Jang Dong-Gun Talks 태풍 (Typhoon)

Lee Myung-Se's 인정사정 볼 것 없다 (Nowhere To Hide) managed something incredible, other than its often praised visual luster and great rhythm: it actually made Jang Dong-Gun, and even better, Choi Ji-Woo look like good actors. Shock! But while Choi is still inundating her career with dumb & dumber Drama Queen and 'damsel in distress' roles, Jang started building his career as a serious actor. And his choices improved: 아나키스트 (Anarchists) -- written by Park Chan-Wook, amongst others -- might not be a great film, but it had great pathos and was affecting, and 2000's sole TV appearance for Jang was in the memorable 이브의 모든 것 (All About Eve). Not memorable because it was particularly good (although it's a guilty pleasure of mine), but because it features one of the most striking 'bad girl' performances of all time, by Kim So-Yeon. So things were finally improving for Jang, who wasted the second part of the 90s with silly Dramas and films. And when a stylishly shot cigarette fell on the street near a now famous room salon in Busan, the name Jang Dong-Gun was on the mouth of just about every Korean. Enter 친구 (Friend).

Kwak Kyung-Taek's gangster drama did not only rewrite the box office history of Korean Cinema, but catapulted Jang into a new level of stardom. It culminated into a little film called 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi), which sold over 11 Million tickets, and made the world acknowledge Jang was becoming one of the major stars in the entire Asian continent. Chen Kaige cast him in 無極 (The Promise), and his latest film -- again by Kwak Kyung-Taek -- 태풍 (Typhoon) has serious potential to break all possible records. Jang was recently interviewed by nKino, ahead of the December 14 release of 'Typhoon'. Here's a few highlights:

Many people are saying your character in 'Typhoon' is an extension of your powerful roles in 해안선 (The Coast Guard) and 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi). Did you feel any pressure about portraying three similar characters in a row, and the way your image and acceptance adapted according to that?
Jang Dong-Gun: It's not that I didn't think about it, but Shin was one of those characters you couldn't just turn down because it gave a simple first impression. So more than trying to develop some differences compared to my past roles, I tried to gather together all the things I couldn't do back then, and present them with this character, making a sort of ultimate version of all my past roles.

The name Jang Dong-Gun has always been synonym with the symbol of 미남 배우 (Handsome Actor). But it seems you've been trying to distance yourself from that label in this film, by losing weight and 'roughing' yourself up, enough to lose that stereotype.
Jang: Since Shin is a pirate, and I had to show the traces and nuances of such a lifestyle, I didn't think muscularity was necessary. From the director's point of view, since Shin had to feel different from Kang Se-Jong, the 'muscular' concept was used for Lee Jung-Jae instead (laughs). Kwak told me not to do anything which would build body strength and muscles, while losing weight. I didn't think of how many Kilos I had to lose, but just the fastest and most effective way to lose weight. But as I started doing it, a desire to do even more emerged, so I could do interviews later and say I lost 10 Kilos, just like Seol Kyung-Gu. But there were some physical limitations that I quickly felt, so it wasn't possible. I had symptoms of anemia, so I called Kyung-Gu, saying: "Did it happen to you, too?", and he went: "Hey... if your anemia gets serious, you'll faint!" (laughs). Personally I had the desire of showing a different side of me, because it was my first film since 'Taegukgi', and I wanted to hide for a while and shock everyone with my new image. But because of other endeavors (publicity, TV) and all the exposure I had recently, things didn't go my way.

We'll let foreign languages slide since we're not used to them, but having to use North Korean dialect must have felt awkward and difficult when acting.
Jang: That's right. I really thought the dialect could feel awkward. I also couldn't get all the nuances or intonation right for the Thai speaking parts, so those scenes might feel a bit disconnected with Shin's character. At least for the Russian speaking parts, it more or less comes through (laughs), but Thai didn't work, so we had it really hard. Pronunciation just needed practice, but It really was difficult just getting to grips with the basics of Thai, enough to help the character. But the hardest of them all was the Hamgyung Province dialect [Hamkyung Province is a region in North-Eastern North Korea, and the dialect is quite different from the North Korean you might be used to in Korean films]. Thai is something I wasn't acquainted with, so all I needed was practice, but when it came to the North Korean dialect, my ears were loosely familiar with those dialects, so it was even more difficult to get it right. And on top of that, the real Hamkyung dialect was really different from the North Korean Dialects we're used to, so I often got the temptation to use the kind of Northern dialect my ears were acquainted with. I worked extremely hard to get it right, even though I often got the desire to let it flow and speak as my ears were tempting me.

This is your second film with director Kwak Kyung-Taek. What did he ask from you?
Jang: I worked with him in 'Friend'. Personally, according to the kind of director I meet, if my abilities are 100, I might only show him 50-60, or work hard to reach 120-150 for other directors. If you look at Kwak's previous works, there's films that succeeded and those that failed commercially, but I think as far as portraying defining traits of male characters, he always got it right. Finding the right character that can take advantage of an actor's strengths is an important talent to have for a director, and I think Kwak is great at that. That's the reason why I trusted him and decided to work again with him, even before the script was completed. Now that we've worked together twice, there's still difficult points. I'm not the type of actor who gets the OK sign easily. It might be because the director was used to it, but there were some similarities between what I did here and in 'Friend'. It was difficult, but I think the finished product was quite satisfactory.

It feels like you're persistently trying to improve yourself as an actor.
Jang: There's a lot of strings attached to this line of work. Things like money, fame, the roads that open being a Korean Wave star. But I've always been someone who, when asked to choose one between all those 'strings', chose what didn't betray the essence of acting itself. In other words, actors are people who are judged based on what they do on screen. That's something I always keep in mind when I make my choices.

Via nKino