First off, I'm casting the trio ahjummas in Not Others - Kim Young-ok, Yang Hee-kyung and Lee Young-lee. Rounding them up to 5, we have Kim Hae-sook and Gu Do-shim.

The young detective...? Perhaps an adult version of The Kidnapping Day's Yu-na.
I don't think I've seen Kim Se-jung in this kinda role but Seol In-ah fills this in better.
If it's a male detective, Park Sung-hoon for the job.

All I can say is, this show NEEDS Yeom Hye Ran!

Kim Mi-kyung riffs on her “Healer” role by playing the ajumma with computer skills honed from watching her grandkids.

Won Ji-an as the young reporter has the gravitas to balance out the chaotic ajummas. They may blend in during their regular lives, but their secret planning meetings are something else entirely.

Not to beat a generational horse*, but if we want the younger end of "ajumma" (not necessarily a full-on grandma yet) then look no further than folks born between, say, 1970 and 1978.

For this, I'd select as our lead, Baek Ji-won without question. She's the sassy leader with a revenge mission to find the man who killed her son--while imprisoned, she unfortunately learned that she killed the wrong person.

Her sidekicks would be:

*Kim Hye-eun as the one falsely imprisoned for killing her cheating chaebol husband.

*Jang Young-nam as the former weekender actress who poisoned a co-star in a freak stage accident. It involved both rotten kelp and a water glass. Don't ask.

And, last, but not least:

*Kim Sun-young as the good-old ditzy one imprisoned for fraud--the type where you take unsuspecting ajusshis for all their worth. [Side note: sometimes, Sun-young has been known to play something other than the cutting villain (sort of) and I would love to see her play someone who always comes out on top because people underestimate her.]

As for the more youthful investigator, I'm gonna run with @jerrykuvira's Not Others lead, but pick Sooyoung because she was so awesome as that determined cop.

*No actual horses were harmed in the making of this comment.

*takes out list of my fave ajummas*

Yeom Hye Ran - warmest ajumma who did time for accidentally killing her abusive husband, actually a former nurse who serves as the medic for the ladies

Lee Bong Ryun - math genius ajumma who did time for insider trading

Cha Chung Hwa - the maknae ajumma who did time for theft (wrongfully accused by a nosey neighbor), but she really does have a knack for getting in and out of places that are hard to get in and out of

Jang Hye Jin - the loose cannon, did time for causing physical injuries for booby-trapping her house because she hated having visitors and just wants to be left alone. Will she turn against her group later? Maybe.

Kim Hae Sook - the leader, did time for masterminding the kidnapping of a chaebol's kid. A former police officer.

Kwak Dong Yeon - the rookie detective who lives on the rooftop of the ajumma's shared house

The 3 ahjummas from Reply series plus Kim Mi Kyung and Kim Hae Sook. I second Yeo Jin Goo as the detective.

This drama sounds like The Kidnapping Day, in the sense that I'm definitely going to like the criminals better than the police.

Badasss ahjummas 😎
Kim Sun Young
Hwang Young Hee
Ra Mi Ran
Park Joon Geum
Seo Jeong Yeon

Ex-leader, retired sunbae. The one that trained the ahjummas:
Kim Min Kyung

The sponsor: Rich halmoni Yuh Jung Youn. 30 years ago, she paid the girls (now ahjummas) to kill her husband and steal (disappear) all of his money. Because of his money and connections, the police never did anything about him even after he sent his youngest son to the hospital, twice.
The girls —ahjummas— did the job a la Payback (2023 drama) and Sympathy for Geum Ja-ssi (2005 movie).

Seo Jeong Yeon husband, Kim Byung Chul. He runs a chicken restaurant, aka. ahjummas' hideout.

The detective... Idk if I should cast Kim Kyung Nam for the role of the annoying detective that never cared about his job but now that someone else is doing it for him, he got pissed because macho. Or if I should cast Choi Hyun Wook for the role of the rookie detective with a pure and innocent heart (and strange sense of responsibility), that after hearing about the group he shouts "RESPECT", and starts searching for the ahjummas to low-key help them with their missions.

Annoying but fun detective that is "the other annoying detective's partner"/"in charge of our rookie": Kim Won Hae. He can be michingae (crazy dog) again —that was his nickname as detective in Black and Tunnel—.

I am slightly tripped up by the definition. Ajumma (Korean: 아줌마) is a Korean word for a married, or middle-aged woman between her 30s and 70s. That is a wild spectrum and incorporates two different concepts.

If middle age is determined to be half of your normal life span, then the breakdown could be:
1-19 child; 20-29 young adult; 30-39 adult; 40-50 middle age; 51-70 senior; 71+ elderly.

But I think this premise is cast to be more than 50.

D.P. 3

Headed by a ruthless general (Heo Sung-Tae) who is furious that his country did not vanquish the communist regime in the Korean War, an ultranationalist cabal in the highest echelons of the military plot to launch a nuclear strike on North Korea to end the decades-long armistice and secure a conclusive victory for South Korea.

To expose the evil cabal and prevent nuclear war, the highest-ranking woman in the armed services (Seo Yi-Sook), who has been a victim of sexism in the military, forms an elite team by springing from military jail a group of experieced, highly-skilled, hard-ass female soldiers: Kim Hye-Soo, a strategic genius; Jeon Do-Yeon, an elite assassin equally deadly with firearms and fists; computer genius Kim Yeo-Jin; and engineering expert extraordinaire Yum Hye-Ran, the go-to person for cracking a safe, booby-trapping a jeep, or planting hidden microphones. She provides each of them with a false identity: KHS as a marketing director for a women’s fashion company; JDY as a stuntwoman; KYJ as the manager of an internet café; and YHR as the owner of a noodle shop whose hidden basement serves as the command center for their operation.

The army dispatches a Deserter Pursuit (D.P.) team: Jun Hae-In (naturally), who is paired with a female soldier (Kim You-Jung) to track down the escaped prisoners. In the course of their pursuit, the pair discover the secret behind the women’s escape. JHI becomes conflicted between his duty to apprehend the fugitives and his desire to help them in their plot to bring down the powerful group that wants to lead the country into a potentially catastrophic war. His rookie partner, however, insists on strict adherence to the rules, which means bringing back the deserters, no matter the circumstances.