A Dance in Need of a Song
The idea that someone would pull a fast one on a drama their own artist was starring in left me, frankly, speechless.
Because it meant they weren't thinking about their signed talent's future at all.
It probably went something like this: the singer is at her peak right now, so let's milk her for everything she's worth while we still can.
Otherwise, no one would dream of throwing chili powder into a drama that could well become a turning point in her career.
But this was a matter far outside my control.
For a core cast member to walk off a production without consequence, some catastrophe would have to strike — something severe enough to make the drama itself unproduceable. And I couldn't even begin to predict what that might be.
At the most extreme, I'm talking about the director having an affair with one of his actresses, or an investor suddenly going bankrupt — that sort of scale.
I had no idea what such a thing might be, and even if I did, it would be beyond the power of a mere actor like me to fix. So there wasn't much point in dwelling on it.
Which is why I simply handed the whole issue over to the company.
I'd informed Team Leader Seo of the situation through my manager, so if anything came up, the company would sort it out on its own.
And if it turned out to be something even the company couldn't handle, then nobody could. Cool-headed surrender was the right call there.
"My job is something else entirely."
Off-screen problems could be left to the company, so I decided to focus on a different matter instead.
Because there was something I genuinely couldn't figure out.
Why on earth wasn't that woman even thinking about escaping Moon?
Don't tell me the CEO bastard had some dirt on Luna?
Some kind of nude video, maybe.
But here's the funny thing — she wasn't the sort of woman who could be held back by something like that.
Given the choice between being dragged around by a caught weakness or detonating herself, this woman would choose self-destruction, hands down.
If anything, it would make more sense if someone around her were the one being held hostage.
Actually, back in Murim, something very similar happened for exactly that reason...
"Looks like I'll need to do a little digging."
In the end, I'd have to find out what was really going on beneath her surface — but our acquaintance wasn't nearly deep enough for that.
No, to be precise, it wasn't really an acquaintance at all. Not yet.
Which was all the more reason I needed to get closer to her.
The one piece of good luck was that most of her shooting schedule overlapped with mine.
On top of that, she was playing my opposite lead, with a romance woven between us.
One look made it clear the rest of the cast kept their distance from her, so our time together was bound to stretch longer and longer.
It's hardly rare for a character's emotions to bleed into the actor when you sink deep enough into a role, so I'd watch carefully and try to read what lay beneath her surface.
The child actress playing young Wolhee wrapped her scenes by late morning.
What really set the little tyke apart was that, despite it being her very first time acting in front of a camera, she didn't tremble or falter in the slightest.
Her performance was genuinely solid, too — she drew lavish praise from Director Bang, from Yang Yuri, and even from Senior Kang Ji-woo, her scene partner.
The industry doesn't expect much from child actors, so when praise rains down this heavily, it means the kid is truly something special.
On top of that, the little one had a surprising appetite for this world — after finishing her own shoot, she announced she'd be staying on set to observe the other actors' performances.
When I asked whether she wasn't tired, she said she had far too much left to learn to even afford the luxury of being tired.
Most child actors collapse the moment their own scenes are done, so this was decidedly unusual.
And watching the little peanut creep cautiously around the set, peeking at everything with wide curiosity — well, it was quietly adorable, and it seemed to liven up the whole atmosphere of the shoot.
What a fascinating kid.
Her acting had earned the director's and her co-stars' recognition, her dancing had earned the approval of Luna — a bona fide specialist in that field —
and now she was brightening the mood of the entire set besides.
The promising little prodigy was equipped with more skill and talent than any of us had imagined.
This production might just turn out to be the signal flare announcing the birth of a legendary child actress.
If she kept growing like this, she could become a truly exceptional performer — a Cheon Yua in her own right.
By the time the morning shoot wrapped, the other actors had begun drifting onto the set as well.
The afternoon schedule was mostly devoted to Wolhee and Lee Myeong, but the scenes of Violet arriving in Joseon, Bison Choi, and Nam Seokju fleeing to Pyongan Province were slated for late evening.
It was a little odd for them to show up so early for a night shoot, but the schedule was the schedule, and there was no harm in people gathering a bit ahead of time.
Of course, the real reason they'd all turned up this early was the same: everyone wanted to see, with their own eyes, what Luna's acting actually looked like.
"Alright, let's take it from the top."
With all the key cast assembled, filming was in full swing on the scene where Lee Myeong and Wolhee meet at the giru.
In the timeline, Lee Myeong was on the eve of launching his search of the mines, and he and Wolhee had already begun sharing their hearts.
Lee Myeong intended to pull Wolhee out of Giru as soon as this one final assignment was done, so this meeting could fairly be called a date between the two of them.
Granted, Wolhee's position was a little different — she'd approached Lee Myeong for ulterior motives, only to genuinely fall for him, and now found herself in quite the bind.
"Ohhh..."
The crowning jewel of this scene was Wolhee — the super ace of Yeonghwaru — dancing for Lee Myeong and Lee Myeong alone.
When Korea's premier sexy diva Luna set her mind to moving, gasps erupted from every direction.
