After Story 255

When he first received an email invitation for the press premiere, he thought nothing of it. While he liked both historical and action genres, the combination of both sounded very fishy.

It was probably because of the seven terrible action movies and three poor-at-best historical movies he watched last year.

If he had an appointment that day, no, had he been feeling slightly tired that day, he would not have participated in the press premiere.

He was strangely feeling good that day and the weather was good as well. Thanks to that, he decided to attend and watch the film.

After the film finished, Choi Taehoon refused his acquaintance’s suggestion to eat out together and rushed straight to a café. It was a non-franchise café he always visited whenever he wrote a column for a magazine. As it was a space related to work, he rarely came to this place, but there was a reason behind why he came here today.

His fingers were itching. The desire to write pervaded his entire body.

He opened his laptop and opened a word processor. He looked at the blinking cursor for a moment before closing his eyes. He rewound the time to about 3 hours ago, back when he just sat down after talking to some of the journalists he knew at the press premiere.

The motor sounds could be heard from the screen, and the speaker started producing white noise. It was a sign that the movie was about to start.

Loud shouts filled the screen from the get-go and blood scattered everywhere. A group of bandits raided a village. Before the story even started, the whole screen was filled with violence.

That was when Taehoon started becoming curious. This wasn’t the usual style of director Nam Goonghun. The director who focused more on the story than the image was just displaying one image after another in what could be called a bold move.

The background seemed to be the three kingdoms of the Korean peninsula, but nearly all historical facts were thrown out the window. He basically removed everything that might become a hindrance so that all the energy could be focused on the action. Taehoon thought it was a splendid decision.

Even after that, the director showed that the historical theme was only a tool to display the action. If he tried to be historically accurate and tied that into the movie, the plot would’ve become a mess, and the action would’ve lost its power as well.

Taehoon placed his hands on the keyboard and started writing. The unique characteristics of each character, the content of the film, and what remained the most impressive in his memory.

He typed everything he could think of on the piece of blank document. Then, he stopped typing at the word ‘martial art.’

He thought back to another scene in the film. The latest trend in action films was to split each scene into second-long cuts shot by a handheld camera. That way, the screen would be so shaky that it would be hard to follow with the eyes, the background would be dark, and the action would be like a cut from a comic book. Adding the messy sound effects to that, it was hard to tell who was hitting who and who was getting hit.

Although veteran directors used handheld shooting methods in order to bring out a sense of intensity to spice things out, the action films he saw last year were counterfeits that just imitated the method, not the essence. The reason the scenes were split up into less-than-a-second-long cuts was to bring about a sense of rhythm, but some producers were busy focusing on splitting and joining the cuts instead. It felt like looking at an awkwardly built toy, with the leg on the head and the arm where the leg is supposed to be.

Director Nam Goonghun, on the other hand, put down that trend for a moment. It wasn’t that there weren’t any handheld scenes at all, he just minimized the use of it to the point that the handheld scenes were rather memorable. The rest of the action scenes were all shot from a fixed camera angle. The actors all did their combat scenes in one single take. It was a type of production method that old films tended to use.

That was why, however, it was nice to see it. Although the sense of speed would decrease since there are a lot of things happening all at once, the sense of dynamic was multiplied. Not only that, the actors were very precise in carrying out big motions.

It was not the result of a production technique, but the achievements of physical prowess. Taehoon couldn’t help but be impressed by the movie that contained such an insistence on such methods.

Taehoon looked at the word ‘martial art’ right in front of his cursor for a while before erasing it. Then, he wrote it again at the top of the page. Every word below that line combined felt lighter than a single ‘martial art’ term.

Then he went to a web portal. He logged in and went to the ‘movies’ section. He went to the critics' review section that the web portal had provided for him. For now, no one had left behind a review.

Taehoon wrote a one-line review and pressed the confirm button.

-An action title that is not boring. 7/10

* * *

“Everyone, it’s been a week. I’m Lee Minyoung, who will be carrying out the pocha interview today.”

Reporter Lee Minyoung waved her hand at the fans waiting outside the pojang-macha. Maru looked at the people gathered before letting out a deep breath. There were so many people that it looked dangerous.

“Do you see that? Many fans have gathered despite the cold weather. That just goes to show the popularity of the person inside today. Before we meet him, however, I’ll ask a few questions to the fans.”

Minyoung held her mic out to a woman right behind the security guard.

“Hello. You look like a student.”

“Yes! I’m a high school senior who just finished CSATs!”

“Congratulations. Did you do well on the CSATs?”

“No!”

People around laughed at her bold response. The reporter continued,

“What would you say if you had to express the character of the pocha interview today in one phrase?”

“A sexy man?”

“A sexy man, you say?”

“Yes.”

The reporter then held the mic to the person next to her.

“Are you two friends?”

“Yes! And I screwed up my CSATs too! But it’s okay! I can see Maru-oppa!”

The student shouted loudly before creating a heart shape above her head.

Maru, who was waiting at his seat, also raised his hands above his head to create a heart. The students screeched in joy.

