‘Gil Bok-soon’ Jeon Do-yeon’s men

Actors Sol Kyeong-gu and Hwang Jung-min. These are the men of actress Jeon Do-yeon (50).

On the morning of the 5th, Jeon Do-yeon conducted an interview for the Netflix movie 'Gil Bok-soon' (directed by Byun Seong-hyun) in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Jeon Do-yeon, with a face without any makeup and a messy hairstyle, gave an interview with a faint smile and her round eyes changing into various sizes.

On this day, Jeon Do-yeon told a story about Sol Kyung-gu and Hwang Jung-min. Sol Kyung-gu played the role of Cha Min-gyu, the head of MK Entertainment, a professional killer agency, in 'Gil Bok-soon', and Hwang Jung-min, who made a special appearance, played a Japanese samurai and teamed up with Jeon Do-yeon in the first sequence of the movie.

Jeon Do-yeon has a close relationship with Sol Kyeong-gu, having worked with him in the movies 'I Wish I Had a Wife' (director Park Heung-sik) and 'Birthday' (director Lee Jong-heon). In this work, Jeon Do-yeon portrays a complex and subtle relationship with Sol Kyeong-gu as a killer senior-junior. Gil Bok-soon and Cha Min-gyu play a major role in the emotional arc of the movie.

Jeon Do-yeon drew attention by saying, "When I read the script for this work, I don't think I really felt the romance between Cha Min-gyu and Gil Bok-soon," but added, "But I didn't know I would cry, but I cried in the last scene with Cha Min-gyu."

He said, "I think the romance between Gil Bok-sun and Cha Min-gyu was created entirely by Seol Kyeong-gu. To Bok-sun, Min-gyu is the person who always stands by her like a mountain, and when she climbs the mountain, there comes a moment when she realizes what that feeling is. That's 'Gil Bok-sun.'" He said, “It seems that the melodrama of ‘Gil Bok-soon’ was definitely created by Sol Kyeong-gu.”

Regarding the ending scene with Sol Kyeong-gu, he left a lingering impression, saying, "Watching that scene, I wondered if they had this kind of love. I can't say it wasn't love, but I didn't know their love would be felt so strongly."

He also talked about filming with Hwang Jung-min. Regarding Hwang Jung-min's special appearance, Jeon Do-yeon said, "Shinichiro Oda appears, and due to the character setting, he is Japanese. We wanted to cast a Japanese actor, but it was realistically difficult due to COVID-19," and "When I thought about who could do it, Hwang Jung-min strangely came to mind." I took it off.

He laughed and said, "It's called a special appearance, but it was a character that had to speak Japanese and do action scenes. Moreover, since it was only for 4 episodes, I don't think it would have been easy to do it. I think I said I would do it because I didn't read the script."

Jeon Do-yeon said, "The first filming of 'Gil Bok-soon' was an action scene with Hwang Jung-min. I wanted to do a good job, but it was done in very cold and harsh conditions, but he did a good job. I was surprised that Hwang Jung-min did so well even in such a situation. It was amazing that he prepared for the character of Oda Shinichi in a short period of time. “It was so surprising,” he exclaimed.

He smiled and said, “It was amazing to see something captured on one screen after such a long time while monitoring.”

Regarding the challenge of professional action acting for the first time in his career while playing the character of a killer, he confessed that it was 'very difficult.' Jeon Do-yeon drew attention by saying about the action challenge, "I think I did enough. As of now, I have graduated from the action genre."

Jeon Do-yeon previously showed off her action skills using a sword in the movie ‘Hyupnyeo’. In relation to this, Jeon Do-yeon explained, "'Hyupnyeo' was much more epic and focused on pictures. Rather than filming an action movie, the narrative of revenge and a daughter raised for revenge was more important."

Jeon Do-yeon said she built muscles by controlling her diet for the first time for this action challenge. Over the course of about 4 months, I built up my muscles through diet and exercise. It is said that director Byun Seong-hyun applauded Jeon Do-yeon's muscles, showing greater satisfaction than expected.

Action filming also led to injuries. Jeon Do-yeon said, "There was a 360-degree rotation scene in the commercial scene, and I got injured while filming it. I fell down at the time, and I was so helpless that I didn't know why I couldn't get up. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, so we started filming again in a few days. “It did resume,” he said looking back.

Jeon Do-yeon said about the action in 'Gil Bok-soon', "There were a lot of long takes without interruption. If you interrupted it, people would say 'you're good at action' and the visuals could have been better, but it didn't stop," she said. "It's a little less cool." “I think I wanted to see the emotions of a realistic-looking character in action,” he explained.

'Gil Bok-soon' is an action movie depicting the story of Gil Bok-soon, a legendary killer in the contract killing industry, who is caught up in an inevitable confrontation where he either dies or is killed, just before renewing his contract with the company. By setting up a contract killing company as entertainment and describing the commissioned murder as a ‘work’ and the murder design as a ‘scenario,’ the world of the killer was portrayed by comparing it to an actor.

'Gil Bok-soon', which was released on the 31st of last month, ranked first in Netflix's Global Top 10 Movies (Non-English) category, recording 19.61 million viewing hours within three days of its release. It ranked first in countries such as Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and was on the TOP 10 list in a total of 82 countries, including Canada, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and New Zealand.

Choi Ji-ye, Ten Asia Reporter wisdomart@tenasia.co.kr