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The film, 6/45, which entered its 3rd week of release, surpassed 1 million viewers. It has consistently been on the top of the box office for more than a week among the summer blockbusters. The film 6/45 begins with a lottery ticket in the hands of a frontline soldier when it flies in the wind and crosses the Military Demarcation Line. When a North Korean soldier accidentally picks it up, a closed meeting over the prize money is held. It is the first new film in 15 years by Director Park Gyutae, who wrote the scripts of the films Hi, Dharma and Man on the Edge and made his directorial debut with Bunt. Here are some back stories about his new film from director Park Gyutae.

- What was the charming point about the idea of 6/45? Tell us what made you decide to write and direct the film. 

= 'What if the winning ticket of the lottery flies to the North?' The logline was quite interesting to me. I was sure that the irony of meeting and conflict between South and North Korean soldiers with disparate characters would be humorous. I thought the experience of Hi, Dharma, based on the meeting and conflict between monks and gangsters, which I wrote about before, could be the basis.

- The film is introduced as a comedy version of the film, Joint Security Area. Tell us how you tried to use Joint Security Area in 6/45.

= The film Joint Security Area is a tragic story about the youth in the two Koreas, who were sacrificed by ideology. My film 6/45 is also a story about the youth of South and North Korea meeting in a special space called GP(Guard Post), but I wanted to depict it as a comedy instead of a tragedy in 2022. Instead of 'ideology,' I wanted to talk about the issue that everyone in the South and the North wants to have a nice life through the practical matter of winning the 5.7 billion won lottery. With the hommage scenes reminding us of Joint Security Area, I hoped the audience would feel, 'Oh, this movie is a tribute to the film Joint Security Area!'

- Tell us about the concept of the 'Joint Supply Area,' the main backdrop of the film.

= In fact, I met and interviewed various people, including soldiers who worked at GPs and those who defected from North Korea while working at the 'outpost line base' corresponding to a North Korean GP, and learned about the position of a soldier in charge of water supply only for the GPs in the front lines. The soldiers in the front-line GPs use groundwater because most of them are located at the top of the mountain, but it is difficult to supply groundwater in winter, so I learned that the soldiers in charge of water supply get drinking water from wells or springs and supply it to the GPs. So, I could imagine that if the South Korean army has water supply soldiers, the North Korean army can also have water supply soldiers. That imagination led me to the idea of an area where South and North soldiers can share water to supply their armies.

- The military backdrop is familiar to male audiences, but the North Korean army camps, which are not familiar to the audience, also appear as the main backdrop. Tell us what you had in mind while setting up those two spaces. 

= These days, the military system in South Korea has been modernized a lot, but this is not the case for a front-line GP, a small troop with about 30 soldiers. It still has many images of the past military. So, I tried to depict it as a general army that could be universally understood and accepted by the audience from their 20s to 40s. In the case of the North Korean army, I found out an interesting fact that it has a farm for self-sufficiency on its own. Another fact was also interesting that female soldiers working for broadcast propaganda to South Korea are also serving on the front line. I tried hard to make it universal for both the South Korean army and North Korean army within the scope of cinematic imagination while maintaining the maximum historical and reality.

- Some scenes in the film feel like fantasy, how did you try to set the tone of the film? 

= Yes, it is a fantasy film, and particularly, 6/45 is a fairy tale fantasy. Some things never happen in reality, but they do happen in fantasy as if they were real. Chickens and ducks even lay hundreds of eggs a night in a fantasy story. When I decided to go with a fairy tale fantasy style, the film I used as a reference is the French movie, Amelie from Montmartre. I wanted to tell the story with a fairy tale fantasy like Amelie from Montmartre.

- Some lines in the film metaphorize real inter-Korean relations, but they seem to have been wary of the tear-jerking description that this kind of subject matter can take easily. Did you have any principles in the script work?

= Beyond ideals and ideology, I wanted to tell real stories, stories that we really need. Our generation grew up learning that our wish was unification when we were little, but unification is just far and long away to the children in this generation. Then what can we talk about? Since we were born in the two Koreas, we have to live in this land in the future, and all of us want to live happily more than anything else. I wanted to talk about such a realistic idea through a lottery ticket in the comedy genre. From that point of view, I tried to be wary of contrived friendship or tear-jerking scenes.

- What's your favorite scene in 6/45?

= I love the scene where South and North Korean soldiers play a foot volleyball game with a milk carton outside the joint water supply area. In Joint Security Area, the soldiers had a knee-wresting match, but in our movie, we played foot volleyball with a milk carton. The scene where Actor Yi Yikyung says, "Your leg has crossed the line" is the hommage of the scene where Actor Song Kangho says, "Your shadow has crossed the line" in Joint Security Area. The soldiers of the two Koreas try changing the sets when the set score becomes 1:1. At that time, Mancheol (Kwak Dongyeon) asks if it's really possible, saying if they change the set, they will cross the border and end up being in North Korea. At that moment, the soldiers of the two Koreas become petrified, and no one can answer easily. That is the scene where we inadvertently realize that we're living in a land divided into two countries. I loved the natural facial expressions of the actors in the scene, and I think this scene is the basis of 6/45, which contains many metaphors of the film.

- Along with Actors Go Kyoungpyo and Yi Yikyung at the center, all the characters seem evenly active. How did you try to balance the characters?

= In a film where so many actors appear as the main characters, I think a balance between characters and teamwork is most important. What I asked the actors is that they should never laugh before the audience. They should focus on the ironic situation, and the situation is funny, not the characters. The actors also recognized the importance of each other's teamwork, so they formed a group chat room with South Korean soldiers and North Korean soldiers, each in a team of 3 to 3. After exchanging ideas in the chat room and thinking and talking about the scenes to be filmed the next day, they gradually got in sync and made perfect harmony at the filming site. Since the set was in fits of laughter all the time, I could film it so happily.

- 27 years have passed since you entered the film industry in 1995 as a production staff member for Best Comedy Of Our Lives, The. Tell us how you feel about the past time.

= Starting with Director Lee Jangho's production team member for Best Comedy Of Our Lives, The, I debuted as a screenwriter later, and the time I have spent in Chungmuro so far is passing by like a flashlight. When I made a directorial debut with Bunt 15 years ago, I filmed it with a film camera, but now it has all been changed to digital cameras. In the days of film cameras, there was one on-site monitor, but now there are two monitors because we use two cameras, A and B. In addition, the COVID-19 Pandemic has changed the filming conditions and the theater environment greatly. However, the actors and the staff members at the filming site still have the same passion for movies. The same is true of me. As always, I try to prepare for tomorrow with the joy of being able to make a movie.

- What kind of work are you working on now?

= I'm adapting a work called A Censor (working title) that I prepared before shooting 6/45. In the 1980s, when the 3S policy of sex, sports, and screen was implemented, the story is about a special agent in the National Intelligence Service, who was censoring movies, should make erotic movies under the orders of the state.