Park Chan-wook - 'No Other Choice'

22:46Park Chan-wook:So at the time, I had a close friend who was a music director in a large production company. And the soundtrack that he made there was a massive hit. In fact, I think the record that he made through that soundtrack is still unbroken even today. So he was greatly valued in that production company. And he introduced me to this production company. And fortunately, the people there said that they enjoyed my second film. So usually I was given this fortunate opportunity that someone who usually have failed to feature wouldn't have been able to have, which was being able to work with the biggest production company on this big project.

23:24Park Chan-wook:And this music director from the story is my close friend who has always continued to work with me ever since then, which is Jo Young-wook. He's also worked on my latest work, No Other Choice, as well. And even though I have many composers around the world that I dream of working with, I continue to work with Jo Young-woo because I have been indebted to him since that day. And it's just a joke. And as for why I think the third feature was different from my first two, first of all, I was more desperate because I knew that if I failed this time, it was really over for me. And there was also the subject matter of JSA, which is dealing with the division of Korea, which I think along with class issues is the two biggest issues in Korea.

24:09Park Chan-wook:So I took a very serious approach towards the subject matter and I really wanted to do a good job portraying this issue. And you could almost say that I had a very somber attitude because of the weight of the subject matter that the story was dealing with. But while I was writing the screenplay, something else that I realized is that just because my mindset is very serious and somber, it doesn't mean that I should make the audience feel the same way. because it's such an important and somber subject matter, through the character's emotions, the audience should also be able to experience it in a humorous and lighthearted matter as well.

24:44Park Chan-wook:The story doesn't have to be so dark from the beginning. So I think the two opposing approaches, the somber subject matter, and then in contrast, the warm and lighthearted, a warm and light approach, I think finding the balance of that perhaps was the key to the success of the film. And another thing is the actors. So for JSA, I really prioritize the active sense of creativity that I mentioned before. So before JSA, I had worked on a short film. And for that short film, I casted these veterans, veteran stage actors. I hadn't known them before, but I personally approached each of them to ask them to be in the short film.

25:23Park Chan-wook:And just like how actors prepare for a play, we had a lot of discussions about the project before the shoot. And during that process, I tried my best to accept their ideas. And through that, as a result, I had a very satisfying experience in that short film. So just like that, I had a lot of conversations with the actors for JSA, including with Song Gang-ho and Lee Byung-hun. So I would listen to their ideas, and we had a lot of discussions and debates about the story and the characters. And I think that allowed me to pull out that active sense of creativity from them. And through that, we were able to inspire each other, which was why I think this film was different from my last two.

26:04Park Chan-wook:And I think that's what also touched the audience as well.

26:07Lee Byung-hun:Very interesting. So I want to lay out for the audience that a lot of people group your next three films. They call it a trilogy. I don't think you ever specifically said that it was intended to be a trilogy or that even you regard it as a trilogy. But they call it the Vengeance Trilogy because I guess there is a running theme of things related to vengeance in them. We've got in 2002, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, about a deaf mute whose sister needs a kidney transplant, leading him to do terrible things. We've got Oldboy, of course, in 2003, the year after that. A man who's without explanation in prison for 15 years, then without explanation released, then seeks answers about why this happened to him.

26:57Lee Byung-hun:And then two years after that, Lady Vengeance about a woman who's released from prison after serving 13 years for a murder she didn't commit and who then pursues the real killer. I want to ask you, you know, just how you feel about the fact that people group these when, in fact, I've read, you know, you talk about the fact that Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, that's a story you decided to tell. And then Oldboy, in some ways, was just organically a reaction to that, wanting to do something totally different stylistically, you know, much more going from minimalist to maximalist. And then Lady Vengeance is almost a reaction to Oldboy because bringing a much more feminist perspective.

27:45Lee Byung-hun:So I guess, I wonder if you can set the record straight. Are people, should people stop talking about this as a trilogy and sort of understand that this happened very organically? Or maybe I'm wrong?

28:05Park Chan-wook:So to set the record straight, it was me who used the word trilogy first. But it is true that I had planned it for it to be a trilogy. So after JSA, I met with production companies with my next stories to pitch Mr. Vengeance because I thought that this was a project that's very hard to find investment for. So if it's not immediately after the success of something like JSA, I wouldn't be able to make it in the future. So I pitched Mr. Vengeance and I made it exactly the way that I wanted it to. So at the time, Mr. Vengeance was the only vengeance story that I had. And then a different producer approached me with the manga for Old Boy.

