Interview with director Lee Won-seok of the movie ‘Killing Romance’
Director Lee Won-seok, who directed ‘Killing Romance,’ shared Lee Ha-nui’s impressions after watching the movie.
On the morning of the 13th, director Lee Won-seok told various stories related to the upcoming movie 'Killing Romance' at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul.
'Killing Romance' is about top star Yeorae (played by Lee Ha-nui), who suddenly announces her retirement after falling in love with island tycoon Jonathan (played by Lee Seon-gyun), and meets Beom-woo (played by Gong Myeong), a student from the 3rd fan club, and plots an extraordinary comeback plan. It's a story.
Director Won-seok Lee, who directed 'Men's Manual', and Jeong-ye Park, writer of 'Beauty Inside', began their work under the motto of "let's create something that has never existed in the world." As the title is 'Killing Romance', the formula of romance genre films was excluded and a story close to anti-romance was completed.
On this day, director Lee Won-seok began by saying, "To be honest, I predicted likes and dislikes from the moment I first received the script for 'Killing Romance.' I thought it was all or nothing."
He said, "The actors all thought the same. I was grateful for their choice. We jokingly said, 'Let's immigrate.' After watching the movie, my wife and my daughter, who is a freshman in high school, fought. My wife didn't understand, and my daughter didn't understand. He said he enjoyed it. That was the overall feeling. I didn't have a deeper conversation with my wife. I think my wife is a difficult audience member. My wife doesn't really like my movies," he said, making everyone laugh.
Director Lee Won-seok said, "All the actors liked the movie. Hani cried while watching the movie at the preview. Actor Lee Seon-kyun and I asked, 'Are you that embarrassed?' We joked in the middle, and I think she cried because she was really embarrassed. “I missed Myeong-i. There were a lot of things I wanted to see after Myeong-i went to the military,” he explained.
Director Lee Won-seok said, "I thought 'Men's Manual' was my personal story. I'm not good at lying if I don't know something. There aren't many gaslighting people around me, so I researched stories I heard here and there. Writer Park Jeong-hye also wrote the story. “I did a lot of research,” he said.
Also, “When I first saw ‘Killing Romance,’ I thought, ‘What should I do?’ "I wanted to do it, but it was attractive. There are always scripts that make me wonder, 'Has there ever been a script like this in our country?' It was very difficult to get into it. The movies I was preparing were difficult as I tried to go further," he said.
Director Lee Won-seok said, "But this script was clean, stable, and fun. It was paradoxical to call it a comedy, but I wondered what to do with it. While watching Director Lee Byung-hun's 'Wind, Wind, Wind,' I tell people who say they do comedy to watch that movie as a textbook. Can it be done as a comedy?" “I do my best to make comedy out of material that doesn’t exist, and I use all my skills,” he said.
Not only that, "All kinds of comedies are featured. How can we overcome the limitations of comedy? From the standpoint of making movies with topics that should not be made in our country, I wondered what would happen if we brought the genre of fairy tales to 'Killing Romance'. I thought, 'What if?' I think words are magic. The moment 'if' is added, the imagination of the person telling the story and the person receiving it seems to expand. When you tell a story that starts with "Once upon a time," people stop asking the question, "Why?" So when you try a fairy tale, “I wondered what it would be like,” he said.
Meanwhile, 'Killing Romance' will be released on the 14th.
Kang Min-kyung, Ten Asia reporter kkk39@tenasia.co.kr