Recruitment (1)
As the Busan International Film Festival was reaching its closing stretch, the news that Gyeollo had taken a three-category sweep spread far beyond the articles themselves and raced through YouTube, forums, and every corner of the web.
“Busan International Film Festival three-win sweep: public interest surges for Gyeollo”
“Gyeollo sweeps the short film acting award and the grand prize... could it become the biggest beneficiary of this year’s BIFF?”
The short film from a nobody in his twenties. The one called Gyeollo, which had apparently beaten out powerful short films from Korea and abroad to win the grand prize. The washed-up Yoon Dayeon had returned in a supporting role and won an award, too? The lead actress in Gyeollo wasn’t Yoon Dayeon at all, but an unknown actress who’d snagged the rookie award. Stories like that.
Because the setup was so unusual, public attention gathered fast.
-lolllll a no-name director in his twenties won the short film grand prize lollll I’ve never seen anything like this lmao
-Isn’t this kind of weird? Yoon Dayeon making a comeback in a short film as a supporting actress and winning an award lol
-Does anyone know the actress who won Rookie Award????
-She was totally unknown, looks like she debuted at BIFF
-I really want to see Gyeollo.....
-Washed-up Yoon Dayeon somehow got a respirator attached lol
-↑Yoon Dayeon isn’t quite that washed-up, though. She was in a morning drama too.
-But that Kang Jaeha guy they mentioned in the actors’ comments? Supposedly their manager, and he sounds insane lol
-For real, the actors and director kept praising him and saying thanks
-If he really found the work and then planted the actors in it, that’s Midas-hand levels of crazy lol
-This is the first time I’ve seen a manager become the topic of conversation
-Anyway, looks like we’ll see the Gyeollo team on a talk show soon?
-They should book them right away on a variety show
-What about Kang Jaeha the manager? Isn’t he going to show up too lol
-Oh! Now I’m curious what he looks like
Not only the Gyeollo team, but Kang Jaeha’s name, which had kept surfacing in the acceptance speeches, was mentioned again and again, further fueling the BIFF fire. Meanwhile, the closing ceremony at the Cinema Center did not finish handing out the awards until late at night, several hours later.
But the schedule still wasn’t over.
In fact, for today’s winners, this might have been where it all truly began.
“Director! Director Kwon Seongmin! Please look over here!”
“Yoon Dayeon and An Jihee, could you stand together for a pose, please!!”
There was the photo time, and after that came interviews of every sort.
Thanks to that, the Gyeollo team would have to stay in Busan for a few more days after BIFF ended tonight. The official schedule was finished. But unofficially, there were still greetings and meetings to get through with famous directors, agencies, production companies, and others who had come to the festival.
In fact, after the photo session, Director Kwon Seongmin was already being approached by plenty of people asking for handshakes.
“Director Kwon Seongmin? I enjoyed Gyeollo. It’s surprising that Gyeollo was your first film. It’s impressive enough that you made something like that at your age.”
“Th-thank you, director!”
“Haha, let me give you my card. We should talk about your work sometime and have a meal together.”
He was getting a lot of business cards, too. People wanted to talk about the film.
“Director? If you don’t have a next project lined up yet, would you be open to talking with us about your future work?”
“Ah, I’ll get in touch!”
There were even conversations about agencies. In other words, about representation.
“Director Kwon Seongmin, are you currently signed with any agency?”
“Excuse me? No?”
“Then please make sure to contact us. We’d really like to take care of you.”
But because everything was so chaotic, Kwon Seongmin could only keep accepting greetings and business cards as they came.
This is insane!!
Yoon Dayeon and An Jihee were the same. Many Korean and foreign figures were showing interest in them, too. Comments about how good the work was, how incredible the acting had been. And among them, the one that stood out most was the man who had just stepped up to Yoon Dayeon.
A pale man with round glasses. Yu Giltae, one of the great directors of the country.
“Dayeon.”
As the master filmmaker appeared, nearby eyes focused on them, and Yoon Dayeon, uncharacteristically, tensed just a little.
“Director Yu Giltae.”
“Mm. It’s hectic today, so I’ll keep this brief. Your acting in Gyeollo was memorable.”
