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Accompanying his film The Silenced (2015) at the 49th edition of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, director LEE Hae-young sat down with KoBiz to chat about his career as a screenwriter and filmmaker, his unique approach to characters and the state of the industry today.

(laughs) I finally bought one. I’m not sure it’s the perfect one, but the price was OK and I think I like it. It’s leather and a little bigger than I expected, but it’s comfortable. 

That was never my intention, but perhaps it’s my instinct. I don’t have any interest in people that are part of the mainstream in society. To me, these people have no handicaps or psychological complexes and I have no interest in the hidden details of their lives. With regards to minorities, I want to hear their stories. As a filmmaker it’s exciting to focus on these characters. But my next film won’t deal with characters like that. Up until now, my three films represent the first phase of my career while this next film will be the beginning of stage two. It’s a remake of Johnny TO’s film Drug War (2012). I suppose my earlier films were a little feminine. Actually I met an interviewer yesterday here at Sitges and she assumed the director of The Silenced would be a woman. So I told her I was (laughs). Well, I told her that was my intention. For example Foxy Festival (2010) is an erotic comedy but I didn’t want it to come off as male wish fulfilment, I wanted it to seem like a woman’s film. I wanted a similar thing with The Silenced. Now I want to make a more manly film, so I chose Drug War to begin this new period of my filmography.

When I decided to make that film I needed some specific keywords. I had an image in my head of a cherry blossom tree on a beautiful spring day. Under the tree there is a girl wearing a school uniform, holding two large bricks covered in blood. Since this called to mind B-movie codes I couldn’t resolve it as a commercial film so I needed to find some good keywords. Thus, I selected the Colonial Era, a girl’s boarding school and a dark mystery, psychological horror genre as the three components to make my film. As you mentioned, at that time there was no film set in this era. It was taboo in the industry. Some investment companies turned down my scenario without even looking at it. When I wrote my script, everyone said I wouldn’t find financing or A-list actors. Strangely, once I made it so many other films appeared, like Assassination (2015), The Handmaiden or DONGJU; The Portrait of A Poet. It was never my intention but my film turned out to be the first in the trend.

Every second! There are so many hard things when you make a film but perhaps the hardest moment is actually when I write the script. I constantly have an idea of what I want but whatever I write never lives up to it. I get to a point where I think there’s no way that I can do it and that I have no talent. It’s the hardest part because no one can help you. Writing a script is a lonely process. 

When I was in my 30s I tried many things, such as listening to good music, drinking good coffee or bringing my notebook to a cafe with a nice view. Sometimes I even used good aroma candles but finally I found that all was quite useless. These days I only ever work at home, open my notebook and sit there, forever, until I can find the words to write with. I have been doing it for two decades. Writing is a weird and difficult thing because no matter how many scripts you write, you can never really know about the process. Whenever I begin a new project it’s always a whole new experience. 

I’m not sure how others feel, but I think that as a screenwriter it’s not that different from what it was. But as a director it’s very different. When I made my debut in 2006, it was a special period when the bubble popped in the industry. Over 100 commercial films were made that year and I worked with Sidus, who made so many films. Of course the bubble is what allowed me to become a director and directors had the opportunity to make what they wanted. Back then a director with talent could be an artist. Now it’s almost impossible.

I hope so. Even though NA Hong-jin is a big director, had THE WAILING been made by a domestic investor I don’t think it would have turned out the same. With domestic investors, we have a monitoring process, which involves general viewers watching an early cut of your film and rating every single scene. How is it possible for anyone to remember every scene? Yet investment companies depend on this. 

That’s a tough question. Whenever I look back I think I need to work harder. When I made Like A Virgin (2006) I really had no clue about filmmaking so that was my adventure as a filmmaker. Foxy Festival was more like being on a playground. It was a really fun time for me to go to the set, it was a great experience. With The Silenced it was really hard, it was like hell. I can’t explain everything but there were accidents and so many things happened on set. When it came out last year in theaters it was the worst time in my life. I wanted to run away from my film. It was my trauma and nightmare. I thought I wouldn’t make films any more. But that time passed and this spring I went to the Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy where I saw the film again in their beautiful theater. I was able to watch it from a distance and while I could recall many accidents and feelings, while I watched it tears came to my eyes. At the time I had stopped smoking for ten months but suddenly I started smoking again. I asked myself why I felt that way and why I was smoking again and I realized it was because I loved my film. Not because I think it’s great but because the film is so LEE Hae-young. It’s just me. I can say now that I love all my films. Now I think I’m doing OK and I’m looking forward to moving onto my next stage as a filmmaker. 

A few years ago the film magazine Cine21 asked me for my desert island picks for a survey. I mentioned two Korean films, one was Thirst (2009), and the other was Foxy Festival. But if they asked me again I would only choose my films (laughs).