In the Korean drama “The Family Table” from director Lee Hanju, a mild-mannered father who always keeps the peace takes over the system after his young daughter is bullied at school.
The project is part of the Asian Project Market operating under the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market (ACFM).
When 42-year-old Gyu-seong and his wife, 43-year-old Seon-gyeong, learn that their 12-year-old daughter Ji-woo is the target of sexually inappropriate comments at school, they begin to build an extraordinary life with their two children. The school forgoes procedure to keep the incidents secret, and the school violence review committee wraps up the case before it can make a definitive finding. Gyu-seong takes legal action. As the fight drags on, money worries and the scrutiny of those around them weaken the family’s income and ties. Later, secrets are revealed about 12-year-old Chan-yeong, whom the family sees only as a criminal, and the case ends. Gyu-seong begins to wonder whether he is truly fighting for his daughter or taking stock of a life of swallowed resentments.
Lee says the film emerges from the small and major injustices people endure every day to avoid fighting. It started with two questions. “What does it really mean to live as a ‘good person’? So what happens when someone who has always given in to others and avoided confrontation finally speaks up for something they can’t afford to lose?” Lee says.
Lee wants viewers to keep asking themselves what to do instead of walking away with one answer. “Someone who is harmed in one relationship can cause harm in another. An action taken in the name of justice can, at some point, inflict another wound on someone we love,” says Lee. The goal was to avoid splitting the characters into heroes and villains and to spend enough time with them to understand why they chose them that way.
The first draft has been completed and the script is being developed further. Although the story draws from Korean society, Lee believes the isolation of a family under institutional pressure and public scrutiny could spark interest elsewhere, and the team is open to international co-productions or even taking the story outside of Korea.
Producer Kang Jeongwon was impressed by the film’s central contradiction, that the struggle to protect a family can turn his daily life upside down. “The question that came to my mind was: Why does it cost so much to do the right thing?” Kang says. Kang also points out that the family drama is paired with a mystery that forces viewers to rethink both the characters and their own decisions.
At APM, the team is looking for co-production partners with experience in character-driven films that tackle social issues, sales representatives to discuss territories, festival positioning and distribution, and investors to help create a financing structure appropriate for the scale of the film. The goal is to lay the groundwork to start production in the second half of 2027.
Lee is also producing “Shoot-Off,” a sports mystery about competitive shooting that follows two female athletes, each nursing their own injuries and whose rivalry becomes entangled with pain and compassion. The cast and crew are on board and pre-production is underway; Filming will begin in December 2026 and the film is expected to be completed in mid-2027.