Persuasion, Butcher-Style
This drama might well be the most important work of my entire career.
My de facto debut, and my first leading role at that.
Which meant, frankly, that I should be betting my life on it.
But everything going on with Moon Sooyeon had been such a monumental disaster that I hadn't been able to give filming my full attention.
"Even a pile of crap has to be pretty spectacular before I just let it slide."
Really, how on earth had she gotten herself tangled up in something that filthy?
Either way, that mess was now cleanly resolved. It was finally time to pour everything into the shoot.
"The emotion is excellent, and the scenes came out beautifully."
"Absolutely. It was perfect. Especially that lingering look in Lee Myeong's eyes when he gazes at Wolhui... the female viewers are going to weep."
"That's a relief. I was a little worried."
Fortunately, the shooting schedule had been reshuffled so that Moon Sooyeon's scenes were clustered in the first half — and most of my own scenes were with her anyway.
Moon Sooyeon, Wol-yeon, and then Wolhui.
Those three had so much in common that even while I was technically playing scenes connected to Moon Sooyeon's situation, the emotions came through with full force.
Blend in my memories of the Murim, and you got a performance of emotional acting that was surprisingly convincing.
Director Bang, and even Yang Yuri, nodded along and admitted the takes looked good — so there was really no need to dwell on those earlier scenes where my focus had been lacking.
"I'll just do better from here on out."
Now that the annoying problems were dealt with, I was confident I could deliver acting better than anything I'd shown so far.
This drama would unfold in four distinct phases.
The Departure phase, in which Violet, arrived from America, meets Lee Myeong — a distaff branch of the Joseon imperial family — and the two hit it off before heading to Pyongyang.
The Formation phase, where the gold mine subjugation squad is assembled in Pyongyang.
The Subjugation phase, where the newly formed squad clears out the monsters around the Unsan Gold Mine and develops it.
And finally the Defense phase, holding off the invading forces of the Qing and the Japanese Empire as they come for the mine.
The date scene with Wolhui that I'd filmed belonged to the Formation phase, and her death fell somewhere between Subjugation and Defense — which really made me realize just how haphazardly we'd been shooting this thing.
Granted, dramas are always shot out of sequence regardless of the timeline, but because the schedule revolved around Moon Sooyeon, the scenes had gotten jumbled even more than I expected.
Of course, even after shoving all of her scenes to the front, some parts remained unshot.
The Taebaek set, where the crucial scenes of the Subjugation and Defense phases would be filmed, still wasn't finished.
Wolhui also had a later scene where she came to find Lee Myeong, coveting the Unsan Gold Mine now that it was finally running properly — so we'd have to shoot that afterward.
Though with her comeback schedule factored in, those scenes had been pushed nearly to the very end, leaving plenty of time before we'd actually film them.
"Let's have another good day, everyone."
"Yes, Director."
"Mind your blocking, please. And don't push yourselves too hard. If Siwoo or Hyunho gets injured, it's a full-blown catastrophe."
"We're only following the planned blocking anyway."
The scene we were shooting today belonged to the Formation phase:
Lee Myeong, who had been making inquiries around Pyongyang to learn the exact state of the Unsan Gold Mine — all but overrun by monsters.
He seeks out Nam Seokho, the butcher who once sneaked into Unsan to dig for gold, and recruits him. Physically.
Nam Seokho harbors a deep resentment toward the royal family and can't stand the mere sight of anything to do with Unsan, so Lee Myeong ends up resorting to force to persuade him.
Think of it as the trend-perfect hero who threatens you with a blade.
"Alright, let's go!"
In a thatched cottage on the outskirts of Pyongyang, Nam Seokho is sharpening an axe blade when someone approaches his front gate. He quietly hides himself and watches the outside.
Before long, a man in an expensive leather coat draws near the courtyard, and Nam Seokho scrunches up his face and mutters under his breath.
"...Mother of—"
Sensing something strongly ominous, Nam Seokho tries to slip over the back wall and escape the house.
"Stop."
"...Oh, come on."
But Lee Myeong had already read his every movement and was waiting on the other side of the fence.
Nam Seokho had no choice but to greet him, cursing his luck.
"...What do you want?"
"The butcher Nam Seokho. That you?"
"And who might you be?"
"I come from the royal family. You will cooperate with official duties."
"My ass. What royal family? It's been dead and buried for years."
Lee Myeong frowns at the man's insolent attitude and slowly strokes the hilt of his sword.
"...Do you intend to shame the crown?"
"Ha, ah, never mind. That was a slip of the tongue. So then, Your Exalted Nobs — what business brings someone like you to a butcher like me?"
Lee Myeong had no desire to waste time sparring over such matters either.
As the man himself said, the decline of the Joseon imperial family was a fact everyone accepted.
As long as no one insulted the crown openly to his face, he could let things pass. A member of a distaff branch like himself was the one who ought to feel ashamed of the situation.
It had already been years since the royal family last properly looked after the lives of its common people.
Which was precisely why this gold mine project mattered so much.
