Namkoong Sun, the director of Netflix’s Korean romance series “Love Untangled,” said his first commercial film was not much different from his independent films except for the scale when the cameras rolled. He added that freedom comes with weight.
Namkoong was speaking alongside Ryu Eun-jung and Song Kwang-min, the married co-directors of the short “My Aunt,” at “New Voices in Film,” an industry panel organized by the Busan International Film Festival and Netflix as part of Creative Asia.
Namkoong’s first two films, “Ten Months” and “Time to Be Strong”, were independent productions that were released in theaters. He joined “Love Untangled” when the project and script were still ready and in the adaptation stage, and he said that the offer came just when he wanted to find joy again after two films about thorny social issues. A little over a year passed between the opening of the production office and its release.
“When we started production, it was a system where we could only focus on the movie,” Namkoong said. “There could be positives and negatives to that. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if I didn’t take responsibility for that freedom. But because the freedom was there, there were definitely things I could bring to it.”
He said that Netflix staff attended meetings and worked within the team, and that the changes to the script were his own and served what he saw as the film’s theme of happiness. The story is set in 1990s Busan, and with a modest budget for a period piece, the production recreated the under-construction Gwangan Bridge to give the film a sense of place.
His message to young directors was that a director always bears responsibility for the story: “But in a field where creative freedom is guaranteed, I think you have to take that responsibility really seriously.”
Namkoong said that he misses crying and laughing with the audience and actors; It’s a ritual that streaming doesn’t allow. “After it aired on Netflix, people from all over the world were watching it at the same time. Everyone flocked to it on Twitter, Instagram and all kinds of social media, including me, and enjoyed it together,” he said. “Small, sweet romantic movies don’t make up a large portion of Korean audiences. But I was getting messages from people in Brazil and friends in Poland and Colombia saying the movie was popular there.”
He said that although the film was made in Korean and was “essentially just a Busan story, a very local story”, the film reached No. 1 in many countries and remained in the global top 10 for more than six weeks.
Earlier versions had more luck with timing. “Ten Months” was released in the first year of the pandemic, as festivals closed and cinemas opened at half capacity. A press screening of “Time to Be Strong” was held on the day martial law was declared in Korea. “We did all the press, went home excited, and then this happened that night, so our news was lost,” Namkoong said.
“My Aunt” is a 24-minute short film. It’s about a dog walker who takes care of an abandoned dog for a day, and his nephew, whom he raised 10 years ago, turns up on his doorstep. It won three awards at this year’s Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival, where Namkoong served on the jury. It will air on Netflix in Korea through December as part of the platform’s showcase of the festival’s award winners.
Ryu, who also plays the lead role, drew on his own childhood when he was raised by his fifth aunt, who later took in an abandoned dog. She had no plans to star in this film, but since she had worked as an actress before, she took on the role herself and asked her husband Song to co-direct. Song took over as director on set, the duo shared the pre-production storyboard, and Ryu handled post-production. Both recalled that an earlier collaboration involved shouting matches over the phone. This time, they both said they built trust by talking to each other without filters.
Song said that he was initially hesitant about Netflix’s release, considering what cinemas offer in terms of image texture and sound, but he began to see it as a chance. His previous film received responses from around 15 people on a movie rating app. “My Aunt” was watched by 7,000 to 8,000 viewers and had more than 1,000 comments.
Namkoong, who once made his debut in mise-en-scenes himself, described the festival as a launching pad for a new generation of Korean directors. “Unlike the past, these days anyone can upload their movie to YouTube. In fact, you can show it anywhere,” he said. “But what we do is we pick movies and say these are movies that are more like real cinema, movies we want people to see, and we put them on a list somewhere. When those things came together with Netflix, the impact was huge.”
When an audience member asked to name the biggest challenge facing Korean independent filmmakers, three directors responded in turn.
“The challenge then and now in the independent film world was to increase the budget. But more importantly, the biggest challenge is not knowing in advance where a film will go after it is made,” Namkoong said. “Even if a film is screened at a festival, you don’t know whether it will be released or not because of the cost of screening and various other reasons. Somehow we manage to get it made, but there is no infrastructure to show it, no theater infrastructure or anything like that.”
Ryu also said that his main concern for “My Aunt” was the cost. Stating that independent film platforms and interest in it remain limited, he said, “An independent film is a film made independently of capital, so it must be made with the individual creator’s own money.” Song, who always pays for his films himself, said that the biggest obstacle is capital, but he has no other complaints. “Filming is a lot of fun. I loved it.”
All three are currently writing scripts for their next projects. Namkoong said he hopes to make a movie set in modern-day Busan that includes both sides of the city. “This is a city, but also the sea, a tourist spot, and also a place where people live,” he said.