Too Good a Scene
"Manager, I really think I should at least stop by the set, even just for a little while..."
"Forget it. Forget it. Pile up a bunch of useless connections and all you've got is baggage."
Bae Su-chan had asked the question out of nowhere, left alone at the production lodging with his script. The pages were already dense with notes of every kind. But no amount of studying could match being on set, and he knew that perfectly well — yet his manager, Kim Jae-seok, would not budge an inch.
"You have any idea how important networking is out there? Jo Yong-jin and Ye Na-ri? Sure, they got cast in a Hong Il-beom movie, but come on — they're not exactly top-tier. You keep your network shallow and wide. Friendships, you keep narrow and deep."
Then again, maybe he really didn't know. This manager had been swapped in the moment the casting was confirmed. Word was he was connected through the CEO's wife. Judging people by rumors was something Bae Su-chan tried to avoid, but he couldn't bring himself to like Kim Jae-seok.
And so what? There's nothing I can do about it.
He couldn't bring back the old manager who'd landed him the audition, and he couldn't switch agencies. All he could do was endure, and endure, and succeed.
"Ye Na-ri's going straight into a drama after this, right? I heard they recommended her in exchange for changing the ending. Doesn't that smell fishy to you?"
"Pardon? Don't writers recommend actors to each other all the time?"
"Come on. You think they just put in a good word, no strings attached? There's something going on. A hundred percent."
Bae Su-chan offered the occasional noncommittal reply to his manager's increasingly unhinged, baseless conspiracy theories and tried to focus on the script.
"Ha. If I could just get something on them — anything I could use..."
That Bae Su-chan failed to catch Kim Jae-seok's muttered aside was, perhaps, inevitable.
Director Hong Il-beom's films had a habit of stirring up controversy over their intensity. It wasn't just the historical action epic Goryeo Musin, which followed the Goryeo warrior Cheok Jun-gyeong's campaign against the Jurchen — even the folk-tale-inspired historical fantasy The Goblin Hanging from the Eaves had been criticized for going too far. Goryeo Musin, in particular, contained not a shred of sexual content and still received an 18+ rating on violence alone.
Even so, the films were so well-crafted that they tended to rank high once they landed on streaming platforms. I had watched Director Hong Il-beom's work on streaming myself, before the regression. I'd heard he filed an appeal every time a rating came down, and that not a single one had ever been granted. Fair enough.
The action was spectacular, but it was far too real.
It wasn't that he staged cruelty for its own sake. He simply rendered raw violence — and the suffering it produced — with unbearable clarity. Given the stories he told, his ultimate intent seemed to be exposing the harm violence leaves behind. But his directorial instincts were so sharp that the finished films ended up highlighting the thrill of violence instead. How a man so mild-mannered in person ended up shooting films like that was anyone's guess.
From a certain point onward, though, the violence had softened considerably, and he started turning out all-ages and 12+ films with ease. The man was never just an action director, and those later works performed far better than anything that had come before.
"This time, we really need to land a 12+ rating."
Hong Il-beom muttered it to himself — a Hong Il-beom who had not yet watched a murder unfold on his own set and been forced to scrap a film. It was right after they'd shot the scene of Baek-yeong abusing Cheon-young.
Soaked through from the water, I was bundled tight in a blanket and nestled in Gwon Du-il's arms. Given the scene we'd just finished, the crew couldn't exactly laugh out loud, but when the still photographer edged in for a shot, I gave him a bright little smile.
He snapped the shutter in a flash, then hurried over with a thumbs-up.
"That acting was incredible...!"
The mood on set was so heavy he whispered it and slipped away just as quickly. Assistant director Seo Ji-wook came over to check on me, and Ye Na-ri — from wherever she'd managed to find it — brought me a cup of warm yuzu tea.
And Ahn Cha-young, who had just spent the last take tormenting Cheon-young with water and a stream of vicious abuse as Baek-yeong, was clutching his hair and very nearly sobbing.
"Urgh... I'm garbage... I'm actual garbage... The kind that doesn't burn, the kind that contaminates the ground if you bury it, the kind you can't even recycle — irredeemable trash...!"
Ahn Cha-young's manager and Choi Seo-rin — who would play Hee-yeong, every bit as abusive to Cheon-young as Baek-yeong — hovered beside him, trying to console him.
