The Critic's Vendetta
"I'll do an interview."
The feud between Jin So-hee and director Kim Si-woon went back roughly two years.
A press screening held before the film's release —
After the viewing, there was a Q&A session where members of the press and invited critics could speak directly with the director.
"Is there any reason the woman who locks eyes with him in the alley had to be cut to pieces? To me it looked like nothing more than over-directed shock value."
"I gave the killer a streak of acrotomophilia — a sexual fixation on amputated bodies — to foreground his cruelty. In reality it would be a very dangerous paraphilia, but for the film it was necessary to the story. I'd be grateful if you'd regard it as cinematic license."
A critic openly taking shots at a work at an official event is a breach of etiquette, but Jin So-hee, who had long harbored grievances about the director's style and the extremes he went to, had come intending to pick a fight.
Kim Si-woon found it unpleasant, but there was nothing to gain from feuding with a critic, so he answered with what courtesy he could muster.
When an answer came back that refused to sharpen into an opening, Jin So-hee raised the intensity of her attack.
"One more question. When the heroine is sitting in the chair, the camera lingers over a certain part of her — hm, her legs and feet in particular. Is that also cinematic license? Frankly, all I saw was a foot and stocking fetish."
"It's a tense scene, so I find it fascinating that all you watched was the actress's feet, critic. And 'fetish' isn't the right word. If that were the goal, I'd shoot pornography — why would I bother making a film? Next time, please stop examining the movie under a microscope and look at the craftsmanship of the whole."
Kim Si-woon gave as good as he got, cutting her down in turn.
A few more rounds of this, and with both their tempers flaring, the moderator's tactful intervention finally put an end to the exchange.
Jin So-hee grumbled all the way home, then ducked into the film cafe where she occasionally posted — and her face twisted.
It was an account of the screening.
Setting aside the question of explicit content, the film itself had come out polished and tight — the post complained that a woman calling herself a critic kept responding emotionally, making the whole event unpleasant to watch.
Most of the comments sided with the writer.
A few people even dug up her old reviews to mock her, saying she'd always been this kind of woman.
What a world, she thought — crawling with dull-witted fools who couldn't understand someone always awake and at the vanguard of advancing women's rights.
"Lowly bastards who can't even read a film, daring to pass judgment on me."
With a cold gleam in her eyes, she fixed them on the monitor and began to type.
Once the move to America was settled, director Han Jae-ryong contacted CP Park Woon-chul.
It was to withdraw So-ra from Wagle Wagle Kindergarten. At the same time, he asked for their understanding, saying he would no longer be able to lend his advice to the educational program he occasionally consulted on.
"Well, that settles it — from now on you run it with Ha-jin and Yu-jin as your one-two punch."
"Mm, but that breaks the composition of the frame...."
"Enough with the damn composition already. If you're that desperate to draw pictures, go transfer to the drama department and do it there."
"They won't take me. And who was it that keeps saying there's no opening for me?"
"Hold out just through this year. There'll be good news."
In that instant, PD Jo Seung-hyun's eyes lit up.
He didn't need to hear what the good news was to know exactly what it meant.
"Ohhh! Sunbae, I love you!!"
"Get away from me, you're creeping me out! If you've got time for this, get downstairs and wrap up So-ra's final shoot properly."
"I was on my way. Yes, sir!"
He bolted down to the studio at a dead run.
At last he had something concrete to hope for — that if things went well, he could make his directing debut on a drama next year.
In his year at Wagle Wagle Kindergarten, he'd done all there was to do.
He'd overhauled half the segments, boosting both the fun and the educational value by leaps and bounds, and the audience response was glowing.
From here, he just had to hand things off cleanly to his successor PD and make the jump to the drama department.
Of course, I'm taking Ha-jin with me.
The one-two punch meant nothing on its own.
Only with So-ra in the picture did the frame he'd been laboring over all this time become complete.
So-ra was an irreplaceable child actress — that exact picture could never be assembled again.
Which meant, using her departure as the pretext, he intended to pull both Yu-jin and Ha-jin off the show.
"Whyyy won't you keep acting?! ...!!"
When Ha-jin announced that with So-ra leaving, he'd only appear through the show's reorganization, PD Jo Seung-hyun collapsed to the floor in a pose of utter despair.
Yu-jin and So-ra, caught off guard, could only blink at him without a word.
Had I ever actually promised PD Jo I'd keep acting?
"I just assumed, obviously, you'd be there when I made my debut.... Abandoning me like this...."
Abandoning? Who's abandoning anyone!
"P-PD-nim, there are other staff members watching, so how about you get up first...."
Face to face with PD Jo to explain the whole situation from the beginning, I laid it out as best I could.
"So why won't you act anymore?"
"Ah, well, you see. It's the age where I need to be building new human relationships. My school...."
...I was about to make the excuse that I wanted to devote myself to my school life.
Because I knew plenty of big words, I'd used phrasing a child my age shouldn't have — and that turned out to be the seed of disaster.
"You've got a girl, is that it?"
