A few years ago, Kim Chang-Hoon was working in a motel and dreaming up the story for his first film as a director – a profession he had wanted to enter ever since he was eight or nine years old.
“I started off by thinking about how the violent behavior of adults can affect a person when they’re growing up,” Kim said when he dropped into Deadline’s Red Sea Studio. “How a person who has grown up in such a violent environment would in some ways start to pay back what they had experienced – how that shapes their world and the environment around them.”
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The story he came up with, Hopeless, revolves around a 17-year-old boy who fends off blows from a violent stepfather and dreams of emigrating to a peaceful place with his mother, but instead ends up stealing motorbikes for a local crime boss and getting involved in his murky dealings with local politicians.
Kim got the script in front of Sanai Pictures, one of the leading producers of Korean noir with credits including Yoon Jong-bin’s The Spy Gone North and Oh Seung-uk’s The Shameless. Sanai took the project on and brought in Plus M Entertainment to co-finance. Hong Xa-bin was cast as the main character with actress and singer Kim Hyung-seo (aka Bibi) playing his stepsister and superstar Song Joong-ki as the crime boss.
The film premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival in the Un Certain Regard section and won Best New Actor for Hong Xa-bin at Korea’s prestigious Blue Dragon Awards. It is screening here at Red Sea International Film Festival in the Festival Favorites section.
Kim says he was intimidated to work with Song on his first film – the star is known for his roles in some of Korea’s hottest TV dramas, including Descendants Of The Sun and Reborn Rich. “He’s been working in the film and TV scene for much longer than I have, but he just put me at my ease, was very kind and gave me a lot of advice.”
Check out the video above to find out more..
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