“Prove I'm real or I'm the imposter.”
A reclusive writer wakes to find his identity stolen — and must ally with a ruthless loan shark to reclaim his life from a man known as "The Rat."
Latest episode: S1 E10 Episode 10 (Aug 28, 2026)
Je Moon-jae, a reclusive novelist who becomes desperate after a mysterious figure known as "The Rat" steals his identity and financial assets. To reclaim his life, he forms an unlikely alliance with Noja, a loan shark-turned-private investigator, leading them into a tense manhunt to uncover the truth behind the identity theft and the dark conspiracy hidden beneath it.
There’s a moment in Mousetrap when Ryu Jun-yeol’s Je Moon-jae, a writer whose life has been hijacked overnight, stares at his own reflection in a shattered mirror. The glass is cracked, but the face staring back isn’t his—or at least, not the one he recognizes. It’s a neat visual metaphor for the series’ central anxiety: identity isn’t something you own; it’s something that can be stolen, piece by piece, until you’re left questioning whether you ever had one to begin with.
The problem is that Mousetrap spends so much time setting up that existential dread that it forgets to deliver the payoff its premise demands.
Kim Hong-sun, the director behind slick genre exercises like The Chase and A Violent Prosecutor, knows how to keep a story moving. The first three episodes of Mousetrap are propulsive in the best sense—Moon-jae’s descent into paranoia is shot with a restless energy, the camera lingering on close-ups of his trembling hands or the way his breath hitches when he realizes his bank accounts have been drained.
Ryu Jun-yeol, an actor who specializes in playing men on the edge of collapse (Reply 1988, Money Flower), is perfectly cast here. His Moon-jae isn’t a hero or even particularly likable; he’s a man who’s spent years constructing a life so airtight that a single breach sends him spiraling. When he allies with a loan shark (Sul Kyung-gu, whose presence alone suggests menace) to track down the man who’s taken his name—known only as "The Rat"—the series seems poised to become a cat-and-mouse game with real stakes.
"A twisty and bingeable identity-theft thriller that starts strong but frustrates near the finish."
Centered on reclusive novelist Jae Moon-je after a mysterious figure known as The Rat steals his identity and financial assets, based on the Kakao webtoon Field Mouse and released on Netflix on August 28, 2026. Viewers piled in fast enough to push it to the top of Netflix's non-English TV chart two weeks after release. latestnetflix.com's view is that the crowd consensus is that the early stretch is fantastic and easy to binge, with a complex twisty crime thriller setup that demands close attention, while the later episodes get overcomplicated and the finale falters.
Ryu Jun-yeol has taken on intense roles before, but Mousetrap, the new Netflix thriller premiering August 28, 2026, might be his most psychologically demanding yet. latestnetflix.com's read is that the series, adapted from a webtoon with a noir edge, has already sparked buzz for its high-stakes premise and the way it pushes its cast to the limit.
Mousetrap is Ryu’s first time playing dual characters. As Je Moon-jae, a reclusive novelist whose identity is stolen by a shadowy figure called "The Rat," Ryu had to juggle two starkly different personas. In an interview with The Korea Times, he called the challenge unlike anything he’d faced before 
. The result? A performance so gripping that some fans reportedly struggled to function after binge-watching. Ryu said viewers told him they "couldn’t go to work" the next day, proof of the show’s unrelenting tension .
The series doesn’t rely on Ryu alone. Sul Kyung-gu, playing No-ja—a ruthless loan shark with his own agenda, brings a volatile energy that contrasts with Moon-jae’s vulnerability. Lee Kyoo-hyung rounds out the trio as Detective Park Sun-yong, a cop caught in the identity-theft conspiracy .
Mousetrap adapts Field Mouse, a 2017 Kakao Webtoon by Ludovico . Moving from page to screen seems to have deepened the story’s psychological edge. Director Kim Hong-sun, known for high-stakes projects like Money Heist: Korea — Joint Economic Area and The Guest, appears to have leaned into the material’s noir roots . The result is a thriller that blends suspense with Korean noir aesthetics, earning early praise.
Netflix announced the series in January 2026 as part of its Korea slate, targeting a Q3 release . By late July, the streamer set August 28 as the premiere date, building anticipation for what could be one of the year’s most talked-about K-dramas .
Filming details remain scarce, but Ryu’s comments hint at the toll the dual role took. Playing Moon-jae and his doppelgänger required careful planning—likely separate shooting schedules and intense character work . The actor said this was his first time tackling such a challenge, suggesting Mousetrap pushed him creatively in ways his past projects (Reply 1988, Taxi Driver) did not.
Sul Kyung-gu’s involvement adds another layer. Known for his commanding screen presence in films like The Merciless and The Taxi Driver, his portrayal of No-ja—a character described as "ruthless", could bring an unpredictable edge to the series . Meanwhile, Lee Kyoo-hyung’s detective role offers a grounded counterpoint to the chaos around Moon-jae.
With only 10 episodes in its first season , Mousetrap is shaping up as a tight, binge-worthy thriller. Early reactions suggest it could follow in the footsteps of other Netflix hits like Squid Game and The Glory, which mixed psychological tension with social commentary. Whether it reaches that level of cultural impact remains to be seen—but if Ryu’s fan feedback is any indication, viewers won’t emerge unscathed.
For now, mark August 28 on your calendar. You might want to clear your schedule for the day after.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
Series
Related series ranked by rating and popularity.
