Choi Siwon Reunites With Lee Sun-bin in ‘Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng’ Cameo

The “Work Later, Drink Now” co-stars meet again in a comedy about the closely guarded process of writing South Korea’s college entrance exam.

Choi Siwon and Lee Sun-bin have reunited on screen, this time inside a comedy where writing the questions creates as much pressure as answering them. The Super Junior member makes a special appearance in “Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng,” which opened in South Korean theaters on October 28, playing an intelligence agent tasked with keeping watch over the people preparing the country’s college entrance examination.

Known in Korean as “수능, 출제의 비밀,” the film follows Maeng Bo-ram, a Korean-language teacher from a small provincial town who unexpectedly joins a secluded exam-writing headquarters. Played by Lee Sun-bin, Bo-ram finds herself spending 40 days cut off from the outside world while helping produce questions that must withstand scrutiny from students, educators and the public.

Siwon Brings a Stern Face to an Unruly Assignment

Siwon plays a National Intelligence Service agent identified as “Saekangyeong,” a Korean term referring to tinted glasses. His assignment is to monitor the exam-setting committee, and his character’s seemingly unshakable composure becomes part of the comedy as he watches over a group facing its own disagreements and pressures.

The appearance is brief, but it gives Siwon an opportunity to combine a cold exterior with the sly comic delivery familiar from his television work. Rather than joining the central committee as another educator, he occupies a position of surveillance, adding an imposing presence to a workplace already operating under unusually restrictive conditions.

That role also brings him back together with Lee, whose teacher is attempting to navigate an environment filled with established academics and competing interests.

Lee Sun-bin Says Their Reunion Felt Immediately Familiar

For viewers of “Work Later, Drink Now,” the casting offers a reunion between two performers with an established screen partnership. Lee and Siwon previously played Ahn So-hee and Kang Buk-gu in the series, developing their characters’ relationship across its two seasons.

Speaking at the film’s October 19 press screening, Lee recalled that they reunited for the movie in the year after finishing the drama. She described filming a scene together in a car and joking that it felt as though they were simply continuing “Work Later, Drink Now,” according to Max Movie’s coverage of the event.

Her recollection gives the reunion a specific behind-the-scenes connection: although the characters and setting have changed, the actors returned to working together with a familiarity built through their earlier series.

A Teacher Enters the World Behind the Exam

The film’s central task sounds straightforward: create fair, accurate questions without errors or grounds for dispute. For Bo-ram, however, the difficulty extends beyond the wording on the page, as she encounters the personalities and institutional tensions surrounding the examination process.

The Busan International Film Festival’s official synopsis explains that her inclusion begins with an administrative mistake. Committee head Moon Joo-yeol, played by Yoo Jae-myung, nevertheless draws her into the work amid his rivalry with review committee chair Park Kyung-tae, played by Kim Young-min.

That setup places an ordinary schoolteacher inside a hierarchy where credentials and personal ambitions can complicate a shared responsibility. Siwon’s watchful agent becomes another part of this enclosed environment, while Lee’s character remains at the center of the effort to produce “problem-free questions.”

Directed by Lee Yong-jae, “Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng” is now showing in South Korean cinemas.

Editor’s Note: The Busan International Film Festival lists “Ugly Duckling Ms. Maeng” as the film’s English title and identifies it as Lee Yong-jae’s feature directorial debut. Its subject is the College Scholastic Ability Test, commonly called the CSAT or Suneung, South Korea’s national university entrance examination. The festival presented the 99-minute film as a world premiere in its 2026 program, describing a comedy that uses the exam-writing process to explore social hierarchy and institutional conflict.