28:46Park Chan-wook:And I fell in love with the story, which is why I decided to make the movie Old Boy. Before I made Old Boy, the journalist had asked me, why are you trying to do another Vengeance movie? Since even though Mr. Vengeance had a critical success, it wasn't a commercial success. So they were asking me, why are you doing another Vengeance story? And I answered, oh, because it's such a great subject matter. Regardless of East or West, Vengeance stories have always existed all throughout history. And in fact, I will make as many vengeance stories that I want. And on top of that, in fact, I actually have a trilogy planned.

29:19Park Chan-wook:So these are all things that I just came up with in the moment out of spite. So you could almost say that the concept for the trilogy is something that the Korean journalists came up with. And another idea that was in my head when I said that is that I really like Mr. Vengeance. But since it didn't do so well commercially, how do I make people see it? And then I realized that if I make a trilogy and the two other ones become famous, people will think, oh, so what is the other movie in that trilogy? And they will go back to Mr. Vengeance. So after Old Boy, I had to take responsibility for the trilogy.

29:57Park Chan-wook:And I didn't have an idea for it at the time. But since the last piece of the trilogy, I decided to consciously make this feel like a film that felt like a conclusion to the trilogy. So and while the first two movies were very masculine, especially in Oldboy, in the ending, the daughter is the one who's left out from the truth. And I felt very sorry about that. So I decided that the third film had to have a female lead. And I thinking about the third film, I thought this should be have a meta perspective that really explores the question of so what truly is a vengeance story? And that's the way it would actually feel like a real conclusion to the trilogy that sums up the trilogy as well.

30:39Park Chan-wook:So near the end of Lady Vengeance, this woman who was an active performer of Vengeance switches roles and becomes someone who creates and directs and observes Vengeance instead, which felt like the perfect conclusion to the trilogy.

30:55Lee Byung-hun:And is it not a coincidence also then that Lady Vengeance is the first time you worked with a female co-writer, who you've done many projects with since, but did you know because you wanted to tell a feminist story that it made sense to start working with a female writer? Was that a deliberate calculation?

31:30Park Chan-wook:So the project that I initially proposed to her to work together on was actually Thirst. So I was going to ask her to work on Thirst while I was writing Lady Vengeance by myself. And then I realized that it would be better to write with her on Lady Vengeance since it had a female lead. So I told her to pause her work on Thirst and we worked on Lady Vengeance together. and it turned out really well, which is why I continued to work together with her on my project. And there are many reasons that I decided to work with her. Of course, the female perspective part of it was a reason as well, but the biggest reason I decided to work with her is because she's a brilliant writer.

32:05Park Chan-wook:And the way that we work might actually be different from what you think. Just because she's a female writer, it's not like she always understands women better or always has a very strong feminist perspective in our conversations because at times I would have a stronger female perspective or at other times she would be the one who would write dialogue for male characters better than I do.

32:26Lee Byung-hun:Before I go to the move forward chronologically, I have to go back for one second to Oldboy because obviously this was such an unbelievable success, a different kind of thing than had ever come out of Korea. Selected to play in competition at Cannes, which is itself a huge thing, then wins the jury prize in Cannes, then, you know, I heard at Cannes Tarantino saw it three times. I mean, just it and then became such an international thing. So I know you're asked all the time about various aspects of it, the eating of the octopus and the, you know, the tongue and all kinds of things. The one that I'm going to bother you about if I can, just because I'm very I'm very curious.

33:14Lee Byung-hun:The single shot in the hallway fighting the group of men, sometimes with a hammer, sometimes with just fists, I wanted to ask you, some people have observed it shot almost like a video game. And I wondered if for you, video games are some sort of an influence or if that's just purely coincidental.

33:42Park Chan-wook:I don't play video games myself, so I wasn't influenced by video games for the scene, but I do understand how the similarity exists. Because in our lives, we also work through each stages and we move forward through the stages, and the higher the difficulty, the higher the satisfaction it is from working through that stage. and that's how games are designed just like life so I could see the similarity in the scene as well and beyond that narrative element there's also that technical similarity of how it's a single long take and that camera work might also feel similar to a video game but I wasn't inspired by video game the reason that my idea for behind the scene was I wanted to best show the main characters loneliness and fatigue after a long fight.

34:28Park Chan-wook:We see him panting and sweating after this fight. And instead of using some trick, I just wanted to really show the actor's emotional state in real time.

34:40Lee Byung-hun:So it's been 20 years since Lady Vengeance, which if we're if we're going to call it the Vengeance trilogy, 20 years between the Vengeance trilogy and and now no other choice. And I know you've said you've been trying to make no other choice for 20 years. So I'm going to ask you in a moment why it took 20 years. But first, in those intervening 20 years, it feels like as an outside observer that you've been wanting to experiment with different genres. Because if we look at it, you have I'm a Cyborg, but that's okay in 2006. It's essentially a romantic comedy. You have Thirst, which somebody could call a vampire film.

