Kim Eunha led us to an expensive Western restaurant near the preview venue.
As soon as we sat down, she opened the menu in front of us and said proudly,
“Order anything you want.”
Jun-seong and I each chose a dish, and fired up, she turned to the waiter.
“Cream pasta.”
“Aglio e olio for me.”
After listening the waiter nodded, while she pointed at the menu and ran down the items.
“One seafood jambalaya, a spicy crab-meat risotto, a cream risotto, and…”
At the sudden flood, the waiter whipped out his pad and jotted everything.
She paused mid-order, looked at us, and asked, “Only one dish each? I’m treating, so don’t hold back. Shall we get wine too?”
“Just one for me. Cream pasta’s enough.”
“Same here.”
“Koreans run on rice. You can’t live on noodles alone; you need rice too.”
The waiter clenched a fist, as though stifling laughter.
“You’re paying, so don’t mind us—just order whatever you want.”
“Okay!”
Beaming, she pointed at several more dishes and ordered them all.
The waiter wrote furiously, confirmed the list, and brought the wine first.
“Congrats, Kim Eunha. A proper debut at last.”
“Thanks to you two. Shall we toast? You clink with wine, right?”
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want today.”
Junseong raised his glass first.
“A toast line?”
“Uh… to the success of Memory of Murder!”
“Cheers!”
Clink.
The lively ring of glasses filled the air.
A pleasantly bitter taste lingered on my tongue, and the wine’s delicate scent wrapped my nose.
“Ah… delicious.”
Kim Eunha drained her glass at once and giggled.
Junseong laughed loudly.
“Hey, is that soju? Who chugs wine like that?”
“That’s cultural cringe. You sip wine because it’s classy and slam soju because it’s low-class?”
“…” Jun-seong just shook his head.
Ignoring him, she refilled her glass and said to me, “I hear you’re planning a new film already. What is it this time?”
“Taking down chaebols, I guess? Nothing solid yet.”
“Chaebols? Is Lee Junseong the villain?”
“Me, a villain? Where would you find anyone nicer?”
“Closer to villain,” she laughed.
Pouting playfully, he said, “You thanked me on stage, remember?”
“Should I have bad-mouthed the CEO up there?”
“Well, no…”
After pondering he raised his glass, hand trembling theatrically, mimicking her at the screening.
“I sincerely thank CEO Lee Junseong and CEO Gyeong Chanhyeon of Seonghyeon Pictures.”
His act made me burst out laughing; she half-laughed, half-grumbled, “When did I shake that much?”
“Your lip was twitching. You know I’ll hit you if you laugh?”
Unable to hold it in, she laughed hard at his still-trembling hand.
“Nice!”
Only after the laughter did the food arrive. With plate after plate coming, Jun-seong and I gaped, while she gazed at the dishes like a lover.
“Anything else?”
“Ah, another bottle of this wine, please.”
“Oh… yes!”
The waiter looked startled at the empty bottle before any food was eaten.
“Let’s eat!”
“Can you finish this? Have you been fasting?”
“Yeah, afraid my clothes would burst.”
“You’re crazy.”
Ignoring him, she shoveled risotto in and grinned.
“This is crazy… cheers! Good food and good drink, that’s life.”
“Good grief…”
For a while we bowed over our plates and just ate.
Once full, Junseong spoke.
“Hey, you know Kwak Yeonji?”
“Of course—she’s a junior. Why?”
“He met her recently.”
“With her? Privately?”
Holding another big spoonful, she blinked at me.
“Yeah. She asked Seunghun hyung. Were you close with her?”
“We barely talked.”
When we entered the army, she entered school, so neither of us remembered her freshman year.
“She was a child actor. Famous before enrollment; lots wanted to befriend her, yet she walked alone.”
“Alone? With so many fans?”
“Hmm… maybe she had a group at first, then alone? Not sure.”
Resting her chin, she seemed to replay the past.