I seemed to be the only person on set who was completely fine. Was I the strange one? I'd registered that Baek-yeong said and did some truly awful things to a child, but it wasn't directed at me, so it hadn't landed particularly hard.
Director Hong Il-beom, reviewing the footage, looked deeply troubled. I slipped out of Gwon Du-il's arms and went over to him.
"Did it not come out well? Should we set up again?"
I was probably the only person who could ask him something like that when he looked that grim. Hong Il-beom tilted his head, noncommittal.
"Too good is a problem?"
"Yes... If we use it as-is, the ratings board will flag it for sure. And then the age rating goes up..."
I'd wondered about this even before the regression. Why was this man so obsessed with ratings?
A higher rating did shrink the audience, but unless a film was Restricted, the difference wasn't meaningful. And every one of Director Hong Il-beom's films had cleared its break-even point. He'd earned a reputation for making masterpieces, even if they never quite became blockbusters, and he himself seemed reasonably content with that.
The reason he'd moved away from violent direction before the regression hadn't been the ratings. It had been because of me. He had carried the guilt that his style of directing might have provoked the murderer — who had been an actor. I'd told him that wasn't true, but he never changed his mind.
This time I intended to stop the murder itself, which meant the film wouldn't be scrapped and he wouldn't have that guilt to carry. Which meant Director Hong Il-beom's style would stay exactly as it was?
That would be a waste.
After his style shifted, Director Hong Il-beom had leapt from a great Korean filmmaker to a world-class one. If he kept obsessing over ratings instead of the work itself, with nothing to push him forward, he would remain at this level for a long, long time. I'd told him I wanted to star in one of his films. If that was the case, I'd rather he became a director of real international stature a little sooner.
I pretended to hesitate, then spoke in a light, carefully constructed voice, letting a note of disappointment seep through.
"I guess if the rating's too high, my friends won't be able to see it. They said the school would take us as a group when it comes out..."
Hong Il-beom flinched, then flicked his eyes away, awkward.
That's right. Even you know that's not a scene you'd show to kids, don't you?
"If it's rated 15+, they can still go with a guardian."
"Yeees, I asked my homeroom teacher, and she said the same thing."
"See? You'll still be able to watch it with your friends."
"But she said if the school tries to do a group screening of a 15+ movie, they get a flood of complaints."
Hong Il-beom had nothing to say to that. He wasn't usually this soft-hearted, but then, look at me right now. My hair hung in wet strands, and I was wrapped in an enormous towel, barely managing to stay on my feet. Anyone could see how pitiful I looked, and that man of steel was visibly wrestling with himself.
I put on a smile that tried very hard to look fine.
"But it's your movie, Director, so you should make it the way you want! It's okay. I'll just watch it with my friends when I'm a little older."
"...Right."
Hong Il-beom gave the towel on my head a light rub.
"It'll get cold once the sun goes down. Go on inside."
"Yes! See you tomorrow."
I bowed to him and turned away without a shred of lingering. You couldn't snap a decades-old stubbornness in a single moment. For now, planting a light seed of doubt would do.
And when I arrived on set the next day, I heard that every remaining scene of Cheon-young's abuse had been postponed.
I might talk him around faster than I thought.
Click.
This is it!
Kim Jae-seok checked the photo he'd taken in secret, practically giddy. In it, Lee Su-a stood in front of Hong Il-beom, soaked to the bone, looking thoroughly miserable, her expression downcast. To anyone who didn't know the context, it would look as though Hong Il-beom had just given Lee Su-a a vicious scolding. With a little luck, he could even spin it as child abuse.
If I poke him with this and ask for a role in exchange...
There was another photo right after it of Lee Su-a and Hong Il-beom smiling at each other, but he didn't need that one, so he ignored it.
No... is it too weak? There were plenty of witnesses, and this might not even make him blink. I need something more solid.
Kim Jae-seok pushed up his glasses and clicked his tongue. This was all Hong Il-beom's fault for refusing a simple request for a single role. Was it so much to ask — slot in our rookie actress as Il-yeong, give her a few shots on camera, a line or two of dialogue? He'd even offered a generous cut, and the man wouldn't listen, so what else was a powerless manager supposed to do?
Maybe I should look for something stronger.
Kim Jae-seok started to send the photo to his brother-in-law, the agency CEO, then stopped. There was still plenty of shooting left.
Grinning as he skimmed through the pictures, he failed to notice one thing.
In the photograph, the child's gaze had found him.