That Director Yu Giltae was praising her acting? Yoon Dayeon didn’t show it on her face, but inside she was practically setting off fireworks.
What is this? I want to brag about it so badly!
“...Thank you.”
“I’ll be in touch. Let’s definitely meet again.”
At the loaded remark, Yoon Dayeon swallowed.
“Meet again?”
It was then that Kang Jaeha came into her view as she watched Director Yu Giltae walk away.
“Ah.”
Kim Daeyong, the chief manager, was with him too. Probably there to look after Yoon Dayeon and An Jihee in the middle of all this crowd. As Kang Jaeha moved toward the two women surrounded by people, his eyes flicked briefly to someone passing by.
It was the master director Yu Giltae.
Then Jaeha remembered Yoon Dayeon’s deja vu. Yu Giltae giving Yoon Dayeon a screenplay.
So it’s about to happen.
Yu Giltae had probably seen Gyeollo here at BIFF and fallen for Yoon Dayeon’s performance in it.
Is he writing the screenplay now? Or is it already done?
Just as Kang Jaeha was thinking that, he suddenly froze. His vision rippled, and a strange sense of familiarity surged up. A deja vu had triggered. The main figure was Director Yu Giltae.
A studio filled with cameras. In the shooting zone the cameras were pointed at two people seated there. One of them was a woman, and the person speaking with her was Director Yu Giltae.
“Director! Congratulations! Your new film’s been out for a week now, and the response is looking very strong, isn’t it? Three million admissions in the first week!”
“Thank you.”
“People around you are already showering you with praise, saying, as expected of a master director. The public is saying the same thing.”
Director Yu Giltae appeared to be in the middle of filming an interview.
“What was the most recent work that moved you deeply?”
“Hmm. It was Gyeollo, which I saw at the Busan International Film Festival.”
“Ah! That was a hot topic, Gyeollo.”
When the interview ended, he said goodbye to the reporter and left the shooting zone. The staff had been waiting for him. That was when it happened.
“D-director!!”
A man with a face full of panic and alarm hurried over to Director Yu Giltae. The man, who seemed to know him well, spoke with grave urgency.
“Just now, t-the male lead, Woo Jeongcheol’s... drug scandal broke.”
“W-what...?”
The moment he heard it, Director Yu Giltae’s face crumpled.
That was as far as it went. Jaeha’s vision rippled again, and he was back in the crowded hall in an instant. He turned his head slightly. With a faintly startled look in his eyes, he watched Director Yu Giltae’s retreating back and muttered to himself.
So this is about his upcoming film.
According to the deja vu, the incident would break after the film’s release.
Woo Jeongcheol’s drug use, huh.
Kang Jaeha shifted his gaze toward Yoon Dayeon. She was waiting for him.
Woo Jeongcheol’s reputation isn’t exactly clean, either.
Looks like he’d need to move early.
The next morning, on the 4th, at the Netflix Korea office.
From early morning, the Netflix office was in a frenzy. It almost looked like everyone was reading something. In several meeting rooms, they were going through stacks of paper; at their desks, they were looking at screens on laptops.
That wasn’t strange.
They were busy because of the contest Netflix had recently announced with great ambition. The one-act drama project. The submission guidelines had gone up long ago, and an enormous number of scripts had poured in the moment they did.
“Ugh, there are just too many, seriously!”
“Apparently twice as many as expected.”
“Twice?”
As a result, the content team at Netflix Korea was suffering. No matter how many scripts they read, and reread, and kept reading, the pile never seemed to shrink. Even so, their concentration didn’t waver.
The one-act drama project was a major undertaking Netflix Korea had planned with real long-term vision. And with this many scripts submitted, there was naturally a huge amount of rejection as well.
“Ugh, this one wasn’t even edited properly before they sent it in.”
“That’s pretty generous. The one I just read kept changing the protagonist’s name every other page.”
“At this rate, we’ll be lucky to salvage one script out of ten.”
Still, there were scripts that had made it through the first round. Those had already passed the team leaders and were now in the hands of the executive director, the person effectively representing Netflix Korea. In that executive director’s office, the red interior matched the Netflix logo.
-Flip.
