Sol Kyung-gu
"Battlefield Heroes" was released in South Korea on January 27, 2011. The box office returns in Korea were not strong which led to Lee Joon-ik announcing his retirement from directing shortly after. Lee announced his retirement through his Twitter account, stating "I’m quitting directing because the audience [for "Battlefield Heroes"] was just 1.7 million, far fewer than the 2.5 million we had expected." He returned two years later with "Hope", casting top actor Sol Kyung-gu in one of the lead roles.