Do you need to watch The Witch movies before watching the K-drama The Tyrant?
The Tyrant is the latest K-drama from Disney+ and stars familiar faces like Kim Seon-ho, Cha Seung-won, Jo Yoon-soo, Kim Kang-woo, Mu Jin-sung and Kim Joo-heon. Said to be a spin-off of The Witch movies, it has exciting themes of psychological games, loyalty, betrayals and world-changing viruses.
The K-drama begins in medias res as a faction of the NIS is caught running the unauthorized The Tyrant Program. The program is forced to shut down and all of the files are to be transferred to the NIS for investigation. In the middle of the chaos, the uncontrollable virus goes missing with different agents rushing to get their hands on it for their personal gains.
Cha Seung-won plays Lim Sang, a retired agent turned mercenary who Director Choi hires to get rid of all evidence including witnesses related to The Tyrant Program. Kim Seon-ho is Director Choi who runs the program while Kim Kang-woo is Paul, a foreign agent, trying to get rid of the virus.
Jo Yoon-soo plays Ja-gyeong, the mysterious safe-cracker who gets roped into the hunt for the last sample. Initially directed as a movie, the K-drama is helmed by filmmaker Park Hoon-jung of The Witch movies fame.
But there is one question on everyone’s mind with the release of the K-drama – should I watch The Witch movies before watching The Tyrant? Having watched both the K-drama and the movies, we’d say maybe. Wait, we’ll explain why the answer is a maybe. Well, without getting into spoiler territory, let’s get into it.
What are The Witch movies?
Directed by The Tyrant’s creator, Park Hoon-jung, The Witch: Part 1. Subversion was released in 2018 and stars Kim Da-mi, Choi Woo-shik, Jo Min-soo and Park Hee-soon. It was followed by The Witch: Part 2: The Other One in 2022 with an equally starry cast including Shin Shi-ah, Park Eun-bin, Seo Eun-soo, Jin-goo and Lee Jong-suk.
The Witch: Part 1. Subversion focuses on Koo Ja-yoon who is a test subject in a top-secret lab run by the Baeks that churns out superhumans. Following a strange event, Ja-yoon escapes and is adopted by the kind Koos but in return she loses all her memories.
As the lab continues to hunt for Ja-yoon, she lives a happy life with her family while being able to do short party tricks as she has some telekinetic abilities due to the lab experimenting on her. When her family faces financial troubles, she competes in a national contest and catches the attention of a strange man.
The Witch: Part 2: The Other One follows ADP, Ja-yoon’s twin sister who is also a test subject. She too escapes from the lab but this time, multiple people are after her including Ja-yoon who believes she is the cure to her fatal migraines. A kind farmer and her brother take in ADP but they unwittingly get involved in a war between the superhumans and the Baeks.
Is The Tyrant related to The Witch universe?
Yes, The Tyrant is set in the same universe as The Witch movies. This is further confirmed in the form of one recurring character – Tom, the mercenary from The Witch Part 2 whose job is to hunt down escaped superhumans like ADP and Ja-yoon. In The Tyrant, he is hired by Paul to take out Choi’s men and retrieve the last sample.
Then there is also the missing sample which is the catalyst for The Tyrant’s events. It is explained in the K-drama that the sample is a virus which can help grow superhuman genes in a test subject. One of the test subjects turns into a humanoid monster with superspeed and strength.
Paul’s contact explains that the program was able to develop such a virus with an element that already exists in nature. This means it can be the same element that the Baeks used to create their own superhumans. We also see that the superhumans in The Witch movies are strong and fast like the Tyrant’s humanoid test subject.
The Verdict
That being said, all of this lore is explained in The Tyrant. It is also worth noting that this K-drama was shot as a movie and was always meant to be a spin-off which means it doesn’t continue the story of The Witch Part 1 and Part 2. So, if you haven’t watched the movies and don’t plan to, you can still watch the K-drama.
However, if you have watched the movies, you can easily identify the easter egg that is Tom’s role. It has also created a discussion online as fans wonder if we will again see superhuman agents played by the likes of Lee Jong-suk and Seo Eun-soo. The K-drama also helps explain the whole superhuman experiment that takes place in The Witch movies and why Ja-yoon and ADP are the way they are. There is also a shocking plot twist in the epilogue linking it to the movies which we have explained in the finale recap.
Have you seen The Witch movies? Are you watching the K-drama version? What is your favourite part? Let us know in the comments below.