Sexy dance as such couldn't exist in this era, so the foundation was unmistakably a fan dance —
but her lines were so graceful, and the waves she slipped in here and there so artful, that the whole thing looked astonishingly refined.
And her costume was the perfect complement.
She wore a short silk dress with a distinctly Chinese flair, its hem extended with sheer, translucent fabric — a see-through layered look.
Beftting a top star who'd spent four years active purely as a dance vocalist, she knew exactly how to exploit every advantage the outfit offered.
With each light, drifting step, glimpses of pale thighs and sleek leg lines flashed in and out of view beneath the hem —
and the sheer fabric gave each emergence a different feel from each disappearance, an effect that was downright bewitching.
For this one moment at least, everyone had forgotten their old grudges and was admiring her in complete sincerity.
And I was every bit as awestruck as the rest.
The fan dance — seonmu — performed with a pair of fans had been Wol-yeon's specialty, the master of the Hao Gate, so this stirred feelings in me that ran deeper than admiration.
When she rose with her fans and began to dance, not a single high official or magnate could keep his mouth from hanging open.
Here or there, she was a woman who had everything it took to ensnare a person.
There was just one problem...
"Cut. Hold on a moment."
Director Bang, deep in concentration mid-shoot, suddenly called a halt.
He gathered me, Luna, and even Yang Yuri, played back the footage, and laid out his thoughts.
Something, he said, felt lacking.
"The framing is lovely, but... something's missing."
And Director Bang wasn't the only one who sensed the scene fell a little short.
Yang Yuri the writer, and me and Luna who'd performed it — all of us felt that something was off.
"It feels empty somehow, doesn't it?"
"It really does. I mean, the dancing alone is already legendary, but..."
"If we added something here, it'd be even more perfect."
"The question is, what exactly is it that's missing?"
The footage of Luna dancing alone would have produced one legendary GIF after another, but taken as a whole scene, something about it did feel deficient.
It was only because the dance itself was so overwhelmingly powerful that the flaw wasn't more obvious — cast any other actress and the director would've been calling NG from the very first take and rebuilding the scene from scratch.
But none of us could quite pinpoint where the deficiency lay.
It was a calamity born of Luna's dance radiating such absolute force.
"I think the emptiness comes from Lee Myeong, honestly."
"Lee Myeong?"
"He just sits there grinning and admiring Wolhee's dance. A gisaeng who isn't just an entertainer but a lover is dancing for him, and he's sitting there like a mere customer — of course the romance doesn't come alive. And it's a two-shot, on top of that."
"So it needs to feel more like lovers."
"If this were their first meeting, fine. But they're half-lovers now — his behavior has to change to match."
Reading the script alone, I hadn't caught it, but once the scene actually unfolded, something did feel strange.
Probably because I'd lived through something similar myself.
When Wol-yeon danced for me back then, I hadn't just sat there watching.
If this were a solo shot focused solely on Wolhee, it might not have mattered — but because it was a two-shot framing Lee Myeong and Wolhee together, the imbalance showed.
"So there are two options. Either we cut this into a Wolhee solo scene, or Lee Myeong..."
"...does something alongside her."
"What if they danced together?"
"...You want me to dance with Senior Luna? Wouldn't that just ruin the composition?"
We knew the cause, so now it was time to solve the problem.
We couldn't shoot a date scene between Wolhee and Lee Myeong as if it were a Wolhee solo, which meant the conclusion was inevitable: Lee Myeong had to do something and join in.
And then Yang Yuri, of all people, abruptly suggested we dance together, which left me aghast.
Even for me, that was a bridge too far.
"What about an instrument?"
"Oh! Siwoo, you can play an instrument?"
"Yes, a little."
After a moment's thought, I suggested we try adding an instrument to the scene.
If Lee Myeong played while Wolhee danced to his melody, the sense of the two being woven into one would come through unmistakably.
The moment I raised the subject, Director Bang's face lit up first of all.
Apparently he'd been chewing on a similar idea himself.
"Instruments that would fit this period aren't exactly common, though. If you're thinking of something like a guitar..."
"...Do I really look like that's what I meant?"
Yang Yuri was somewhat skeptical.
From where I stood, she'd considered instruments too, but unable to think of a suitable one, she'd apparently given up.
The only realistic route would be to mime playing a traditional instrument and dub in the music afterward —
but convincingly faking an unfamiliar traditional instrument is hard enough even with practice.
If it looked off, you'd end up with unusable footage.
It might have worked with rehearsal time, but there was no room for that now.
"How about a guqin? A seven-string zither?"
"...A guqin?"
"Actor, can you actually play one?"
"Yes, a little."
"...Oh."
And so I tossed the guqin down like a gift to the poor soul who'd dared to mention guitars.
Granted, by this era the guqin had all but died out in Joseon — but historical nitpicking like that could be ignored and be done with it.
Nobody was going to pick a fight over the claim that the guqin had remained in use in a Joseon where steam engines had already arrived.
"...I'll get one somehow, no matter what it takes."
The moment Director Bang saw the eye-catching hook — Lee Myeong playing the guqin while Wolhee danced to his melody — he began mobilizing every connection he had to hunt down a seven-string zither.
Because this, anyone could see, was a combination that would unquestionably work.