While mainstream television relies heavily on the high-octane thrill of professional victory, JTBC and Netflix have recently concluded series we’re all trying here Spent 12 hours working on the exact opposite. It sat quietly with the deep fear of mediocrity, the shame of unfulfilled potential, and the complex mechanics of masculine alienation. Through a powerful male group, Koo Kyo Hwan, Oh Jung Se and Park Hye Joon, the show examined how different men feel the terrible sensation of worthlessness.
kashmir drama Follows Hwang Dong Man (Koo Kyo Hwan), an aspiring film director who remains the only member of his university film club “The Eight” after 20 years without success. Overwhelmed with anxiety, jealousy, and fear of failure, he hides his insecurities behind constant, excessive chatter. She eventually finds unexpected emotional solace in Byeon Eun Ah (Go Eun Jung), a flamboyant filmmaker struggling with her own trauma.
In the second part of the exclusive interview with director Cha Young Hun, the filmmaker uncovers the nuances of brotherhood’s intentionally physical vocabulary, actor-driven tears, and why the series refused to give its characters the magical career treatment.
Public personality and the rhythm of anxiety
HT: The play opens with Dong Man’s frenetic energy at a dinner party, which is immediately cut to the crushing silence of his lonely night bus journey. How did you instruct Koo Kyo Hwan to balance that loud, abrasive facade with his deep personal emptiness?
Cha Young Hun: This was the first scene that explained the root of Dong Man’s pitifulness, which may have made the audience feel somewhat uneasy throughout episode 1, so I agonized over it during filming.
I wanted the audience to empathize with Dong Man’s pain as he runs across the field thinking, ‘If I can’t prove myself by being influential, I will prove myself by being different. So Koo Kyo Hwan and I talked a lot about not conveying this scene through just one layer of emotion. Although we couldn’t use it in the play due to copyright issues, we filmed this scene while listening to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again. Like the song, which has a joyful rhythm yet an immense sadness, I wanted to show multiple layers of emotions.
More than anything, I think this sequence was elevated by Koo Kyo Hwan’s uniquely unpredictable sense of rhythm as an actor. Thanks to his performance, the scene was able to convey not only simple sadness or anger, but also the many emotional layers within Dong Man – shame, self-loathing, and everything in between.
HT: Dong Man’s troubled relationship with food is highlighted throughout the show. How did you use the act of eating as a physical display of nervousness rather than just a simple quirky character trait?
Cha Young Hun: In this series, hunger has less to do with physical hunger and more to do with emotional state. It represents Dong Man’s desperate struggle to overcome his sense of inadequacy born of self-loathing and shame.
That’s why I thought Dong Man shouldn’t just eat the food – he should force it inside himself. I wanted the audience to see those moments and feel sympathy for him, as if he was crying.
To make that task feel like a real struggle, I spent a lot of time thinking about food combinations that seemed fundamentally wrong together. There must be something disturbing about it: scooping and dipping rice with a rice paddle instead of a spoon. yakgawa (honey cookie) gochujang (chili paste), or holding whole radish kimchi with your bare hands. As much as those scenes of Dong-man forcibly snatching food from himself were heartbreaking and frustrating, the more I believed that the warmth and comfort of the meal scenes he later shares with Eun-ah or her brother would appeal to audiences.
Three dimensions of loneliness
HT: Jin Man (Park Hye Joon) is seen alone drowning his worthlessness in alcohol. How did you shoot it to distinguish the specific flavor of Dong Man’s despair?
Cha Young Hun: Like everyone else in the series, both Dong-man and Jin-man are engaged in a fierce struggle against their feelings of worthlessness. But there is a significant difference in the nature of their loneliness.
If Dong-man’s loneliness is a kind of hot, restless despair – the desperation of someone who is still fighting to prove his worth to the world – then Jin-man’s loneliness is closer to a cold resignation, the state of someone who has already given up everything. In that sense, perhaps the word “loneliness” is too indulgent a term for what Jin-man is experiencing.
With that difference in mind, I wanted to approach them differently on a visual level. Dong-man’s emotions were filmed in a more dynamic manner, while Jin-man’s emotions were captured in a much more static tone. The same principle applies to their communication also. Dong-man lets his emotions out, while Jin-man simply spits them out.
HT: The scenes between the two brothers are incredibly raw. How did you and the actors create that specific, strange physical vocabulary of brotherhood?
Cha Young Hun: Relationships between siblings who share hardships and deprivations can sometimes be defined less by open affection than by a certain awkwardness and feelings that can never be expressed in words. I wanted to portray two brothers who care deeply for each other, yet find it almost unbearably embarrassing to say so out loud.
