Ahn Bo-hyun

Ahn Bo-hyun (Korean: 안보현; born May 16, 1988) is a South Korean actor and former model whose television career progressed from supporting parts to major leads in Itaewon Class, Yumi’s Cells, My Name, Military Prosecutor Doberman, See You in My 19th Life, and Flex x Cop. Born in Busan, he attended Busan Sports High School, where he trained as a boxer. He began modeling in 2007 before pursuing acting, bringing a notably athletic physical presence to roles ranging from bullies and detectives to prosecutors and chaebol heirs. His acting debut came in the 2014 KBS2 drama Golden Cross. He subsequently appeared in the 2016 global hit Descendants of the Sun as Im Gwang-nam and gained wider recognition in 2020’s Itaewon Class. There he played Jang Geun-won, the entitled elder son of Jangga Group chairman Jang Dae-hee and a relentless antagonist to Park Sae-ro-yi. The role demanded a far less sympathetic image than his earlier appearances and made his face familiar to a much larger international streaming audience. In 2021, Ahn headlined two markedly different dramas. In the live-action and animation hybrid Yumi’s Cells, adapted from Lee Dong-geon’s webtoon, he played Goo Woong, a game developer and Yumi’s first major boyfriend in the series. His other 2021 project, Netflix’s My Name, cast him as Jeon Pil-do, a detective investigating a drug organization. Pil-do becomes involved with Yoon Ji-woo, played by Han So-hee, who has entered the police force while secretly seeking revenge for her father’s death. The crime thriller allowed Ahn to use action training in a character defined by duty and suspicion rather than romance. In 2022, he starred as Do Bae-man in Military Prosecutor Doberman. The title character begins as a prosecutor motivated chiefly by money and a planned exit from military service, but joins forces with Cha Woo-in, portrayed by Jo Bo-ah, against abuses of power within the armed forces. He then played Moon Seo-ha in tvN’s 2023 fantasy romance See You in My 19th Life, based on Lee Hye’s webtoon. In 2024 he led SBS’s Flex x Cop as Jin Yi-soo, a wealthy third-generation chaebol who becomes a detective, partnering with veteran investigator Lee Kang-hyun, played by Park Ji-hyun. Across these productions, Ahn has repeatedly taken roles whose initial assumptions are overturned: an apparent villain, a seemingly self-interested prosecutor, or an inexperienced rich recruit learning police work. This range shaped his screen identity among Korean viewers.