The third and final installment in director Kim Han-min’s trilogy about Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1545-1598), “Noryang: The Sea of Death,” will be released in December, distributor Lotte Entertainment announced Tuesday.

“Noryang: The Sea of Death” is a war action film depicting Yi’s final battle to annihilate the retreating Japanese army from Joseon at sea in 1598, 7 years after the Japanese invasions of Korea.

Previous installments in the trilogy are “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” (2014) and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” (2022), in which actors Choi Min-sik and Park Hae-il played Yi, respectively. Kim Yoon-seok will play Yi in “Noryang: The Sea of Death.”

Baek Yoon-shik joins the cast as a Japanese general, while Huh Joon-ho joins as a general from Ming Dynasty China. Jung Jae-young, Lee Je-hoon, Ahn Bo-hyun and Kim Seong-gyu also appear in supporting roles.

The first and second films of the trilogy both did well at the box office, with “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” attracting 17.61 million viewers, setting an all-time record, and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” cumulating 7.26 million viewers despite opening during the Covid-19 pandemic.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]