"I'm sorry — what?"
This man had applied an astoundingly narrow interpretation to the phrase "human relationships."
Even so, what kind of thing is that to say to a seven-year-old!
Heat flared up my face —
And the result was tremendous.
"Huuuaaah~ I don't wanna go to America. Ha-jin's gonna get a girlfrie-e-end."
"Don't you worry. I'll stick to Ha-jin like glue and make absolutely sure he never gets a girlfriend."
And so, the whole thing descending into a full-blown circus, I found myself with no choice but to comfort Yu-jin and So-ra first.
A month later, So-ra left for the United States.
Yu-jin and I had talked it over beforehand and decided not to go to the airport to see her off.
The moment she saw us, So-ra's tear ducts were guaranteed to burst.
It wasn't as if we'd never see her again — we didn't want her sobbing at an airport over it.
We'd keep talking on the phone, and once director Han got himself settled, she could come visit during vacations — or we could go to her.
"My uncle has plenty of planes, so if I ask him, he'll let me ride one over."
It sounded like a glib thing to say, but one of the Daesung Group's affiliates really was Daesung Airlines.
Illegitimate son or not, the blood of a chaebol family didn't thin just because it wasn't on paper.
The film lacked the heft to go head-to-head with the summer season's blockbusters, so the release date was set for late June.
A press screening for journalists and film critics was held in mid-June, and just as director Kim Si-woon had promised, the response was a chorus of praise.
Not everyone in attendance agreed, of course.
"Infuriating. Why does it have to come out even better than his last one, damn it all!"
People still died on screen, but with the rating lowered, the intensity of the direction had been dramatically scaled back.
In other words, there was nothing left to attack on grounds of over-direction or a cavalier attitude toward human life.
The mise-en-scène was flawless, the actors were on fire — and above all, the performance of the child actor playing the TTN Boy was frankly staggering.
"That little brat genuinely gives me chills. How does a kid act like that...."
The scene where a child hollowed out in body and mind by abuse finally breaks apart was so suffocating it stole the breath.
It didn't look like acting at all — it looked like a real abused child responding exactly that way.
"Wait a minute... abuse?"
For someone whose job was watching films, the line between performance and reality had begun to blur.
An ordinary audience member would be even less capable of telling the difference.
"If I play this right...."
She left the theater wearing the face of a beast that had scented new prey.
The roundtable with the director was still ahead of her, but that hardly mattered now.
"I'd like you to join the stage greetings too, Ha-jin."
Once a film opens, the director and cast spend the first week or two touring theaters across the country for promotional stage greetings.
I'd told him I was still too young to manage the long trips to the provinces, and asked to attend only the ones held in Seoul.
Having appeared in the film, I naturally ought to be at the promotional events — but that just wasn't possible right now.
Because I had a bomb to defuse that was about to go off.
The bomb known as the child abuse controversy.
"Director. Stage greetings are nice and all, but... I'd rather promote it a different way, if that's all right."
If I said, "When the film opens, a controversy will erupt that could deal it a fatal blow — and I'll put it to sleep for you," nobody would believe a word.
So here, I had to offer something else entirely.
"A different promotion?"
"When the TTN ad made me famous, everyone asked me to do interviews. But I've never done a single one. I figured, like with the ad, keeping an air of mystery suited me better."
Lim Eun-jung, the original TTN Girl, had maintained her mystique under a contractual obligation to the company, but So-ra and I were already well known, and our contracts had never contained anything like a media-contact ban.
Still, it seemed best not to touch anything ad-related, so both of us had turned down every interview without exception.
"But this time I want to do one. Stage greetings only reach the people in the theater — if I go on TV and promote the film, the audience will be enormous."
Movie is Good, KBC's weekend film program, pulled in substantial ratings.
Famous directors and actors would appear on it around a new release to introduce the film and spill behind-the-scenes stories.
If I went on that show, the promotional effect would be dozens — no, hundreds of times greater than any stage greeting.
The first interview ever granted by the TTN Boy? There was no way it wouldn't draw attention.
Not only director Kim Si-woon but the distribution company staffer sitting beside him brightened at once.
"Director Kim, the promotional impact really would be beyond comparison. The TTN Boy introducing the film himself — how could anyone resist tuning in for that?"
"Exactly. I hadn't even thought of that. Ha-jin, you're incredible, kid."
The staffer said he'd contact the promotions team and find a program I could appear on.
Director Kim was tapping away at his laptop with a satisfied expression when his face promptly soured.
"There she goes again."
What now?
"Is something the matter?"
His expression was anything but ordinary, so the distributor staffer asked.
"There's a critic who can't stand the sight of me. The second the embargo lifted, she published a hatchet job. Keeping up that refined act while writing something this twisted — honestly, it takes real talent."
"Which critic?"
Film reviews were a matter of acute sensitivity for a distributor — the impact on the box office was nothing small.
"Jin So-hee. A woman who lives on the taste of her own self-importance."
In that instant, my eyes snapped wide open.
It was a name I had heard plenty of in my past life, too.