Jung Woo-sung: "'Seoul's Spring,' Initially Rejected Due to Character Similarity... Lee Tae-shin Had to Be 'Calm Water'" [Interview]

“At first, the director thought of a clash of fire against fire, but gradually he changed his mind to ‘this should be a fight between fire and water.’ After hearing that, I tried to express Lee Tae-shin’s more calm and cautious attitude.”

Actor Jung Woo-sung. [Photo by Plus M Entertainment]

In the film Seoul Spring, actor Jung Woo-sung stands upright in the middle of Gwanghwamun Square as General Lee Tae-shin, who maintains stillness amid movement for nine hours on the hectic night of December 12, 1979. While most characters in the film can be immediately identified by a one-letter difference from real historical figures, Lee Tae-shin is given a completely different name, personality, and character despite having a clear real-life counterpart, serving as the only device that proves this narrative is dramatized. For this reason, it seems only natural that Jung Woo-sung, the director Kim Sung-soo’s persona, plays Lee Tae-shin, who fully embodies the director’s thoughts, wishes, hopes, and assumptions.

“At first, I declined the casting offer for Seoul Spring. Both Kim Jung-do from Hunt, which I had just finished filming, and Lee Tae-shin from Seoul Spring stand on opposite ends of a character spectrum, and I was worried that the external similarity in their opposing roles might become a barrier for the audience to accept Lee Tae-shin’s character. But as soon as the director heard my concerns, he threatened me saying, ‘Really? Then I’ll just scrap the project.’ (laughs)”

Actor Jung Woo-sung. [Photo by Plus M Entertainment]

At the time of the actual event, General Jang Tae-wan, the Capital Security Command commander, was known for his fiery temper and is well known to the public for the line “Hey, you rebel bastard” from the MBC drama The Fifth Republic. Director Kim initially envisioned a ‘fire versus fire’ confrontation based on historical facts between real figures, but soon shifted his focus to portraying a ‘fire versus water’ battle. When the scope of character interpretation broadened like this, Jung Woo-sung said he actually tried to avoid assigning any particular meaning.

“I didn’t want any specific meaning to be conveyed through Lee Tae-shin. Once you assign meaning, the character starts chasing that meaning. Each of us might have a Jeon Du-kwang, or indecisive generals at the Army Headquarters, or someone like Lee Tae-shin who is faithful to his duties. If the audience watches Seoul Spring and ends up supporting and empathizing with Lee Tae-shin, perhaps it means they have discovered some resonant emotion within themselves through that character.”

German historian Leopold von Ranke argued that history is composed by synthesizing individual freedom and collective necessity, and that historians must reveal ‘how things actually were.’ In Seoul Spring, director Kim Sung-soo places the fictional character Lee Tae-shin in the position of historical inevitability, while expressing how things actually were through Jeon Du-kwang, narrating the December 12 military coup from his own perspective. Usually, assumptions start from hopeful imaginations that want to overturn results one does not want to accept, but in Seoul Spring, they are used to weave facts more concretely. Director Kim’s hope, projected onto a figure who fulfilled his duty at the time while maintaining historical outcomes, is therefore even more despairing.

Still from the movie 'Seoul's Spring'.
[Photo by Plus M Entertainment]

“Lee Tae-shin continuously feels frustrated and cornered, but he keeps reflecting inwardly to avoid expressing those emotions emotionally. Even in such circumstances, not being swayed by emotions until the end?that was how I thought Lee Tae-shin could be completed.”

On the actual night of December 12, no one stood in Gwanghwamun. Lee Tae-shin’s struggle in the film is a consolation and self-reproach for the despair someone must have felt that night, which ended in futility, and for the harsh times that followed.

At the center of this grand rhapsody where assumptions and facts are intertwined, Jung Woo-sung credited all the achievements, including the work’s completeness woven like history, to the director.

“This was a project possible because of an outstanding orchestra conductor named Kim Sung-soo. With so many actors appearing, if even one did not fit the tone and manner of the film’s worldview, it couldn’t have been a good symphony. Having many actors also means many risks, but the director clearly worked hard to observe, find common ground, and capture moments to make all those actors into figures who were actually there in 1979. Seoul Spring is a work where the actors’ tone and manner harmonize well, and in that sense, director Kim Sung-soo is an amazing person.”