Mousetrap Cast and Plot Guide: Ryu Jun-yeol and Sul Kyung-gu's Cat-and-Mouse Thriller Coming to Netflix

Imagine losing your name, your money, and your entire identity to someone you've never met, who exists only as a nickname: the Rat. That's the premise driving Mousetrap, and it's the kind of setup that works precisely because it doesn't require a supernatural twist to feel like a nightmare — just a competent enough con artist and a system slow enough to notice.

🎬 Quick Facts

International streaming	Confirmed — Netflix Original, releasing globally
Release window	Q3 2026 (July–September), officially confirmed; some outlets report August 18, others August 28 — Netflix has not locked an exact date publicly as of this writing
Lead cast	Ryu Jun-yeol as Je Mun-jae, Sul Kyung-gu as No Ja
Director	Kim Hong-seon
Source material	Webtoon "Field Mouse" by Ludvico
Previous working title	The Rat

Dimly lit Seoul alley at night, evoking the tense atmosphere of a Korean crime thriller — Photo via Unsplash

The Premise: Losing Everything to a Man Called "The Rat"

Mousetrap follows Je Mun-jae (Ryu Jun-yeol), a reclusive novelist who loses his name, his identity, and his fortune to a mysterious figure known only as the Rat. Stripped of everything that legally and financially made him who he was, Mun-jae forms an uneasy alliance with No Ja (Sul Kyung-gu), a loan shark who has his own reasons for wanting to track the Rat down — No Ja is himself owed money by a debtor connected to the same scheme. What starts as a transactional partnership between a victim and a man whose entire profession exists to profit off people's desperation becomes the engine of the show: two people who arguably shouldn't trust each other, forced to cooperate because neither can solve the mystery alone.

The source webtoon, Field Mouse by Ludvico, built its reputation on a slow-burn identity-theft plot where the horror isn't a single dramatic heist but the accumulation of small, plausible-sounding lies that add up to total ruin — a structure that tends to translate well to television because it rewards patient, episode-by-episode plotting rather than one big twist.

Why Ryu Jun-yeol and Sul Kyung-gu Is a Genuinely Interesting Pairing

Ryu Jun-yeol has spent the last several years building a career around morally ambiguous, quietly intense leads — the kind of role where restraint reads as more dangerous than volume. Playing a man who has been reduced to nothing gives him a very different register to work in than his more recent higher-energy roles, and casting directors clearly see him as someone who can carry a character defined mostly by what's been taken from him rather than what he actively does.

Sul Kyung-gu, meanwhile, is one of Korean cinema's most decorated veteran actors, and putting him opposite Ryu Jun-yeol as a loan shark rather than a straightforward villain or straightforward ally is a smart structural choice — it means the show gets to play with audience uncertainty about No Ja's true motives for the full run, rather than resolving that question early. The pairing of an established film veteran with a leading man known for internationally successful dramas gives Mousetrap crossover appeal to both drama-first and film-first Korean entertainment fans.

What Kind of Thriller This Actually Is

It's worth being precise about genre expectations here: Mousetrap isn't a violent action thriller in the vein of a heist movie, and it isn't a police procedural either. Based on the confirmed premise, it's closer to a slow-accumulating psychological and financial thriller — the tension comes from watching a system (banks, identity records, legal ownership) get quietly weaponized against someone, and then watching that same system get turned back around. Director Kim Hong-seon's job will be keeping that kind of plot legible and tense across a full series without relying on shootouts or chase sequences to manufacture urgency, which is a harder needle to thread than it sounds — this is a show that lives or dies on whether the audience stays invested in bureaucratic and financial detail as much as in the characters.

How Mousetrap Fits Into Netflix's Korean Thriller Lineup

Webtoon adaptations have become one of the most reliable pipelines for Korean drama hits in recent years, and Mousetrap continues that trend — for readers curious about just how deep that pipeline runs, our roundup of K-dramas based on webtoons covers several other adaptations worth watching alongside it. It's also a useful comparison point for fans still waiting on more crime-thriller content following the long gap between seasons of another hit; if you've been following the wait for A Shop for Killers Season 2, Mousetrap's slower, more psychological approach to crime is a good stopgap while that sequel continues to take shape.

FAQ

When exactly does Mousetrap release on Netflix?
Netflix has confirmed a Q3 2026 (July–September) release window globally. Specific dates circulating in entertainment press range from August 18 to August 28, but no single date has been officially locked as of this writing.

Is Mousetrap based on a true story?
No — it's adapted from the webtoon "Field Mouse" by Ludvico, a fictional identity-theft thriller.

What was Mousetrap's original title?
It was previously known during production as "The Rat," matching the nickname of the show's central antagonist.

Who are the two lead actors in Mousetrap?
Ryu Jun-yeol plays Je Mun-jae, the man who loses his identity, and Sul Kyung-gu plays No Ja, a loan shark who becomes his uneasy ally.

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