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An actress and director, PANG Eun-jin presents Perfect Number (working title). Different from the original mystery novel, she put emphasis on the elements of melodrama. She hasn't lost any of her skill at pushing actors' acting abilities to their limit.

 

 

The Japanese film already cinematized the original story, so I decided to do it differently. In the original story, the relationship between Ishigami and Yasuko is not mutual but one-sided. It is an abnormal relationship because the emotional passage is cut and blocked. In Perfect Number, Hwa-seon realizes that he loves her and she slowly opens her heart and accepts him. Their love is disturbed in the middle, but finally they somehow protect the relationship. I would say melodrama is the backbone of the film. While Ishigami was cold, logical and intelligent in the previous works, Seok-go in Perfect Number is rather a warm-hearted man.

 

I didn’t do it alone. I discussed with the director of photography CHOI Chan-min and the lighting director LEE Cheol-oh before drawing the continuity to share opinions about the details, even whether to have the light in a corner on or not. I paid particularly attention to lighting, so I had to wait pretty long until the lighting was set up. One day during the winter, I was shooting an outdoor scene and the lighting director had been in the freezing weather for 3 hours setting up for lighting. Whenever I gave a direction saying, “Cut and Okay!”, at the first take, he would ask me back right away, “Is it Okay again?” and had to go back to set up for the next scene.

 

He spent his twenties playing in films like Waikiki Brothers (2001) and Conduct Zero (2002) after he debuted in Die Bad (2000). Now that he is in his thirties, he will show mature acting in Perfect Number . He has never cried in a film. I heard that even when he was acting for the scene he had to cry in Crying Fist (2005), he couldn’t produce tears, so he turned back and shook his shoulders. In the last scene of Perfect Number , I told him, “This is where you have to shed tears.”, he only imitated the facial expression by frowning. Then I said to him, “You have to cry with your heart, not with the face.” and his acting changed.

 

I thought very hard to decide what sort of ending I should end up with. After much thought on many endings with different feel, my final decision was to have them tragically share their emotions without excessively outpouring them. I thought it would the best way to satisfy expectations of their relationship from the spectators.

 

I had playacted long until I first jumped into the film industry in the mid 1990’s. I started studying different things about film directing because I thought I had to know about directing to become a good actor. Later, I started being cast less frequently as I aged, and I had a chance to assist KIM Jin-han when he was directing the short film Wardrobe (Jangnong, 1999). It was a whole new world for me to direct a film. While I only cared about how I would look to others as an actress, I cared about what world I should design in film as a director, which was so much fun. I received the offer to direct Princess Aurora by chance, and from then on, I intensively worked on it for years. I wanted to test myself to see if I deserved to be a director or not. Since I debuted as a director with Princess Aurora , my chances to work as an actress have reduced. So this is what I say to other directors these days, “Please cast me. Since I understand what it is like to direct a film, I’ll be nice to you.”

 

The next film I’m preparing is The Way Home (Ji-beu-ro Ga-neun Gil). It’s a story of an ordinary housewife falsely accused of trafficking drugs and imprisoned at jail in France. I have always been interested in bread winning women. They have no choice but to be active to survive. Sun-jeong in Princess Aurora, Hwa-seon in Perfect Number and the housewife in The Way Home (Ji-beuro Ga-neun Gil) are all examples of them. I want to deal more with the story that develops as they struggle with life and society, as honestly as possible.