[Limelight] Breaking Through Crumbling Consistency with Lyricism

Jeon Yeo-bin's portrayal in 'Night in Paradise' reenactment, similar to Murakawa in 'Sonatine'
Approaching death conceptually, "Enjoying time living as a role"

Jae-yeon (Jeon Yeo-bin) practices shooting in the windy fields of Jeju. She is a sharpshooter who can hit even a small soju bottle dead center. After staring at the sea with a listless face for a long time, she suddenly points the gun at her temple. Tae-gu (Um Tae-gu), who was smoking from afar, rushes over in surprise. "Hey, hey. Hey, wait a minute. Why are you doing this? What are you doing now? Calm down." Jae-yeon looks at Tae-gu calmly and pulls the trigger without hesitation. Silence follows. Tae-gu is dumbfounded and unable to utter a word. Jae-yeon stares at him so intently it’s almost embarrassing, then walks past.

In the film Night in Paradise, Jae-yeon, played by Jeon Yeo-bin, is a nihilist. She lost her family to gangsters. The shock caused her to develop an illness, and she lives with a terminal condition. Jeon Yeo-bin does not wear a sad expression. Instead, she reveals a blank, expressionless face. She resembles Murakawa (Takeshi Kitano) from the Japanese film Sonatine, who often points a gun at his temple. From the violent act of senselessly firing a gun, a faint aura of goodness emerges. She even shares the paradoxical feeling that fearing death makes one want to die. "If you’re not scared, you wouldn’t use a gun. You use a gun because you’re scared."

Jeon Yeo-bin said, "I wanted to portray her as a friend who shows no interest in people, indifferent." "She is a character who calmly accepts the approaching death. Although it was deleted from the final cut, there was a scene where she was happy to have an incurable disease caused by the shock of losing her family. I thought she became detached because she realized she could follow her family without any extra effort. So I was confident I could depict her differently from typical female roles in noir films. A woman who dreams of revenge without caring about her own death, you could say?"

Her unwavering gaze softens as she grows closer to Tae-gu. She even regains a smile she had long forgotten. However, Jae-yeon and Tae-gu did not have many opportunities to build a bond. Tae-gu has room to fill his weaknesses. He lost his sister (Jang Young-nam), who was also in pain like Jae-yeon. He might have recalled the nephew who was killed in the relationship between Kuto (Lee Ki-young) and Jae-yeon. On the other hand, Jae-yeon has almost no points to empathize with Tae-gu. Therefore, the sorrow she shows for Tae-gu’s misfortune appears precarious. Their sudden bond functions only as a prelude to Jae-yeon’s brutal revenge.

Meanwhile, the Jae-yeon that Jeon Yeo-bin envisioned loses consistency. At times, she emphasizes the tragic ending with excessive emotion, while suddenly showing comedy in serious situations. The characteristic of viewing death itself conceptually disappears. The more Tae-gu’s suffering is highlighted, the more the story gets bogged down in the byproducts of death. Even the peaceful yet sad face she shows at the end becomes ambiguous.

"I saw it as having a quiet moment after wrapping up all the events. So I thought she would take in the vast sea with her eyes. She must have judged that there was nothing left for her to do. I hoped both the anger that cannot be freed by revenge alone and the comfort of being able to disappear cleanly from the world would be revealed."

The possibility that remains is thanks to Jeon Yeo-bin’s lyricism. She excelled at restraining emotions and internalizing the psychology of her roles in independent films such as Merry Christmas Mr. Mo (2017) and Guilty of Romance (2018). She is an actress who enjoys living as her characters in films.

"Perhaps because we filmed in the unfamiliar space of Jeju Island, I could easily separate my personal life. Just hearing the sound of rain pouring down makes me feel like I’ve returned to Jae-yeon. If I hadn’t immersed myself deeply, I wouldn’t have been able to handle the emotionally difficult scenes. I hope the Jae-yeon I met that way will be happy."