Kim Sung-Soo Talks 야수 (Running Wild)

Take the recent mid-sized hit 강력3반 (Never To Lose), seemingly lightweight and unambitious with its predictable and rather trite set-up, becoming quite powerful in the second half. Take the underrated 와일드 카드 (Wild Card), showing the camaraderie building between the two detectives (Jung Jin-Young and Yang Dong-Geun), exploding with intensity in the second half. How Kim Sung-Soo's 야수 (Running Wild) copes with this stigma is another story. The film seems to say we're all animals after all, maybe 'higher animals', but still prey of our instincts. When things get serious and hit us where it counts, we forget about proper etiquette, about what we strove for in the past, and go for it, running like wild beasts. With a strong cast (Yoo Ji-Tae, Kwon Sang-Woo, Son Byung-Ho, Kang Sung-Jin and Eom Ji-Won), a top notch technical staff -- including Oshii Mamoru regular Kawai Kenji scoring the film -- and a big budget, 'Running Wild' didn't receive a very warm reception from the press, but many praised the director for not falling into the pitfalls of first timers, and for wrapping up things with tremendous intensity (perhaps too much). Kim, not to be confused with the Kim Sung-Soo of 무사 (Musa: The Warrior) and 비트 (Beat), made his debut with this film, after working as assistant director for a variety of directors (including Park Chan-Wook) in the last decade.

Director Kim Sung-Soo recently sat down with Film2.0, discussing his debut film, his career, and much more. Here's a few highlights:

Some of the characters in 'Running Wild' are inspired from real figures. Especially Oh Jin-Woo, played by Yoo Ji-Tae, was based on a famous prosecutor.
Director Kim Sung-Soo: When we were in the planning stages of the film, we became interested in Prosecutor Hong Kyung-Young's case, and decided to focus our attention on that. One of the suspects in a case Hong was investigating died, and after that he was suspected of assault. Then Human Rights and Citizen organizations protested against him, stigmatizing him and giving prosecutors a bad name, and It's something which still continues today. I had no intention to make all the people involved with the case suffer again by using it in the film. But what left a strong impression on me is that here we had someone you could possibly never forgive, yet couldn't punish either, because of the situation he was in. At the tribunal, Oh Jin-Woo might say '깡패들도 자기 식구를 거두는데 왜 나를 버리냐 (Even gangs protect their fellow members, why are you abandoning me?)', but it's something Prosecutor Hong said when summoned to court in real life. Giving punishment to people who have to pay a price for their crimes, and the reality of certain situations not allowing that to happen, that's exactly where 'Running Wild' and its story started.

Hearing that, It almost sounds like one of those patriotic films stressing justice and public interests above everything else. The film is not like that at all (laughs).
Kim: Of course that's not the way I made it, so you can't call it like that (laughs). I just wanted to show all those different sides of the coin using Oh Jin-Woo's story, the things we won't talk about easily, just to give people some food for thought, you know? Why did that person have to be punished that way? No matter which society you live in, there's always laws and justice, so why resort to violence, and only that, to deal with things? Violence is something people squeeze out of their souls, and at the end it ruins them.

The film might start with Oh Jin-Woo, but in just about every striking, intense scene it's Jang Do-Young (Kwon Sang-Woo) who leaves a more lasting impression.
Kim: As a whole, I have no reason to deny that. It's just that the kind of story I wanted to tell needed to be told from Oh Jin-Woo's point of view. No matter how you look at Jang Do-Young, he's a very 'genre-like' character. Some critic said Kwon's character shares similar psychological traits with the characters of older HK noir films, almost making him obsolete. But I disagree: Jang is the kind of anti-hero who can only feature in a film like this. Based on my experience and on the charms of the genre, delivering the message through Oh Jin-Woo's story, and using Jang Do-Young to make the viewers feel something was the right way to go. In substance, Jang Do-Young is something who intervenes in the fight between Oh Jin-Woo and Yoo Gang-Jin (the gang boss, played by Son Byung-Ho). Still, you could feel bad for him, for the situations he ends up in.

You said the kind of circumstances the characters have to deal with are similar to what you experienced. Really?
Kim: When I was young, I wanted to be a director so much, I'd sneak out and go to theaters in secret. Just like Oh Jin-Woo, back then I had that desire to find success quickly, and even when I started working as assistant director in 삼인조 (Trio) and 카라 (Calla) I was a workaholic. But the situation at home was getting worse, with my mother falling ill, and without knowing anything about it, I ended up losing her. That's when I started to feel doubts about life, very strongly. While I was doing what I always wanted, I left the person I cared about the most alone. After that situation, the only thing left in me was anger. I wanted to abandon everything and find vengeance. When I kept focusing on my work, without ever looking at what was happening at home, I looked like Oh Jin-Woo; and you could also say when I lost my mother, from that moment on I started looking at life like Jang Do-Young. That's why in life sometimes you're put in situations when you can't help but let that instinct explode, like a beast.

