Chapter 188: The Final Piece
Chapter 188: The Final Piece
On the day of the meeting, Director Frank, who was in charge of directing the musical film And I, stood there with his arms crossed and his brows tightly furrowed.
On his desk lay nothing but Ryu Sunho’s profile photo.
He is handsome. I’ll admit that.
The Ryu Sunho in the photo clearly had an attractive face.
But Frank’s stubbornness did not give way so easily.
Even so, having an Asian actor carry the image of an AI robot is too much of a gamble.
The protagonist of this film, Within, had to be the ultimate pinnacle of beauty humanity could imagine.
An appearance that would make the audience look at the screen and immediately accept, Ah, that’s not human.
That was what Frank considered an essential requirement for Within.
He toyed with the profiles of other Hollywood actors placed beside Ryu Sunho’s photo.
Every last one of them had been rejected by James Rogers because their singing ability had not satisfied him.
If you think about it, singing can be technically corrected or covered with lip-syncing, can’t it? It’s not some sin in a musical film. What matters more than that is appearance and acting ability.
This time, he had taken one step back because he could not overcome James Rogers’s stubbornness, but once today’s meeting ended, he planned to persuade James Rogers again.
At this rate, dragging things out like this, it would be better to start somehow than keep stalling forever.
Then—
Knock knock—
A knock broke the silence.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and the moment a tall man stepped inside—
“Hello. I’m Ryu Sunho.”
Director Frank had started to rise from his seat, but froze in place.
“......!”
He could only stare blankly up at Ryu Sunho with his mouth half open.
It felt like his breath had caught in his throat.
Skin so pale it seemed transparent.
Silver hair shining brilliantly under the light.
Black eyes that looked as though they could pull you in.
Those alien black eyes only sharpened the impression of his unreal appearance.
That’s supposed to be an Asian man?
Frank shook his head and corrected the thought.
No, is that even a human?
He thought a real android had just walked in.
The form of the perfect creation he had only ever imagined in his head was now standing before him in reality.
“...Oh my God.”
A sigh escaped Frank’s mouth on its own.
All the logic he had been throwing at James Rogers shattered to pieces in his head.
“Ah, um... please, have a seat.”
Frank, who had barely come back to his senses, offered him a seat.
When Ryu Sunho sat down with a light smile, Frank cleared his throat and spoke.
“In person... you’re far more striking than on screen. I can see why James Rogers praised you until his mouth went dry.”
“Haha, as a fan of your work, it’s an honor to hear you say that, Director.”
The atmosphere was warm.
Frank had already approved him over a hundred times in his heart.
But the instinct of a director stirred.
What kind of acting would come out of a face like this?
How well would it match the character he had created?
Curiosity and greed rose in him.
He wanted to lift the lid and see immediately.
“I also watched the work you appeared in with great interest. You broke Cannes convention and won Best Actor, and the critics have been showering you with praise too.”
“You flatter me.”
“So, because of that, I find myself wanting to see more in detail.”
“...?”
When Ryu Sunho tilted his head, Frank opened a drawer and pulled out a script.
“Don’t feel pressured. Could you just read this one line for me? It’s the scene where Within feels emotion for the first time. I just want to see the general feeling.”
The script he handed over was an early scene from the film.
The protagonist, Within, had dismissed the sensation as a system error, only to realize for the first time that it was actually the emotion called sorrow.
Frank’s judgment was that if the tone and manner of this scene matched, there would be nothing more to see.
“I’ll give you plenty of time to prepare, so just take it easy—”
But Ryu Sunho picked up the script, glanced through it once lightly, then set it down on the table right away.
“I’ll do it now.”
“...What? Right now?”
Ryu Sunho smiled with ease.
And naturally so, since he had already seen the completed film several times in his previous life.
What kind of emotional flow this scene needed, what kind of breathing it required, was already carved into his mind.
Of course, I’m not planning to copy it exactly.
The details the lead actor from his previous life had missed.
The disappointment he had felt then.
He planned to add his own interpretation on top of that and show a more perfect protagonist.
At the very least, he had to show that much sincerity and care.
“I’ll begin.”
Ryu Sunho closed his eyes, then opened them.
At that moment, the air changed.
The young man who had been smiling politely until just now disappeared.
Empty eyes.
A gaze that seemed unfocused, yet also seemed confused by everything at once.
Ryu Sunho slowly looked down at his palm.
As though observing an object he had never seen before in his life, he bent each finger joint in a strange, unnatural way.
“Error code 127...”
His lips moved, but there was no rise or fall in his voice.
A tone so dry it had become brittle.
“Analysis impossible. This is a stimulus not found in the database.”
He clutched at his chest.
As though feeling pain despite having no heart.
A faint crack appeared within the mechanical movements.
His eyes trembled ever so slightly.
“...Could this... be what sadness is?”
“......!”
He did not cry.
He did not sob.
He merely asked in a flat voice, but the sorrow came across more devastatingly than any wailing could have.
Frank could not close his mouth.
Goosebumps raced down his arms.
This... came out on the spot?
It had only been a casual suggestion.
But right in front of him, a scene from the film was unfolding, and at a quality even more perfect than what he had imagined.