Developing the mine to replenish the treasury and restoring the nation's discipline — that was the only path to reviving both the Joseon imperial family and Joseon itself.
And for that, the strength of the butcher standing before him was absolutely essential.
"The Unsan Gold Mine. You know of it?"
"...I do, but..."
"I need a guide to lead the way to Unsan."
"...Are you out of your mind, sir?"
"Is there a problem?"
"That place is hell on earth right now. You'd have to be insane to set foot back in there."
"So it's true, then. The sole survivor of the Unsan massacre."
"...Damn it all."
Unsan had long been a hotbed of illegal prospecting, drawing plenty of diggers who mined gold in secret.
Not that anyone had gone so far as to properly dig into the mine itself — but even collecting and smelting the loose ore scattered around the area yielded a tidy profit, which was why it had been so popular.
The trouble began last year.
A horde of monsters suddenly poured down toward the mine, and a catastrophe wiped out not just the mine but every last farmer and settler in the vicinity.
And Nam Seokho was the only gold digger who had survived that massacre.
As far as he was concerned, being dragged back to that place was a fate worse than quietly dealing with the exalted gentleman in front of him and vanishing into hiding.
Unsan meant certain death. This, at least, offered a sliver of a chance.
Scowling and wiping cold sweat from his brow, Nam Seokho suddenly swung the axe in his hand with everything he had.
Clang.
"You son of a—"
"Assaulting a member of the royal family is grounds for summary execution."
"...Damn it. You're one insufferably high-born bastard, aren't you? High-born or not—"
Clang. Clang.
"Getting hit with an axe sends a man to hell all the same!"
Blocking the mindless, flailing axe with his sword, Lee Myeong confirms that the man's raw strength exceeds his expectations.
Judging that Nam Seokho would make a fine guide indeed, he resolves to capture the man and press him into his subjugation squad.
Hands were short and work was plentiful, so he'd take even this level of laborer with gratitude.
"When you swing a weapon, keep your shoulders loose."
"Shut up!"
"The swing comes from the upper body, but your lower body's center of gravity matters even more. You'll need to plant your base more firmly."
"...You absolute lunatic."
"Yes, that one had better power behind it. Good."
"....Son of a—"
Nam Seokho heaves a deep sigh as he watches the man toy with him like a cat with a mouse.
Deciding there's simply no withstanding this man, he flings the axe to the ground.
"Goddamn it! What has this country ever done for me? And now it wants my life too, is that it?!"
Lee Myeong listens quietly to the man's coarse tirade, then answers in a calm voice.
"...For that, I apologize. You must have suffered some terrible injustice yourself. The nation's discipline has rotted — that's why victims like you keep appearing. I will set that discipline right, so that no more people suffer as you have. The mine's development is merely the beginning."
"How am I supposed to believe that? Even if it were true, you won't get it done just because you will it."
"Fair enough. You're probably right. Then let me promise you one thing only. I will die before you do."
"...Ha. Unbelievable. What even is this man..."
"Ok!"
Since this shoot featured a fairly long sequence of the two characters attacking each other with axe and sword, everyone from martial arts director Jang Suhong to Director Bang himself was on edge throughout filming.
Director Bang, in particular, had the bad habit of insisting on long takes for any action scene, and the longer an action sequence ran, the greater the strain on the actors — so the entire set had been wound tight as a bowstring.
Then again, Director Bang was also the kind of man who produced breathtakingly beautiful footage in return, so nobody really had complaints.
"This counts as action?"
Well — I did have one gripe. The action was playing out exactly along the choreographed blocking, and it felt a little... lacking to me.
This was supposed to be far more pulse-pounding than this, wasn't it?
Don't get me wrong — Nam Hyunho and I are both actors with enough genuine skill that it doesn't look staged. But I couldn't shake this stuffy, bloodless feeling from the whole thing.
That wasn't the kind of action I wanted, was it?
Set only the basic blocking, and let the actors handle the rest — the way we used to spar back in the Murim. That would produce cleaner, more visceral action, I was sure of it.
Truthfully, I'd already raised this with Nam Hyunho once.
As far as I could tell, he was the only actor capable of trading blows with me in that manner.
And his reaction had been, well...
"Hold on. You want us to just improvise the action?"
"Yes, I don't see why not. You've got great instincts, senior. If we just lock down the basic blocking, nobody should get hurt."
"...You deranged lunatic. You think that would work?"
Apparently I'd been upgraded from "weirdo" to full-blown "deranged lunatic."
"Why wouldn't it work? It's not like we'd be unleashing killing strikes at each other's throats. We'd be sparring while practically broadcasting 'I'm coming in from THIS side' with every move!"
I simply couldn't accept it.
If Nam Hyunho couldn't do it, then no other actor could either.
There wasn't another lunatic on earth with athletic ability like his.
Judging by his reaction, pulling this off would require martial-world-grade physicality paired with martial-world-grade sparring instincts —
"Which, in the end, means it's impossible unless you carry the memories of the Murim. Like I do."
At this rate, it looked like I'd be shooting every future action scene with this same stifled feeling in my chest.