'Running Wild' is all about men, but there are no fathers in the film. That's something your film has in common with many recent Korean films.
Kim: It's not something I did consciously, but I agree. It's something I can't escape from, being a Korean person making films. That of standing by the kind of society heroes pursue in traditional Cinema, and depicting their heroic feats might be a very predictable way of telling a story. But more than focusing on heroes who sacrifice for the people like in other Korean films, I wanted to focus on something different. The 'heroes' in this film live to satisfy their own personal desire, stripping themselves from the rules of community life, finding someone like them and forming a sort of 'family', which at the end destroys them. I think it carries all those elements 게임의 법칙 (The Rules of the Game) made famous. That's a common point which surprised me a lot. But isn't that because of paternal love and the powerful and negative figure fathers have in our culture? In that sense, I feel like a sort of father to Jang Do-Young, Oh Jin-Woo and Yoo Gang-Jin. The father figures in our country show their authority through violence, and after all collapse through the use of violence. Then it's just inevitable that their sons will learn that violent instinct experiencing it from them. After all, all the suffering Oh Jin-Woo goes through in the film comes from his own desire. The things he does to find a way to fulfill all his dreams, to soothe his ambitious thirst. That moment when all that happens makes him look like Yoo Gang-Jin, in all likelihood. When I talked about the character with Yoo Ji-Tae, I once told him: "The only difference between Yoo Gang-Jin and Oh Jin-Woo is one page."

The film criticizes violence, but you can also feel a certain criticism of powerful figures and politicians.
Kim: On the surface it might be a 'macho' film, but I don't think it's one of those films which glamourize machismo. I think the most intensive display of how empty machismo is in Korean society comes from the Parliament. When I was writing the script, it was just around the time when the President was being impeached. Those Assemblymen fighting each other might have been doing it for their own reasons, but to people watching TV, it just seemed vain and ridiculous. I hope people feel that when watching those scenes in 'Running Wild'. Those people are fighting very intensely and painfully for their own good, but if you take a step back from all that, you'd think it was just 'because of a damn piece of paper' that we enter a game where nobody can win, and all of us have to sacrifice and become guilty of something.

The film might bask in noir elements of the past, but in terms of visual style it's the opposite, and very spectacular.
Kim: There were even more of those 'tricky' scenes, but we cut off many during the editing process. It just looked a little childish, leaving all that in the film, a bit too lightweight. Ever since my childhood, the films which influenced me the most were 70s Hollywood films. I liked William Friedkin and Sidney Lumet's work, and not just the films, I just loved the 70s' culture as a whole. I wanted to convey that reactionary sense I saw on those films in making mine.

It also reminds of Hong Kong noir films of the past. Did those films influence you as well?
Kim: Of course they did... because it was right after watching 英雄本色 (A Better Tomorrow) that I decided to become a film director (laughs). More than their style, I was more influenced by the kind of antiheroes Chow Yun-Fat was playing on those films, I related a lot to the outcast image he built there. Be it someone throwing everything away and waiting for his friend, to eventually die because of him in 'A Better Tomorrow'; or feeling sympathy for the man you have to prosecute, as he shares the same kind of precarious life as you do in 龍虎風雲 (City on Fire). That kind of character just felt like a dinosaur living in the wrong period, and I related to that feeling a lot. I think I developed a kind of interest for all those people who were forced to fail, either by situations or by their destiny. In the future I don't know what kind of films I'll make, but even if I do a romantic film, I don't think I'd be able to end it happily (laughs). I don't know if it's because of the way I lived my life, but I feel for all those people whose lives get destroyed. The biggest reason why I liked Wong Kar-Wai because he kept writing those characters his own way, even if he didn't really need to. In 'Running Wild', Oh Jin-Woo and Jang Do-Young could act differently, that's not the only card they have to play. But they end up picking the wrong one. Be it Do-Young's girlfriend or Jin-Woo's wife, or even Gang-Jin's friend... they just keep giving them that card. They never think of staying close to their mother, never regretting it later. or think of something else to do and find another way. No, even faced with a more intelligent way out, they keep using that card, thinking only of themselves. Their greed, and nothing else.

Do you feel bad about deleting any of the scenes?
Kim: Well, there's nothing I can do now, but the more I see the film, there's many other scenes I wanted to show. They promised they'd let me do a Director's Cut for the DVD release of the film [!!!!], the way I wanted to. I think it'll be a little longer than the film that's screening now, perhaps around 2 hours and 10 Minutes. There's like 20 versions of the final scene, so I'm thinking about different ways of ending the film.

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야수 (Running Wild)
Director: 김성수 (Kim Sung-Soo)
Cast: 권상우 (Kwon Sang-Woo), 유지태 (Yoo Ji-Tae), 엄지원 (Eom Ji-Won), 손병호 (Son Byung-Ho)
Press Screening Report
Official Website
Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, 700k, Windows Media)
Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, 300k, ASF)
Theatrical Trailer (Streaming, Real Media)
Teaser Trailer (Streaming, 300k, Windows Media)
Teaser Trailer (Streaming, Real Media)
TV Spot (Streaming, 300k, Windows Media)
Music Video (Streaming, 700k, Windows Media) [Hwisung]
Movie Stills/Posters
Produced By: 팝콘필름 (Popcorn Films)
Distributed By: 쇼박스㈜미디어플렉스 (Showbox)
Rating: 18 and Over

[Source: Film2.0]