Chapter 51
At my question, Han Hye-joo's eyes quickly wavered, as if she had been caught off guard.
“What are you talking about? What did I do?!”
“Are you really asking because you don't know? If something bad happened between the two of you in the past...”
“Nothing like that happened. So don't go around saying weird things for no reason. You already have a pretty harsh image as it is.”
Han Hye-joo quickly finished speaking and seemed to walk away as if trying to escape.
But then she suddenly stopped.
“But do you know something? You didn't even tell me to do well in the audition.”
At the hurt look in Han Hye-joo's eyes, I was taken aback.
What was that look...?
“I, well, that...”
Just as I was about to speak, Han Hye-joo suddenly turned around and walked straight out of the office.
What... What was that about?
If she just leaves like that... she's only making me feel guilty for no reason...
Seriously, this woman is impossible to understand...
Even afterward, the look Han Hye-joo had given me that day kept coming back to my mind from time to time.
For a while, I couldn't feel at ease.
“Welcome. We met once at an awards ceremony before. I don't know if you remember. Bo-young, you were very young back then.”
“Ah, I remember. You were together with Teacher Jo Soo-young, who played my father, right?”
“That's right. You have a good memory. Haha.”
Director Park Jun-beom brought up their old memories as he greeted Gil Bo-young, seemingly trying to ease her nerves.
“By the way, you hadn't done any projects for several years, so I wondered what was going on. Are you finally starting to work again?”
“I've already been working. Earlier this year, I appeared in Director Song Jae-beom's independent feature film.”
Producer Baek Seong-han answered first in response to the cinematographer's question.
“Oh, really?”
“Then you must know Hyun-bin, who was cast as the Crown Prince, quite well?”
At Min Sung-jae's question, Gil Bo-young smiled and replied.
“Yes. Hyun-bin oppa and I were already close before working on the project.”
“Good. If you've worked together once, the second time should be easier. All right, shall we begin?”
This time, without anyone asking him to, Min Sung-jae stood up first and walked over to Gil Bo-young.
“Her build is almost the same as Han Hye-joo's, isn't it?”
The cinematographer said while watching Min Sung-jae and Gil Bo-young on the monitor.
“Bo-young, when you're ready, look at my eyes and give me a signal.”
At Min Sung-jae's gentle words, Gil Bo-young nodded.
“Yes. Thank you, senior.”
After taking a short breath, Gil Bo-young closed her eyes as if she were trying to concentrate.
Then she opened them again.
A strange light appeared in her eyes.
The moment Min Sung-jae realized it was her signal, he began acting.
“It is not that my heart has grown cold. It's simply that the times are chaotic... You know as well as I do that there is nothing I can do as I please right now.”
Once again, Min Sung-jae's deep voice filled the conference room.
Soon, Gil Bo-young looked at him with worried eyes.
“At first, I thought the same thing... Until I saw the way Your Majesty looked at that man...”
Her tone was completely different from the one Han Hye-joo had used earlier.
Han Hye-joo's acting had felt more like the anger of a wife whose husband was looking at another person.
But Gil Bo-young was different.
There was anger in her performance as well, but more than that, there was concern.
It felt as though she was worried that her husband would become involved in something dangerous because of what had happened.
“Your Majesty... This cannot be. How could you... How could you look at a man with such eyes...?”
“What are you talking about? How could I possibly look at a man like that...?”
At that moment, Gil Bo-young suddenly grabbed Min Sung-jae's hand and held it against her chest.
Then she looked at Min Sung-jae—or rather, the king he was playing—with a sorrowful expression.
“You may deceive Heaven, but you cannot deceive me... Even if Your Majesty embraced every woman in Joseon, I would not stop you... I would not be jealous... But... a man... No, that man is absolutely unacceptable...”
There was a strange, heartbreaking emotion in every single line.
Then, as soon as Gil Bo-young finished speaking, tears suddenly fell from her eyes.
For a moment, the atmosphere in the conference room became heavy.
The cinematographer and Baek Seong-han looked shocked, while Director Park Jun-beom stared at her in admiration, unable to close his mouth.
“Wait, are those really the same lines? How can the exact same dialogue produce completely different acting from Han Hye-joo's?”
The cinematographer whispered to Director Park as if he couldn't believe it.
Director Park remained silent for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.
Then he spoke.
“Bo-young, I have a question. The script clearly says the character is consumed by anger, so why did you shed tears during the final line?”
After thinking for a moment, Gil Bo-young answered.
“Well... I haven't read the entire script yet, but according to the character description, this woman eventually takes an arrow meant for the king and dies.”
“Of course, there could be many different circumstances, but I think that even though this woman's love has become distorted into desire, love is still love in the end.”
“That means I thought she would have concern for him along with her anger.”
“In the end, I felt that her words weren't simply about jealousy. In a way, they could also be an expression of her love for the king, her loyalty to him, or something like that.”
“So I think tears came to my eyes at the end without me even realizing it.”