“It’s over five years ago. I hardly remember; I was busy just staying alive.”
She wore a wistful look, then pushed the waiting risotto into her mouth and smiled brightly, swaying as she savored it.
“Strange, though. Yeonji out of the blue. She doesn’t seem to be getting roles lately.”
“Because she can’t act.”
“She really can’t… they say ‘sprinkle Kwak Yeonji on a finished film.’”
Kim Eunha added Junseong’s phrase, nodding as she quoted a film-world proverb:“‘Sprinkling Kwak Yeon-ji on a film that is already done.’”
Regrettable, yet widespread.
I think it wrong, but once a rumor spreads, truth no longer matters; people take its spread as proof.
Blame gets pinned on whoever looks weakest.
In my previous life they blamed Blue Moon on me; in this one they blamed Country Girl Goes to the City! on Kim Eunha.
Was a flop really all Yeonji’s fault?
No, those eager to dump blame just handed it to the easiest target.
While I frowned in thought, she asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Just random thoughts.”
As I answered, Junseong reached for her risotto; she blocked him.
“Didn’t I tell you to order your own?”
“You were eating it so deliciously… just one bite.”
“No.”
She cut him off, then asked me again, curious,
“In your film, who brings down the chaebol? Got the protagonist’s job?”
“Thinking journalist.”
“Huh? Not a cop?”
“I want it distinctive. Not a straight procedural. Lead’s a reporter, helper’s a cop. That vibe.”
“Oh… fresh. A journalist taking down a chaebol. Show me the script when it’s done.”
A few days later.
Kim Eunha’s film opened.
It sparked heated debate on filmmakers’ forums.
[Still the director of Country Girl Goes to the City!. Anyone expecting from that needs to taste crap to know it’s crap.]
┗Produced by Seonghyeon Pictures, and that film had plenty of issues. They say Kim Eunha did nothing.
┗That just proves she’s sub-par. Doing nothing isn’t brag-worthy. She should be ashamed.
┗I just watched it, and it was really good though?
I only meant to glance, but their exchange was so entertaining I stared, transfixed; Junseong silently watched with me.
[During production there was a huge power struggle, but someone called ㅂㅈㅅ came and sorted it out. A director working with ㄱㅊㅎ, known as a thug.]
┗Gyeong Chanhyeon? Too obvious; just write the name.
Most trashing her hadn’t even seen it, and some who had returned to repent.
[Sorry, just watched it—had to taste crap to judge. It’s fun. Definitely a different director.]
┗Interview says Gyeong Chanhyeon helped a lot. He’s the hope of Korean cinema. Thinking of the Daedong Festival ticks me off again. OTL.
“Already… looks like a big hit,” Junseong said, excited by the heated thread on day one.
“Good. Did you call Kim Eunha?”
“Yeah. She was bawling. Should I go see her?”
“If you’ve nothing else, go. I need to work.”
“Hmm, who knows where she’ll bounce… I’ll head out first then.”
Gathering his coat, he left.
Memory of Murder seemed set for success; I could stop worrying and focus on my own film.
“Journalist, reporter… whew.”
Dinner conversation replayed in my head.
A journalist lead could make a film compelling…
Lots of movies star reporters: the righteous truth-diggers in Spotlight and The Post, the archetypal trash reporter in Nightcrawler, and the rare righteous Korean journalist in Moby Dick.
Some characters are clichéd, others unique.
Jake Gyllenhaal’s money-mad reporter in Nightcrawler left a deep impression.
I assembled and dismantled those films in my mind, shaping a skeleton for the next projects.
“Picaresque1…?”
Korean audiences don’t fully immerse in righteous reporters.
For that you’d need a military-regime backdrop where journalists risk their lives for truth, like in 1987.
No one complains that film’s reporters break immersion, because there really were many then; now is different.
Starting from these thoughts, good ideas began to pop into my head
- (adj.) relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero. ↩︎
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