[Here is KAN] Kang Dong-won "Feeling a sense of duty for overseas expansion, high interest in Korean projects" [Interview]

75th Cannes Film Festival
Actor Kang Dong-won Met at Cannes
First Red Carpet, Embarrassed by Continuous Applause
Ambitions for Activities with US Agency CAA

[Cannes (France) = Asia Economy Reporter Lee Isul] "I was happy to come to the film festival with my comrades, but it was an honor to receive a standing ovation at the Lumi?re Theater, which I had only heard about. I was grateful. But when they kept clapping awkwardly, I asked the actors, 'When are we leaving?' when the cameras weren't on us. (laughs)"

Actor Kang Dong-won, whom we met in Cannes, France, was invited to the Cannes Film Festival as an actor and was asked about his first impression of meeting the audience at the Lumi?re Theater. He answered like this. When asked about the red carpet before the screening, he laughed and said, "It was delayed, so we were kept outside for 20 minutes, and it was hot. We kept asking, 'When are we going in?'"

He is truly a humble 'Chamchi Oppa' (Tuna Oppa). He responds to questions about his feelings on being invited to the Cannes Film Festival with cool jokes and a hearty laugh. Kang Dong-won played Dong-soo, an employee of a baby box facility from an orphanage and a baby broker, in the film "Broker" (director Hirokazu Kore-eda), which was invited to compete at the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Kang Dong-won's film "Peninsula" could not attend Cannes because the 2020 Cannes Film Festival only selected invited works due to the pandemic. He expressed his regret for not being able to visit Cannes at that time through "Broker."

The connection with director Hirokazu Kore-eda began through interviews with domestic media. Director Kore-eda expressed his desire to work with Kang Dong-won, and upon seeing this, Kang immediately flew to Japan.

"After seeing the interview, I flew straight to Japan to meet the director. He said it would be nice to talk if there was something we could work on together, and that turned out to be 'Broker.' When there was no synopsis yet, we agreed to work together verbally, but later I received the synopsis and liked it. Even though Korean and Japanese cultures are different, emotionally there are similar points, so we kept discussing those stories. During that process, he also won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. I was delayed because I was abroad continuously, and eventually, we filmed last year."

When asked about working with director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kang Dong-won laughed and said, "There is a storyboard, but he changes a lot in the morning." He added, "The director doesn't watch the monitor much and stays close to the camera. At first, I was surprised."

Kang Dong-won said he wanted to take two keywords to express Dong-soo. He said, "I heard from orphanage directors and staff that children want to be adopted. I thought maybe children would want to live together, but that was not the case. When a car enters the orphanage, they think, 'Maybe they came to pick me up.' As they grow older, they realize, 'I can't get out of here.' I wanted to express that feeling as much as possible."

"I ate and drank with a priest who was from an orphanage and talked. I gathered courage and asked, 'Can I ask you one thing? Do you not want to see your mother anymore?' He said that as he got older, he no longer had that feeling. The emotion disappeared. But he said he wanted to see his mother just once before he died. I wanted to express those two emotions. If it brings even a little comfort, I hope the audience can understand their feelings a little."

Kang Dong-won said he took care of the children on set during filming. Since Dong-soo takes care of children in the film, it was a natural thing, he explained.

"Woosung is a baby, so if you make him comfortable, he stays still, but 8-year-old Haejin needed to be played with. I hoped that Haejin would be happy and have good memories by the end of the film. Having worked a lot with child actors, if adults are uncomfortable, the acting becomes stiff. So I did my best to play enough so that I could play while acting."

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

In March, Kang Dong-won signed a contract with CAA (Creative Artists Agency), one of the top three agencies in the United States, and is preparing for overseas activities. He said, "I always had a kind of mission to go abroad, and director Hirokazu Kore-eda felt the same."

He added, "There are more stories that can be told that way, and the filming environment will improve. Adding infrastructure and such. So I think I have to go abroad."

"I was working with CAA after signing the contract, but I had been having meetings even before that. Everyone is very interested in Korean projects. They want to do something together. It's very different from before. In the past, they asked, 'What do you want to do?' but now it's more like, 'Is there something we can do together?' For now, the agent's recommendation is very important. Since it's an unfamiliar market, it's important to listen carefully to the experts."

Cannes (France) = Reporter Lee Isul