At Gil Bo-young's answer, Director Park simply nodded quietly without saying whether he agreed or disagreed.
“The planning team?”
The day after the auditions, I was summoned by CEO Han Tae-sung and hurried to the CEO's office.
When I met Han Tae-sung there, he explained that after everything that had happened with Choi Moon-ho, he had thought things over and reached a conclusion.
He wanted to separate the production team from the planning team and create a separate team dedicated solely to planning.
“What do you think?”
I found it strange that he was asking someone like me, an accountant in the production department, about such an important matter.
Still, I answered as best I could.
“I'm in favor of it. Korean films are now establishing themselves as a full-fledged industry, and as that happens, I think planning capabilities will become much more important than they are now.”
The general view in the film industry was that Korean cinema began establishing itself as a proper industry in the early 2000s, especially around 2003.
The reason was that following the release of Shiri in 1999, movies such as Joint Security Area JSA, Friend, Memories of Murder, and Taegukgi became major hits.
The scale and system of the Korean film industry grew rapidly, demonstrating its potential as an actual industry.
Of course, there were several other reasons for this growth.
One was the screen quota system, which Korean filmmakers had fought fiercely to preserve, even going as far as shaving their heads in protest.
Around the same time, major corporations such as C Company, S Company, and L Company began directly investing capital in film production, distribution, and theaters.
This helped turn film production into a more systematic industry.
The emergence and spread of multiplex theaters also led to an explosive increase in the number of moviegoers.
As a result, the era of films reaching ten million viewers began.
“From now on, planning in the film industry won't simply mean discovering good scripts. It will also require understanding market trends, identifying what the public wants, and predicting future trends. That's why I think the capabilities of the planning team will become even more important.”
Han Tae-sung looked at me with satisfaction.
“As expected, you have an accurate eye not only for analyzing movies but also for analyzing the times we live in.”
“No, you're giving me too much credit.”
“You don't have to be so modest. I've been thinking along similar lines myself. That's why I'm planning to divide the production team and the planning team this time.”
Instead of answering, I nodded.
“That's why I'm asking. Would you consider working on the planning team? I'd like to formally offer you a position on the planning team.”
I was caught completely off guard by the sudden proposal and didn't know how to answer.
“I've already confirmed several times that you have an exceptional eye for choosing projects and a remarkable sense for analyzing them. But after what happened with Choi Moon-ho, there was something else about you that surprised me...”
Something about me that surprised him?
He seemed to take a moment to catch his breath before continuing.
“You... seem to have an extraordinary talent for setting up the board.”
“Setting up the board is the most important and fundamental element of planning.”
Han Tae-sung said that during the Choi Moon-ho incident, he had been impressed by the way I strategically handled unexpected situations.
“When you wanted to cast Min Sung-jae, and when you proposed that we fully finance this movie ourselves, the way you persuaded me and everyone else...”
“Your ability to mediate conflicts and ease tension...”
“And when you needed to take a risk, you had the courage and extraordinary boldness to enjoy taking that risk...”
“You're a born planner.”
A born planner...
Someone who sets up the board...
For some reason, something hot seemed to surge inside my chest.
“Thank you for such an excessive compliment and such an incredible offer. But as you know, I'm currently participating in Director Park's movie as part of the production department...”
“Would it be possible for me to join the planning team after I finish this movie?”
“Of course you want to finish the project you've already joined. In a way, this project is also a board you set up yourself, isn't it? Haha.”
“But the thing is... I wish I could give you more time, but I don't have that luxury right now.”
He doesn't have the luxury? What does that mean?
I blinked in confusion, and Han Tae-sung smiled at me.
“Because money is coming in right now.”
Money is coming in?
Han Tae-sung's explanation was as follows.
After Min Sung-jae was cast, investment companies began rushing to offer money to invest in the movie.
However, we had already publicly declared that this project would be produced with one hundred percent of its financing coming from our own company.
So we had been rejecting all those offers.
But then an investment proposal came from overseas.
“An overseas investment?”
“Yes. It's not an investment in this movie, but in your next project.”
“Whether it's one film or two, the number doesn't matter. They're offering 15 billion won.”
“But there's one condition. The project has to be completed by the second half of next year.”
The amount itself was surprising.
But what made me even more suspicious was that they were willing to invest 15 billion won without even asking what kind of movie we planned to make.
The Korean film market was still struggling to meet domestic demand.
And now foreign investment capital was suddenly entering the market?
There was no way this was ordinary investment capital.
Wait... if that's the case, then could it be...?
I had heard rumors before that Japanese capital—in other words, money connected to the Japanese yakuza—had been flowing into Korea's management and entertainment industry since the early 1990s.
Then, as the 2000s began, rumors spread that capital connected to Chinese triads was also entering the Korean entertainment industry.
I looked at CEO Han Tae-sung with a serious expression.
“Could this so-called overseas investment... be money coming from places like the yakuza or the triads?”
