Kwak Kyung-taek directs sequel to his 2001 gangster story Friend.

South Korea’s Lotte Entertainment has announced a trio of sales deals at AFM on Friend: The Great Legacy, director Kwak Kyung-taek’s sequel to his 2001 hit gangster story Friend. The film has sold to Dreamwest for the US, Nikkatsu for Japan and AV-Jet for Taiwan.

Friend: The Great Legacy stars Yoo Oh-sung from the original, Joo Jin-mo from A Better Tomorrow and A Frozen Flower, and Kim Woo-bin from TV’s Gentlemen’s Dignity and School 5.

The sequel continues from the original Friend where childhood friends Joon-seok and Dong-soo are members of rival gangs and Dong-soo is killed by a member of Joon-seok’s gang. Although innocent, Joon-seok takes the blame and goes to jail for 18 years. While there, he meets Dong-soo’s son Sung-hoon, who has grown up to become a gangster, too, and upon his release takes him on as a dangerously close right-hand man.

Dreamwest plans to release Friend: The Great Legacy on more than 20 screens in North American this December. The company has previously acquired other Korean titles such as spy film Secretly Greatly and period piece The Face Reader.

Nikkatsu senior producer Yoshinori Chiba said, “The filmmaker’s great direction, which strongly shows the colors of an authentic gangster film, is remarkable.”

The film had a market premiere in AFM and is due for release in Korean theatres on Nov 14.