“I think I’ll get in trouble if I delay things any further, so I should get to meeting our character of the day. A sexy actor, an actor viewed by ten million people, an actor who always gets questioned when his next drama is going to be. It’s Mr. Han Maru.”

Maru stood up and said hello to the people surrounding the pojang-macha.

“Hello, would you like to introduce yourself?”

He coughed before speaking,

“Hello. Sexy, charming, handsome. I’m actor Han Maru.”

The reporter called for a round of applause. An ear-piercing applause could be heard.

“But isn’t everyone cold out here?” Maru said to the fans.

It’s okay, we’re not cold, hug me… all sorts of responses came back. He smiled and sat down while looking at the fans.

The camera staff told the fans to quieten down. Soon, the noise subsided.

“Mr. Maru. It’s been a long time.”

“It has. It’s been nearly a year, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. I said hello to you last year for a drama, so it’s been almost exactly a year.”

“I really like this program, so I wanted to come, but you never contacted me,” he said as he looked towards the producer.

The producer made an unjustified expression before laughing.

“Just joking. Our schedules didn’t match, so I was only able to come now. Have you been doing well, Miss Minyoung?”

“Well, I’ve been holding on as the main caster for this program. This is my only fixed schedule, so I’ll be in big trouble if I get kicked out.”

The reporter looked at the writer’s hand gesture. They seemed to have predetermined signals as the reporter started asking questions for real.

“Mr. Maru. First of all, congratulations on getting ten million views.”

“Thank you.”

“The responses are amazing. You managed to get ten million views within a month of release, and that’s a record for a historical film.”

“I’m still taken aback even now because it’s receiving a lot of love. It’s become my daily routine to check the news first thing in the morning. I worry it’s an error in the data that produced the ten million figure and wonder if this is a candid camera just for me.”

“A candid camera of this scale sounds like it would require a colossal budget.”

“That’s true.”

He laughed at the reporter’s laughter as well.

“Ten million views. Did you expect that?”

“Not at all. Actually, the director said something like this before the first shoot: I will open a restaurant if I screw this up. It’s true that the genre of historical action had bad responses.”

“But ‘Turbulence’ renewed all previous records and became massively popular. What do you think the secret behind that is?”

“The secret, huh? Maybe my looks?”

That’s not right — said one of the fans who was quietly listening to the interview. She was a young woman who looked mischievous. When everyone’s gaze fell on her, she seemed to feel embarrassed and lowered her head while covering her mouth.

“The lady who just shouted that, it looks like you need a one-on-one talking session with me. You can’t say facts like that outright. Here, shout with me. Han Maru is an actor with a splendid appearance.”

When he said that, many people said that it wasn’t true. Maru’s lips twitched before laughing out loud.

“It looks like it’s not because of my looks. Then the only thing left is a splendid producer, splendid actors, and a splendid production crew.”

“Well, I guess it’s true that there is no bigger secret than everyone doing their job to the fullest.”

“Oh! If I have to mention something outside of the production, then I think a review from one critic was really helpful. He’s known to leave bad reviews and terrible scores, but he gave us a really generous score. I believe that became a huge topic on the internet.”

“The movie was good, so it’s somewhat of a given that the reviews of critics are good as well.” The reporter nodded.

For a while, they exchanged questions and answers about ‘Turbulence,’ before the reporter changed topics.

“I heard that you were invited to a global film festival in Belgium, not for Turbulence, but for another film.”

“Yes. I was invited because of a full-length film that I shot with director Lee Yoonseok.”

“You have things to attend to both domestically and overseas. You must be very busy.”

“I didn’t know it would become like this, so I had a hard time scheduling everything.”

“How is it? Do you think you’ll get anything like what happened in Monte Brè?”

“If I do get an award, it would be an honor and I would be really happy, but honestly, I’m not that confident. That’s why I’m going to be going to Belgium with the mindset that I’m just going there to sightsee. If I have my hopes up and end up not getting anything from the competitive section, I think I’ll be dejected.”

“It sounds like you’re quite greedy for awards.”

“I’m quite greedy for everything actually, not just awards.”

A signal came from the writer again. The reporter flipped over the cue sheet and spoke,

“An appropriate amount of greed can result in better achievements. I’m sure there’ll be good news overseas.”

“Thank you.”

“It’d be great if we can continue talking like this, but there’s something we prepared beforehand. It seems you made a promise before the release of the movie that if Turbulence hits ten million views, you’ll be dancing in the middle of the street without any music.”

As soon as the reporter’s words ended, the fans cheered out loudly.

“It’s something I said in the spur of the moment during a fan meetup…”

“So you’re not going to keep it? Everyone! You know that Mr. Han Maru is not someone like that, right?”

Everyone said ‘yes’ as though they were instructed to do so. Maru pretended to smile awkwardly. Actually, the producer asked him before the show if he could do it.

There was no reason to refuse. It would also be a small gift to the fans who made their time to come here after all.

Since he was doing it, it would be better to do it for real, so he took off the thick padded coat he was wearing. He was good at dancing, terrible?dancing that livened things up during a company get-together.

“I’ll only do this once.”

He smiled awkwardly before shaking his body.

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