Talking with Korean Movie Star Jan Dong-gun

Note: This article orginally appeared in the April 2005 issue of Venice Magazine. It was an odd interview experience, although not unpleasant. Jang Dong-gun was quite nice, but I interviewed him in his hotel suite surrounded by approximately 8 of his entourage and handlers. None of them spoke other than he. None were introduced to me. They were just in the room when I got there. Some of them sat behind me. Some of them around him. Men and women. They all listened to every word he said. And then it was over and I quickly left.
Acting Typhoon Jang Dong-gun
by Terry Keefe

It's been the Spring of Jang Dong-gun these past few months in the United States, in which the South Korean movie star has seen two of his most spectacular cinematic works released here in rapid succession. A leading man for years now in his home country, the actor is finally in the middle of an arrival of sorts on these shores. The month of May saw the long-awaited opening of The Promise, in which Jang Dong-gun starred as the slave Kunlun in director Chen Kaige's martial arts epic, and this month brings the ominous approach of Typhoon, a big-budget action thriller which has the distinction of being the most expensive Korean film ever produced.

Directed by leading Korean director Kwak Kyung-taek, who Jang Dong-gun worked with previously in 2001 on Friend, Typhoon revolves around a grand terrorist scheme by Jang Dong-gun's Sin, a North Korean who, along with his family, was refused entry as a child into South Korea. Subsequently, his family were executed by the North Koreans, while Sin escaped into the country with his sister Choi Myung-ju (Lee Mi-yeon), who he was nonetheless quickly separated from. Filled with unquenchable rage, the now-adult Sin wishes to inflict utter destruction upon both Koreas by combining the devastating power of an approaching typhoon with that of biological warfare. The only one who stands between Sin and the loss of the North and South is Kang Se-jong (Lee Jung-jae), an elite naval lieutenant. If this sounds like the plot of the latest Jerry Bruckheimer spectacular, it could be, and it also looks the part, climaxing in a spectacular battle on board a freighter out in the middle of the storm. Typhoon is a big-budget Korean action spectacular that rivals the production values of similar Hollywood product, although its scale was a serious financial roll of the dice for the filmmakers. Explains Jang Dong-gun, " In general, the action movies in Korea cost a little more than the melodramas or romantic comedies. But this film, I can honestly say, cost 5 times that of a melodrama." However, the film with a huge budget also became a massive hit, raising the next question of whether the rest of the Korean film industry is going to have to start spending a lot more to compete with the likes of Typhoon. It's a concern shared by Jang Dong-gun, who says, "I personally support making this type of big-budget film, just as long as the smaller indie films also will have a chance to be seen. I really believe personally in maintaining our diversity in filmmaking. At the same time, Korea is the only Asian country which can produce this kind of big-budget film with domestic funding."

The role of Sin was a linguistically challenging one for Jang Dong-gun, as he had to also learn Russian and Thai for the role, as well as speak with a North Korean dialect. Comparably difficult was his work on the Chinese production of The Promise, where he had to do his entire performance in Mandarin. Says Jang Dong-gun of his experience on The Promise, in which he starred opposite both Chinese and Japanese actors, "It was my first time working in an arrangement with multinational casting. So I was very afraid before it started, but once the shooting began, I realized that most filmmaking environments are really quite similar, regardless of your nationality or cultural differences. And I found that things were more similar than they were different. I also realized that sharing feelings and emotions is more important than language itself when you act with a multinational cast. Plus, we were there to achieve the same goals and that made us become one."