35:27Lee Byung-hun:That's in 2009. Stoker, your first in English language and your first that was directed, that you directed but did not also officially write on. That one, I suppose, you know, we could call that its own different genre, Handmaiden, more of a period piece, decision to leave, maybe film noir. And then your two TV projects, The Little Drummer Girl in 2018 and The Sympathizer in 2024, all just so different. And if people wanted to say that the three films with the Vengeance trilogy were similar, they can't say that about too many of the other. There's not a lot of similarities, I don't think, between the films that you've made between the Vengeance trilogy and and now no other choice.

36:18Lee Byung-hun:So I just wonder, again, is this sort of thought through or is it just the way life works where you see something that's interesting? So you just do that and it happens to be different from something else. Even for the Vengeance trilogy,

36:37Park Chan-wook:I wanted to make the three films feel very different from each other. I wanted it to feel like if you don't watch the credits, you would almost think that different directors made each of them. And the reason that I tried so many different styles and genres is because I think, first of all, I always want my next film to feel different from my previous film. And the first reason for that is I personally just feel very bored with repetition easily. And another thing is because all of these works have different subject matters and themes, I always want the style to follow the story. I always think about what form would best accurately express the story, which is why I think formally and in terms of the genre as well, they end up being very different from each other.

37:22Lee Byung-hun:And I think also people may not know or I've read things you've said where you're technically very adventurous. Like I think you were one of the earliest people to do digital filming and sound and things in Korea. And I read that you've, you know, looked at doing Thirst, maybe even went down the road, started down the road of doing Thirst in black and white. or Handmaiden you were thinking about in 3D. And just, I think maybe sometimes that gets overlooked that you're very curious about technology and that sort of thing as well, right?

38:06Park Chan-wook:Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Actually, what, DI or... And I also think, I also believe I'm one of the first people in Korea to use DI as well. I think history of film can't be separated from the development of technology, which is why directors always have to be conscious of that. And people might believe from watching my films that I don't have any interest in technology. But I'm always trying to create the best state of my project with the limited resources I'm provided with. So I think I should just always be using every method and technology that I can to best accurately execute my vision and make the project as feel rich as possible.

38:47Park Chan-wook:So sometimes people are surprised to hear how much VFX is used in my films because I use them for things that people normally wouldn't expect to use VFX for. And I think this might also be something that I learned from Hitchcock because he was also a leader in technology. He actually made a 3D movie at the time as well.

39:04Lee Byung-hun:And the invertigo, the zoom. Anyway. Okay. So for the last few things, of course, I want to talk about No Other Choice, which is so great. And I wonder, not only everybody I'm sure asks you, you know, why do you want to tell this story? But also, which we should say, I guess, was, you know, inspired by a novel, but also your own thing, very much different as well. So why were you drawn to this story, but also why would it take you 20 years to make any film that you want to make? I would think that there are people that are lining up to say, you know, we want to do whatever you want to do. So why 20 years?

39:59Park Chan-wook:I think there were two reasons why I was interested in the story. So when I read the original novel, there were things that were present in the novel that I enjoyed. And there were also ideas of things that I wanted to add to the story. So as for the things that were present in the novel, so this is a story about how after someone is fired, the solution that he comes up with to solve this problem is very realistic. So instead of trying to take revenge on people, he takes a very realistic approach and asks himself, so how do I find this job that I have lost again? So it's very opposite to the hot vengeance that I've dealt with earlier, and instead it's really about cold calculation.

40:36Park Chan-wook:But as realistic as his plan is, it's also very foolish at the same time, because he's basically going for a complete moral downfall. And this moral downfall is something that this kind and typical middle-class head of the family just can't deal with. So even though it's a very realistic approach, it's also a very foolish approach. And this is something that I really enjoyed about the story of the original novel. And while I was reading the novel, I had a sense of anxiety about what if the wife and the children find out about what this man has been doing. So that's what kept me anxious while I was reading the novel.

41:13Park Chan-wook:But then that didn't end up happening until the end of the story. So then I thought, so what if that actually happened? What if the family actually found out about what the main character has been doing? and it makes you think that, oh, he's been doing all of this for his family, but what if it's that precise acts that make his family distant from him? I thought that was a really fun idea that I just couldn't stop thinking about. And as for why it took so long, I think this is something that I can't answer, but it's just the fact that the French and the American studios just didn't give the level of budget that I wanted for the project, And I think they had made these calculations from years of producing other projects.

41:54Park Chan-wook:So they had their own projection about the adequate amount of budget for a story like this. And their idea was just very different from what I had in mind.