The sound of paper turning echoed. A bald man sat there, reading a script with a serious expression. He was Ho Seongjin, the executive director of Netflix Korea.
-Flip, flip.
Ho Seongjin spent a long time reading without moving an inch. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. At last, the man who had been silently reading the script made his first movement.
“Hmm.”
He let out a low hum, then suddenly laughed. A smile full of satisfaction.
“Not bad. Of all the first-round scripts, this one’s the best by far.”
In fact, Ho Seongjin had already read the script for a second time. He liked it that much.
“There’s a bit of a rough feel overall, but it’s fun enough that none of that matters. The pacing is good, and the development is clean. More than anything...” He tilted his head, as if searching for the right word. “The characters feel alive. Raw, somehow.”
As he muttered to himself, the executive director shifted the direction of the leg he had crossed. He closed the script he had been holding open.
“But...”
Ho Seongjin’s expression grew a little more serious all at once. The reason was simple enough. It was the writer’s name printed on the cover of the script he had been reading.
Writer: Jongman
Jongman? Ho Seongjin stroked his chin.
“Jongman. Is that a name? Or a pen name?”
At that moment, a supporting actor with a rough-looking face flashed through his memory, and he let out a small laugh.
“The actor Oh Jongman I know... no, no. There’s no way.”
6th, Busan. Daytime.
The place was a tax accountant’s office in Busan. The worn sign out front bore the words “Tax Accountant Cha Chunghyun,” and the office inside wasn’t very large. Put kindly, it was simple. Put unkindly, it looked empty.
In other words, it had the air of a place that could just as well have shut down already.
There was only one man in that office, sitting at a desk cluttered with utility bills and the like.
“...Yaaawn. Tch.”
The yawning man stared blankly into space. His eyes were drooping, and his hair looked like he hadn’t bothered to comb it in days. There was a heavy, listless air clinging to him.
He was the Cha Chunghyun Lee Chanhoo had found.
As Cha Chunghyun sat there doing nothing, his face held a strange mix of boredom and grievance. In truth, his feelings matched that exactly. He was killing time here, but deep down there was a thread of resentment.
The office was so quiet that the honk of a car outside could be heard clearly.
After wandering through his thoughts and idle fantasies for a long while, Cha Chunghyun finally spoke.
“Should I go home?”
There was nothing for him to do here anyway. Then, as if the idea itself had become a nuisance, Cha Chunghyun let out a heavy sigh.
“There’s nothing to do even if I go home. I might as well just sleep here today. Yeah, that’s the best option.”
After talking to himself and answering himself, Cha Chunghyun fixed his eyes on the air again. His gaze was hollow. That wasn’t strange. This “Tax Accountant Cha Chunghyun” was on the verge of shutting down.
The customers had already dried up, and even the few who still came around were not being taken in.
There must have been some reason for it.
As Cha Chunghyun quietly passed the time, he suddenly found himself thinking of the other world.
...It was less worrying over there. I was less sleepy, too. The commander was scary as hell, though.
For a moment he thought about that other world and shuddered a little at the commander’s fearsome presence, then remembered another, happier memory.
That nap under that giant-ass tree was pure heaven.
Soon he got up, pulled the last can of canned coffee from the mini-fridge, and found it lukewarm because he’d even turned the power off. Maybe because that can of coffee felt a bit like himself, Cha Chunghyun gave a hollow little laugh.
-Swish.
He sat back down. Just as he was taking a sip of the other canned coffee, the sound of the tax office door opening came suddenly. But Cha Chunghyun didn’t turn around, didn’t even glance over, and kept drinking as he said casually,
“We’re closed. Go somewhere else.”
“...”
But the presence remained. Frowning, Cha Chunghyun let out a sigh and muttered inwardly.
Haa, what now? I told you to go. Annoying.
Still seated, he took another sip of canned coffee and turned his body around. The moment he saw the customer standing at the door, Cha Chunghyun spat the coffee he was drinking all over the floor.
He coughed violently.
By contrast, the visitor, Kang Jaeha, looked down at the coffee Cha Chunghyun had sprayed across the floor, then let out a slight smile.
“That’s a little too much of a welcome. Are you that happy to see me?”