JUNG Byung-gil’s new film The Villainess took audiences by storm when it premiered in a midnight slot at the Cannes Film Festival last month. KoBiz caught up with the director and his star KIM Ok-vin to chat about their high-octane collaboration:

JUNG Byung-gil (JBG): Well, if I go a little, I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Actually, my first dream was to become a soccer player. But when I was a teenager I went to an arts high school. But then I wasn’t able to enter a Fine Arts college so I thought about how I could do what I wanted to do better. That’s when I started to shoot films from scratch. I think I was inspired to develop this movie based on the many images that remain in my memory from that time. To tell you the truth, there is no reference film for The Villainess. But I was probably a little inspired by films like KIM Ki-young’s The Housemaid (1960) and Brian De Palma’s Carrie. For instance there are images where the lead actress is covered in blood, which did influence me for The Villainess. 

JBG: My generation grew up with HK films so I saw a lot of them as a kid and I cannot tell you that I was not influenced by them at all. However, it’s hard for me to say what kind of inspiration these movies gave me.

KIM Ok-vin (KOV): I did my best when we were shooting this film and in terms of evaluation it is totally up to the audiences who will watch the film to decide if I’m a worthy action star. That said, I did feel a great sense of responsibility while making this film because in the Korean film industry there’s currently precious little space for female action stars. I felt that if I didn’t succeed it may lead to a lack of investment in the future for these kinds of projects.

KOV: I practiced for more than three months in order to perform the action sequences. We did some editing for the intro scene, as it turned out to be a little longer than we’d anticipated. However, for most of the sequences, including the motorbike and bus scenes, there wasn’t that much editing done. What you see is really what happened on the shooting locations.

JBG: I had a chance to share a drink with the CEO of Next Entertainment World, which was the investor for this project as well as my debut, and he told me that he would be willing to invest in my film and that I could do as I pleased because he trusted me. Based on that trust I was able to embark on this female-led action film. I never received any negative responses to my ideas and with that trust I was able to live up to my responsibilities on the project. It wasn’t that difficult to attract investment.

 

JBG: We first focused on designing the action sequences and then the producers would go out and look for real locations that we could match to the action scenes as we’d designed them. Of course, even when we did find these corresponding locations, it was never 100% perfect. What we did was try to figure out set ups that would be easy to shoot but since these didn’t always match what was in the film we had to make some changes. We tried to take full advantage of the real locations and for the details we then adapted whatever buildings, surroundings and geographic aspects were at out disposal. During this process we were also able to come up with new ideas that served to refresh certain aspects of the film. 

KOV: My first impression when reading the script was that the title, The Villainess, and the character of Sook-hee (Kim Ok-vin) were totally opposed to each other. Because, to me, she’s not a villain. She’s a good woman that I was able to sympathize with because her circumstances forced her to become this ‘villainess’. Regarding the violent and cruel scenes that make up the film perhaps I could say that I may have been fooled by director JUNG! (laughs)

JBG: I was able to find a balance between the action and melodramatic elements first of all by providing a solid foundation for the melodrama, as the story starts off as a romance between the Sook-hee and Joong-sang (SHIN Ha-kyun) characters. Later on we can see how that love ends and how she subsequently rediscovers the emotion. Based on these points I was able to add the action sequences. That’s how I found the equilibrium between them.

JBG: I actually love melodrama and I’ve always wanted to shoot something like that. Contrary to that wish I’ve developed several action blockbusters.

KOV: Director JUNG’s actual personality traits are closer to the melodramatic mould. However, despite this personality, people normally approach him with proposals to do action or thriller films.

JBG: Since this is actually one of the first films where a female character is performing major action sequences I expect two kind of reactions to the film. On the one hand people may have high hopes for the film while they may also have concerns. But I hope that after they’ve seen it these concerns will all be dispelled. 

KOV: I also think audiences are looking at this half with expectation, half with concern, but these concerns can be converted to something more positive as long as we’re able to meet their expectations. 

JBG: It’s true that we’re more used to the Hollywood type of female action stars but the actress we have is quite different from the typical Hollywood production. So I think this will be a great chance to break the typical stereotype of the petite Asian woman as she outperforms male characters in the story. I think this will be a strongly appealing element for viewers and will help us to differentiate the project from Hollywood fare.