42:04Lee Byung-hun:I had read another interview that you did with a colleague where a colleague asked you about the kind of comedy in the film, which is very physical. and they wondered if you were somebody who had been very influenced by cartoons, animated stuff. And it really struck me as kind of an interesting observation. I wonder if you can share. Was that even on your mind? Was that something, the way you directed the actors on this, was that in any way on your mind?

42:43Park Chan-wook:I don't think I used those references in my directions. I think I did have cartoons that I have watched when I was little, like Roadrunner in my mind. But I don't think I was conscious of that as I was planning it and nor did I use it in my directions. Another similar example would be Chaplin for Modern Times.

43:01Lee Byung-hun:Yes. What's it like to be directing Lee Byung-hun 25 years after JSA? I imagine that an actor and a director who have that much history, it must result in a different kind of way of working than somebody who you're working with for the first time. And, you know, clearly he gives a great performance in this too. So I just wonder about that history, how it affected things.

43:32Park Chan-wook:JSA, I actually worked on a short film with him in 2004 called Three Extremes. So this was one episode of a compilation film. But even considering that it's been a long time since I had worked with him. First of all, I had no idea that it's been that long since I worked with him because I see him often on personal terms. and we're constantly looking for opportunities to work together again. So we were both surprised at how long it had actually been since we worked together. So during JSA, Lee Byung-hun was a TV star, but he wasn't doing so well in film. And of course, I wasn't doing so well back then either.

44:15Park Chan-wook:So I think we were both very desperate as we were going into the project because we really didn't want to mess this one up. So we were both very nervous. And perhaps that mindset is what led to the good result of JSA. But to reunite with him after both of our careers have stabilized, everything felt more relaxed. And we both had a larger picture for the project and on set as well. So for instance, for Pyonghun, he could comprehensively view all of the characters and not just his own. And we would make a lot of jokes on set. So it was very much more relaxed and an enjoyable experience. And for Pyonghun, he has worked on a lot of movies and TVs of different genres.

44:56Park Chan-wook:So I think he came into no other choice as an actor with more tools in his toolbox compared to back when we were working on JSA. And he's also aged, so he's gotten a lot of experiences beyond just the acting experiences as well. So this idea of how a person would do X and Y situation, something like that, a prejudiced view like that, I think he became more flexible and could imagine beyond those prejudices and understand that people can have different reactions to different situations.

45:32Lee Byung-hun:Last question. Six years ago, around this time of year, I was speaking with Director Bong about Parasite. And obviously that became a huge part of our awards season that we're now a part that you're now in the middle of as well with no other choice. You and he, I think, are the two most revered Korean filmmakers around the world. And so I think for that reason, people might be surprised to learn that prior to No Other Choice, only one of your great films that we've been talking about here, Decision to Leave, had been Korea's submission for the Best International Feature Oscar race. And it was shortlisted, but not nominated, meaning that you, who everyone regards as one of the great filmmakers in the world, have not have not yet had one of your films nominated for an Oscar.

46:27Lee Byung-hun:So I wonder what you think, if you think perhaps the genres that you've made films in, or I know there was some discussion that there was a bit of a blacklist situation that we learned about where your political leanings had caused the former president to kind of blacklist you quietly or things like that. I guess I just wonder what you think the reason for this oversight so far has been, and then what it would mean to you now with no other choice, where it's so great it's now shortlisted and many of us are rooting for it to be nominated. What would that mean to you if you did now, for the first time, have a film nominated for the Oscar to represent South Korea?

47:18Park Chan-wook:First of all, there is no solid proof and evidence that I wasn't selected to represent Korea in the past because of the blacklist. So I don't think I should speak on that, nor do I want to speak on that. And I'm someone who does don't usually look back on what has already happened. So I'm just focusing on the right now, which is I'm just doing my best and trying my hardest in the awards campaign. and obviously I would like to be rewarded for my hard work. And I heard that the scores for the U.S. release of No Other Choice hasn't been too bad either. And of course, honored through awards is great, but what I really prioritize is this film that wasn't made in the U.S.

48:00Park Chan-wook:being talked about and awarded in the U.S. if such nomination could mean that even just 10 more people of audiences around the world would be interested in the film and decide to watch the film, that's really my goal and what I truly care about.

48:16Lee Byung-hun:It's a beautiful film. All of your films I so admire, and I am very grateful and honored to have you do this. So thank you very much.

48:29Park Chan-wook:Thank you for giving me enough time to have such an in-depth conversation, and I had a great time. Thank you.

48:41Lee Byung-hun:thanks for listening to awards chatter we really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app and to follow us on twitter and instagram where our handle is at awards chatter on those platforms we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.

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