‘Seonsan’ Director Yeon Sang-ho “The secret to being prolific is giving up quickly and coming up with ideas every day for 10 years” [SS Interview]

[Sports Seoul | [Reporter Ham Sang-beom] Director Yeon Sang-ho is one of the most prolific directors in Korea recently. After debuting with ‘The King of Pigs’ in 2011, he has released over 20 works in which he participated in directing, production, and screenplay on various platforms including movies, dramas, animations, and webtoons over the past 13 years.

Recently, following the movie ‘Peninsula’ (2020), the tvN drama ‘The Method’ (2020), the movie ‘The Method: Jaechaui’ (2021), TV’s ‘Ghost’ (2022), and the Netflix original series ‘Jungi’ (2023), Another Netflix original series ‘Seonsan’ was also introduced. Season 2 of the Netflix original series ‘Hell’ and ‘Parasite: The Gray’ remain to be released this year. In April, filming for ‘Revelations’ begins.

In the process of going back and forth between various materials and genres such as zombies, occult mystery, and fantasy, director Yeon Sang-ho dealt with a human who has lost his senses. He expressed the madness of a human being in an extreme situation heading towards destruction. In ‘Seonsan’, the family is the medium. It depicts a group of soldiers running at a loss and losing their senses due to relationships between family members.

Director Yeon Sang-ho said, “All the characters in ‘Seonsan’ are made up of people who make irrational choices. Everyone was hurt by their families. Thanks to this, we have the unexpectedness of not knowing where this story will go. “The plot is slow, but there is enough tension,” he said.

◇”I hope you don’t see your father’s incest as a dirty sin.”

‘Seonsan’ is the story of Seo-ha Yoon (Kim Hyun-joo), a part-time college lecturer, who inherits a fortune after the death of his father’s younger brother, with whom he had lost a relationship for a long time. The mountain where the golf course is to be built is already worth billions of dollars. As the news spreads, a swarm of flies swarm around Yoon Seo-ha. In the process, her husband Yang Jae-seok (played by Park Seong-hoon) was murdered.

“I wanted to capture images of people who cannot be understood. There are things like religion and ideology that move people unreasonably. One of them was family. “I tried to twist the familiar theme of family and tell it as if it were a story passed down from previous generations.”

The drama reveals a shocking secret in the second half. It is a secret about a father who suddenly had an affair one day and abandoned his family. The subject matter is ‘incest,’ which is not yet accepted in Korean society. It came about while delving into how the name ‘family’ affects a person’s life.

“I didn’t want the content to be just shocking material. I was curious how the audience would view a person who deviates from conventional wisdom and has tremendous love. I even cried at the end. I didn’t look like a dirty sinner. I had an ambiguous feeling, neither negative nor positive. “I wonder what the audience will be like.”

The relationship between the two detectives investigating Yang Jae-seok’s death, Choi Seong-jun (Park Hee-soon) and Park Sang-min (Park Byeong-eun), is also unique. Senior Choi Seong-jun is treated with all kinds of contempt in Park Sang-min’s team. The relationship between the two people, who were best friends, is strangely twisted.

“The reason Seong-jun endures such enormous contempt is not just because he feels sorry for Park Sang-min. Because it includes his love for his son. There would be no regrets if he drew a line between his son and himself as separate individuals. Seongjun is feeling guilty in an incorrect way. He captured the dual and two-faced side of family in many layers.”

◇”A group of people who have lost their reason, starting from the novel ‘The Black Cat’”

Director Yeon’s world of work is called ‘Yeonniverse.’ He is also called the ‘Story Master’ because he produces tightly woven, high-quality stories every year. No matter how hard a director works, he can only produce one film every three years. Director Yeon from Chungmuro ​​is releasing a film every year.

“I’m always in the office. After sending my child off to school, I think hard at the office. Like cotton candy puffing up, I keep thinking about this and that, and when I feel like something is working, I have a planning meeting. If you don’t think it’s right, give up right away. The staff says I give up too quickly. I worked on that from 10am to 6pm for 10 years. “But I still have a big fear that I won’t have any ideas.”

The keyword that runs through ‘Yeonniverse’ is ‘irrational people.’ From various animations to the movie ‘Train to Busan’ (2016), which attracted 10 million viewers, and ‘Seonsan’, characters who go beyond the ordinary and break the golden rule are reflected in his works.

“One of the novels I read when I was in elementary school was Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat.’ When I finished reading that novel, I was left with a lot of emotions. While trying to kill a cat that the protagonist hated, he accidentally kills his wife and hides her in the wall. He put the cat in with his wife and plastered the wall, but ended up getting caught by the police because of the cat’s screams. I couldn’t understand that person’s psychology, but as I lived, I realized that there were many people who lived like that main character. It’s fascinating and fun, so I think I’ll keep exploring it. intellibeast@sportsseoul.com