release that results in the deal obtaining the necessary presidential approval before the deadline. The hijackers reject the deal outright, believing it to be another ruse.

As the deadline draws near and the government officials scramble to escape accountability, Nobody persuades Japanese Deputy Minister of Transportation Shinichi Ishida, who is present as an observer, to offer himself as a hostage in exchange for the passengers' freedom. The hijackers accept, the hostage swap is completed smoothly, and Japanese Ride 351 takes off for North Korea. Later, Nobody divulges to Seo that although the minister and pilots were safely returned to Japan, the hijackers' guns and explosives turned out to be fakes and they never intended to harm the hostages, and thus the Red Army Faction essentially outsmarted South Korea. Furthermore, South Korea wants to cover up the full extent of government involvement in the fiasco and make it appear that Japanese Ride 351 landed at Gimpo by mistake, and Seo cannot receive any recognition for his actions. Nobody reassures the disappointed Seo that he nonetheless accomplished something important and gives him a presidential watch as compensation. Nobody's reward is South Korean citizenship and a new name of his own choosing: Choi Go-myung.

In May 2024, Hong Kyung was offered a role in the film.^[7]

In a press release issued in September 2024, Netflix officially announced that the film had entered production.^[2] Filming began on September 7, 2024, and finished by February 17, 2025.^[8]

Gimpo International Airport was made to look like Pyongyang International Airport for the filming.^[9]

Good News had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2025.^[10][11][12] It was also presented in the Gala Presentation at the 30th Busan International Film Festival on September 18, 2025.^[13]

Netflix planned a simultaneous global launch following the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.^[14] It is available to stream globally from October 17, 2025 on Netflix.^[9]

Robert Daniels, writing for Screen Daily reviewing at TIFF described the film as "a biting satire about bureaucratic spinelessness." He praised the ensemble cast for delivering "fantastic, multi-layered performances," and commended the screenplay by Byun Sung-hyun and Lee Jin-seong. Daniels highlighted the clever use of the 1968 manga catchphrase Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow by the nine hijackers, calling it a mark of "nimble" writing. Overall, he characterized the film as "a genre-mashing, tone-blending, thriller-comedy."^[15]

• Good News at IMDb 
• Good News at HanCinema
• Good News at the Korean Movie Database (in Korean)
• Good News on Netflix
• Good News at TIFF
• Official trailer on YouTube