The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure

Set in the Joseon era, the film follows a band of pirates and bandits who join forces to hunt down a royal treasure lost at sea. Their search pits them against treacherous waters, a trail of confusing clues and armed rivals who want the prize for themselves. It is a sequel to the 2014 film The Pirates, with a new crew and a new quest, and it mixes action and adventure with comedy and fantasy elements.

Kim Joung-hoon directed, working from a screenplay by Chun Sung-il, with Song Yong-un producing. The cast is led by Kang Ha-neul as Woo Moo-Chi, Han Hyo-joo as Hae-Rang, Lee Kwang-soo as Mak-Yi, Kwon Sang-woo as Bu Heung-Soo, Chae Soo-bin as So-Nyeo and Sehun as Han-Goong; 26 cast members and 41 crew members are credited. The film runs 126 minutes and was made for about 20 million USD, a sizeable outlay that the worldwide box office of roughly 10 million USD did not recover.

Released in January 2022, it is the first of the two features Kim Joung-hoon has directed, ahead of Final Interview. On IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from around 5,400 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.5/10 from 231 votes, so the two audiences are broadly in agreement. A critics' rating of 6.8/10 from five reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.