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Remaking a popular film is never easy. A new version can end up feeling like a copy of the original, or it can retain the heart of the story while finding its own identity. Director Kim Do-young’s 2026 adaptation of The Intern managed to pull the latter off with flying colors. The remake moves the story from a Brooklyn fashion startup to Seoul’s fast-moving fashion industry.
The film retains the heartwarming core of the 2015 original while forging a distinct, modern identity. The film keeps the central relationship between a young CEO and an older intern but changes their personal struggles, workplace dynamics, and the story’s ending. Here’s how the Korean version differs from the 2015 film starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro.
Han So-hee And Choi Min-sik Take On New Versions Of The Leads
In the 2015 film, Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a 70-year-old widower and retired executive who joins a senior-intern program at About the Fit, the online fashion company founded by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway).
In the remake, Choi Min-sik plays Kim Gi-ho, a veteran with 37 years of work experience who joins the Seoul fashion brand WOO22 (pronounced “Wootutu”) as a senior intern under its founder and CEO, Lee Seon-woo (Han So-hee).
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Anne Hathaway’s Jules runs About the Fit while raising her young daughter. Seon-woo has no child, but she carries a different kind of weight: her brand reached roughly 10 billion won (about $7.5 million) in sales within three years of launch.
On the other side of the desk, like De Niro’s Ben, Choi’s Gi-ho is also a widower, and his daughter now lives overseas. Vice President Young-hwan hires him as a three-month silver intern and assigns him to Seon-woo, who feels uncomfortable around older adults, so he finds the jobs the company has overlooked and slowly wins people over.
Around the leads, the remake builds its own office ensemble. Kim Jun-han plays Young-hwan, WOO22’s vice president, Ryu Hye-young plays Min-a, and Kim Geum-soon plays Hee-sook, the company’s cafeteria manager. The remake also adds storylines the original lacks, including ones for the model Ruda (Han Ji-eun) and for Young-hwan.
The Generational Gap & The Modern Workplace
The age difference between the two leads is central to both films, but the Korean remake uses it to explore generational labels and workplace culture in modern Seoul. People now label generations, such as “MZ,” the Korean term that groups millennials and Gen Z, and feel awkward around anyone wearing a different label. Gi-ho’s early relationship with his MZ colleagues is uneasy and unfamiliar before it thaws, and it is also quite a refresher for Gi-ho to meet young people chasing their dreams.
One standout scene shows Gi-ho trying to pick up new slang to fit in with younger staff, only to be told his phrases are already outdated. The remake also reflects how much has changed since 2015, with AI now part of everyday work.
CEOs Face Different Personal & Professional Pressures
One of the biggest changes between the films is the personal life of the woman leading the company. In the 2015 original, Jules is a working mother, raising her young daughter, Paige, while her husband, Matt, has become a stay-at-home father. Her pressure comes from the strain between work and home, and Matt’s affair sits at the center of it. She is also pursuing an outside CEO, partly in the hope that more time at home would repair her marriage.
In the remake, the leading lady, Seon-woo, has no child, and her husband is a professor rather than a stay-at-home father. Her marriage is under strain as her work grows busier, and his infidelity is part of the story. The pressure also comes from outside: after a string of small mistakes, investors demand that she bring in a professional manager, and Seon-woo often blames herself.
Put simply, Jules is a working mother trying to keep both her home and her company. Seon-woo has no child to anchor that choice, so her story is about a young founder squeezed by her marriage, her investors, and her own self-doubt.
The Endings Take Different Paths
The endings are where the remake breaks most clearly from the original. In the 2015 film, Jules decides to hire an outside CEO after a trip to San Francisco, but Matt drops by her office, confesses his affair, and persuades her to reconsider. Jules, who already knew about the affair, calls off the search for a CEO and stays on as CEO. She then goes looking for Ben to tell him first and finds him practicing tai chi in the park. The film ends with the two of them practicing together, a sign that she has found some balance. Ben is her confidant throughout, but the decision is hers.
The ending of the Korean remake focused on Seon-woo’s growth and on portraying someone stepping forward as an independent person. Gi-ho still acts as a mentor: in a long, late-night izakaya scene, he gives Seon-woo blunt advice as she is in tears, telling her she is young, capable, and can do anything. Seon-woo then makes a different choice from Jules: she hands her husband divorce papers and ends the marriage.
The film closes with Seon-woo and Gi-ho meeting in a Seoul park, off the clock, and sharing a quiet moment listening to music together.
Taken together, the original ends in repair and calm: a CEO keeps her company and finds balance with the help of a trusted friend. The remake is about growth and independence, in which Gi-ho helped open up possibilities Seon-woo had overlooked in herself.
The 2026 film keeps the premise and warmth of the 2015 film but changes the CEO’s life. It builds its ending around her growth rather than repair. If the original is about a working mother finding balance with an older friend’s help, the remake is about a young founder learning to trust her own abilities, with an older colleague who tells her plainly what he sees.
The Intern 2026 Trailer
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