As we talk about it, I’m reminded of the sequence surrounding Jin-man’s first suicide attempt. Dong-man does not try to convince his brother directly as he is on the verge of death. Instead, he calms her down with something completely normal: “You’re just hungry. I’ll make some kimchi fried rice for you. Come here.” He then reads part of a poem written by Jin-man years earlier, deliberately avoiding a serious or sentimental tone, gently eliciting his brother’s anger and despair. And only when he sees that the attention has returned to Jin-man’s eyes does he quietly reach out and take her hand.
Since the situation was already so emotionally extreme, I felt we needed to tone down any exaggeration in the actors’ expressions, dialogue or body language. Paradoxically, the more restrained we are, the truer the feeling. I remember having many conversations with the actors about how to portray the scene exactly that way.
fear of unemployment
HT: Park Gyeong Se (Oh Jung Se)’s sudden breakdown – “Only Hwang Dong-man is pitiful? Am I not pitiful too?” – completely removes him from being an ordinary opponent. How did you direct Oh Jung Se to highlight the typical devastation of a successful man afraid of being forgotten?
Cha Young Hun: In some ways, Gyeong Se’s harshness towards Dong Man is a reaction to the harshness he feels he has received from Dong Man over the years. But I wanted the audience to sympathize with both the characters. If the audience favors only one of them, I would consider it a failure on my part. (laughing).
The approach I chose was to wrap Gyeong Se’s frustrated outburst in a layer of comedy. He becomes completely absorbed in condemning Dong Man’s shameful behavior, even forgetting his own sense of shame, while the rest of the group – including Yeong Soo (Jeon Bae Soo) – continue to react in an awkward manner, repeatedly emphasizing their twenty-year friendship rather than what Gyeong is really trying to say. I think this contrast softens the sharp edges of Gyeong Se’s brutality, at least somewhat.
But the big reason why Gyeong Se never serves as a simple antagonist is Oh Jung Se herself. I honestly believe that Oh Jung Se is one of those rare actors who can make even the most obnoxious traits feel deeply human and strangely lovable. The scene you mentioned was over two pages long on paper, and he expressed the entire monologue in a single emotional breath.
Rather than any specific directing note, I sometimes wonder whether I myself might have served as a kind of reference point for him. The truth is that I struggle with many of the same fears as Gyeong. I’ve been lucky enough to create many projects, but I still live with the fear of being forgotten. I’m the kind of person who feels hurt by criticism, yet pretends not to care because I’m aware of how others view me. And despite all this, I can still find myself alone with my self-doubt, trapped in a private cave of insecurities. As soon as I talk about it, I realize I’m starting to sound quite sad (cries/laughs). Perhaps those sides of me came out naturally through our long conversations.
opposition to magical cures
HT: Kyu Kyo Hwan cries a lot in this show, yet it never seems manipulative. More broadly, the finale completely denies a “magical cure” or a huge, satisfying career victory for him. Were you afraid audiences would find it too disappointing?
Cha Young Hun: I honestly think all the crying credit goes to Koo Kyo Hwan. What makes him such a remarkable actor is that he has never been afraid to be unconventional or let himself fall apart on screen. Sometimes, Dong Man succeeds in expressing deep sadness without shedding a single tear – nothing more than a runny nose. Because of this, he portrayed the kind of crying that we encounter in real life.
As far as the ending goes, a story that refuses to look away from human anxiety and isolation was certainly a frightening undertaking for me. There was a very real concern that audiences might become alienated from the series altogether.
There is certainly something powerful and comforting about a play in which the hero overcomes adversity and ultimately achieves success. Stories like this can provide tremendous catharsis. However, I guess that’s what kind of comfort it is we’re all trying here What I wanted to offer was something different. What I wanted to say was this: “Oh Jeong-hui, Noh Kang-sik, and CEO Choi may seem successful, but they’re all also struggling against feelings of worthlessness. It’s not just Dong-man, with all his flaws… In the end, maybe living itself is a constant struggle against feelings of worthlessness.”
So don’t think that you are the only one going through tough times. Everyone is fighting that battle. Try not to lose hope. Instead, cherish those small moments of joy and happiness that come into your life, and then find the strength to make it another day.
In that sense, the ending of Episode 12 is actually a very dramatic success. He doesn’t magically become an industry legend overnight, but he does gain the ability to pick up his camera, shed the burden of past failures, and just keep trying. I was hoping the series could provide similar comfort.
