[People人] 'Seobeukeolchueo' Yeon Sang-ho Flips the Major Industry

Netflix Drama 'Jigok' Script and Direction, Success with Heavy and Dark Themes
Live-action Film and Animation Package Production to Expand Universe "Hope My Work Is Widely Reproduced"

The most eye-catching role in director Yeon Sang-ho's drama Hellbound is Jung Jin-soo (Yoo Ah-in), the chairman of the New Truth Society. He distorts and exaggerates the inexplicable death notices to secure legitimacy. He demands repentance from those who receive the notice, intensifying social chaos.

A similar role appears in Yeon’s 2013 feature-length animation Psychokinesis. It features Choi Kyung-seok (voice by Kwon Hae-hyo), wanted for violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and Pastor Sung Cheol-woo (voice by Oh Jung-se), who has a kind appearance. They visit a village threatened by flooding, pretending to offer salvation through deception. They assign meaning to accidents, disasters, or deaths that have no relation, inciting fear. By shaking people's psychology, they drag the village into a swamp of helplessness.

The death notice in Hellbound is derived from the 2004 short animation Hellbound: Two Lives. The way an angel appears to predict death is the same. "You will die at 1:50 a.m. Your evaluation is grade 3, so you will go to the second-level hell. And the intensity of hell is ten times the greatest pain you have felt."

Director Yeon has expanded his range layer by layer by directing numerous adult animations. His direction was clear: to intricately portray human fear and desire through extreme depictions of violence. He secured a consistent argument that caught critics' attention. Typically, distinctive works like The King of Pigs (2011) and Psychokinesis do not have a significant impact on the animation industry. Universal works must first establish themselves to have a chance at commercial success. The domestic animation market repeatedly avoids production due to heavy investment in large-scale films that fail. This creates conditions where it is difficult for so-called branded directors to emerge.

Director Yeon broke the existing mold with an innovative production method. It was a package production combining live-action films and feature-length animations. He expanded the scope of work with the belief that if the live-action film succeeds at the box office, it would also help promote and market the animated film. The resulting works were Train to Busan (2016) and Seoul Station (2016). The former ranked 16th in the all-time box office with 11,567,662 admissions. This became an opportunity for Yeon to continue directing live-action films.

The recent buzz in the film and drama market is the adaptation of webtoons and comics into video content. As a pioneer, Director Yeon does not find it difficult to work in parallel fields. He believes that fully embracing the opinions of experts in each field can compensate for weaknesses. The role of Bae Young-jae (Park Jung-min) in Hellbound, which differs in many ways from the original webtoon, is a representative example. "Filming is not done in story order. It is common to shoot the latter parts first, and Park Jung-min acted very differently from how I imagined Bae Young-jae. I thought, 'He must have some idea,' so I entrusted it to him. And indeed, he had a plan. The overall flow of expression was naturally aligned. He is a very meticulous actor."

This flexible approach also stands out outside of the work. He does not insist on directing scripts he writes himself. The drama Method (2020) and the film Method: Repetition (2020) were entrusted to director Kim Yong-wan, and the drama Ghost (in production) to director Jang Gun-jae. He discovers talented directors and minimizes interference to encourage unique layers of color. This approach has become a kind of trend recently as the value of intellectual property (IP) has increased due to the flood of online video services (OTT).

In a recent interview with a media outlet, Director Yeon said, "I hope my films exist within the context of the subculture I love (a concept contrasting with the overall culture of a society)." "When it comes to B-movies, even if they do well, they often have up to 10 sequels, and the zombie movies I liked have an enormous number of installments. The Nightmare series and other horror films are the same. Regardless of quality, the fact that they keep being reproduced is the charm of subculture. (...) The genre of Hellbound and zombie films originated there. I hope the series I started will be wildly reproduced on a low budget. Of course, the scale of my works so far does not belong to that realm, but my original dream was to have stories continuously derived to form a subculture."

Director Yeon's dream is materializing through Netflix's platform. Hellbound topped the official Netflix viewing rankings announced on the 23rd (local time) immediately upon entry. The record for the week from the 15th was 43.48 million hours. It easily surpassed the recently rising Colombian drama The Queen of Flow: Season 2 (38.64 million hours) and the English-language TV program No. 1 Arcane (38.42 million hours). On the same day, Hellbound also maintained the No. 1 spot in the Netflix TV program category on the online content service ranking site FlixPatrol. This site reflects 24-hour viewing rates by category for each platform and reports the previous day's viewing rankings. Hellbound was the most viewed in 36 countries including South Korea, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan. It ranked third in the United States and the United Kingdom, and fourth in Russia.

It is not easy for a work depicting heavy and dark themes provocatively to gain this level of popularity. Since Train to Busan, Director Yeon has lowered the entry barrier and posed profound questions. He creates strong immersion through concise development and clear emotions, then asks whether we live in a rational society. Although the violent and brutal images divide opinions, his skill in weaving disparate elements together is exceptional. He actively combines the conventions of proven genres to deliver dramatic enjoyment. It is inappropriate to dismiss it as merely the thrill of subculture. At this point, it is a new major culture.