“...So this is the final piece at last.”
In the end, Frank could not hide his excitement and seized Ryu Sunho’s hand.
He immediately called in Team Leader Jo Sehun, who had been waiting outside.
The contract proceeded at lightning speed.
The next day.
At the editing room in WAX Channel’s headquarters in New York, USA.
Inside the dim room, only the glow of the monitors flashed brightly.
Takadadak—
With a dazzling series of keyboard-shortcut sounds, the frames on the screen were being cut apart.
“Stop. Rewind that part just now.”
At the instruction of Tyler, the executive producer, the editor rewound the video.
On the screen was the moment just before Ryu Sunho removed his mask, when the audience was holding its breath.
“Here, on this audio, leave only the audience’s breathing and strip out all the background music. We need to build the anticipation higher.”
“Yes, understood.”
Tyler stood with his arms crossed, staring at the screen.
He was a veteran who had spent fifteen years making major music variety shows like Voice of America and American Idol.
He had seen thousands of contestants and edited tens of thousands of hours of footage.
By now, ordinary singing no longer moved him in the slightest.
But a contestant like Ryu Sunho was a first in his life.
How did something like this even come out?
Even while editing, he kept replaying it.
Usually, once editing dragged on, you got sick of it or your ears got tired, but Ryu Sunho’s stages gave him goosebumps every time and revealed new details on every rewatch.
The shock of Round 1.
The thrill of Round 2.
The exhilaration of Round 3.
And even the catharsis of the final identity reveal.
If a guy like me, who’s been through everything under the sun, is losing his mind in a good way over this, then how wild are first-time viewers going to go?
Tyler let out a disbelieving laugh in a positive sense and shook his head.
He felt like he wanted to bow to the PD in Korea who had recommended this monster to him.
“CP, for the panel-reaction cut here, should we use James Rogers or Olivia?”
“Use both. Split the screen and show them at the same time. The contrast is the point—one covering her mouth, the other staring blankly.”
Tyler’s instructions came without hesitation.
He instinctively knew how to cook this material for the best possible flavor.
“Hoo...”
Tyler poured care into every single editing point.
The timing of the captions, the placement of the sound effects, the cross-cutting of the camera angles.
He was pouring his soul into delivering 120% of the aura Ryu Sunho carried.
At that moment, the programming team manager came in and asked, “Hey, Tyler. Have you decided when to release this season yet? The higher-ups are making a fuss, saying we need to lock it in fast.”
“Hmm...”
Resting his chin on his hand, Tyler sank into thought.
Simply releasing it quickly was not the answer.
If he wanted to detonate a source as explosive as Ryu Sunho, he needed to find the moment with the biggest ripple effect.
Tap-tap—
Out of habit, he tapped the keyboard and searched Ryu Sunho’s name.
Recent articles, Hollywood activities, news about upcoming projects—he quickly skimmed through them.
Then the finger scrolling downward suddenly stopped.
One headline on the screen caught his eye.
[Director Quentin’s new film Check Mate enters production. Korean actor Ryu Sunho cast as the lead...]
“...Wait.”
Tyler’s eyes moved rapidly.
Quentin Marino—a master who needed no explanation.
“This is it.”
As if he had just had a good idea, Tyler snapped his fingers.
“Get me the PR team contact for The Movie Pictures right now.”
“The film studio? Why the sudden interest in a film studio?”
“We need to make the board a little bigger.”
At a large action school on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the sound of rough breathing and impact rang out endlessly over the mats.
“Action!”
The moment the martial arts director gave the command, the stuntmen all charged at Ryu Sunho at the same time.
A one-against-many brawl.
The fierce action flowed on without a break, like running water.
A long sequence of choreographed exchanges that lasted about two minutes.
“Okay!”
The martial arts director shouted.
While Ryu Sunho caught his breath, the stuntmen who had been sprawled on the floor began getting up one by one.
The martial arts director, who had been checking the monitor, let his mouth fall open.
“...Wow.”
There was no wasted motion.
Normally, actors doing action for the first time would always show buffering between movements.
Either because they were thinking about the next move, or measuring the distance to the other person, the rhythm would break.
But Ryu Sunho showed none of that hesitation at all.
“Ryu, did you really memorize this entire long sequence?”
“Yes. I remembered the movement path as rhythm, like a dance, so it was easy to memorize.”
Ryu Sunho answered calmly as he wiped away sweat.
The martial arts director let out a hollow laugh, as though dumbfounded.
“...That sounds simple, but that’s not something an ordinary sense can do.”
The stunt team members watching from the side clicked their tongues in amazement too.
“His strike points are perfect. He didn’t actually hit them, but from the camera angle it looks like their jaws really got turned from the blow.”
“At this rate he’s going to take stuntmen’s jobs away.”
“His physical ability is outside common sense. That’s talent.”
“Honestly, at first I wondered why Director Quentin was insisting so stubbornly on doing this complicated scene in one take. But now I get it for sure. Why he was so insistent.”
The martial arts director walked up to Ryu Sunho, handed him a bottle of water, and raised a thumbs-up.
His eyes were full of certainty.
“At tomorrow’s shoot, we might really end up creating a legendary scene that’ll go down in action-film history.”