EXCLUSIVE: South Korea’s Finecut has secured sales rights to fantasy buddy feature Wind Up: The Movie, starring Jeno and Jaemin of leading K-pop boy band NCT.
The story follows a high-school baseball pitcher, played by Jeno, who is unable to throw a strike due to the guilt of accidentally hitting another boy and taking away that boy’s dream. Jaemin plays a transfer student who unexpectedly appears and declares himself the pitcher’s manager. The film follows their journey as they work through guilt and help the pitcher regain his ability and become the fastest on the mound, ultimately confronting the truth about Jeno’s character.
The feature edits together footage from 50 short-form episodes, which debuted on recently launched Korean platform Kitz. While those episodes were presented as phone-friendly vertical videos, the film adopts the traditional horizontal aspect ratio, expanding beyond the original format. Finecut will unveil the film for the first time at the EFM in Berlin this week.
It is directed by Kim Sung‑ho, whose credits include 2014 family drama How To Steal A Dog and Netflix series Move To Heaven. The project is produced by Takeone Studio, which launched Kitz in January, and major K-pop entertainment firm SM Entertainment.
Kitz is a global platform that supports 11 languages, including Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese, to ensure accessibility for international audiences.
NCT, one of the most popular K-pop groups that includes both lead actors, is known for its unique unlimited-member structure and multiple sub-units, making it one of K-pop’s leading collectives.
The sub-unit NCT Dream, which includes Jeno and Jaemin, recently achieved a significant milestone by scoring its 10th consecutive million-seller album, Beat It Up. In 2024 the group was nominated for Best K-Pop at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs).
Wind Up: The Movie expands Finecut’s EFM slate of upcoming features, which also includes Hong Sangsoo’s The Day She Returns, which plays in the Panorama section of the ongoing Berlinale; animation Long Long Night; and Japanese horror-thriller Wash Away.
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