Korean actress Kim Min-hee was cast in Park Chan-wook’s upcoming Korean film “Agassi (Lady),” opposite the male lead Ha Jung-woo, its producers said Tuesday.

The model-turned-actress, best known for starring in “Helpless” (2012) and “Very Ordinary Couple” (2013), will play a young, wealthy heiress, who falls for a female petty thief, played by rookie Kim Tae-ri. 

Park’s new thriller is a screen adaptation of the 2002 crime novel “Fingersmith” by British author Sarah Waters, which was previously adapted as a two-part BBC miniseries in 2005.

Park’s version relocates the time period from 19th-century London to early 20th-century Korea, when the country was under the Japanese colonial rule.

Ha (“Kundo, “The Chaser”) will play a Japanese aristocrat, while Cho Jin-woong (“Kundo,” “A Hard Day”) will star as the heiress’ uncle and guardian. 

The “Old Boy” director will return to the local movie market after a six-year hiatus following “Thirst” (2009). His Hollywood debut “Stoker” (2013), a British-American thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska, received positive reviews from critics, but was not a huge box office hit.

“Agassi” is coproduced by Park’s own Moho Film and “Old Boy” producer Lim Seung-yong’s Yong Film, and will begin shooting in January 2015.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)