Director (2)
There had once been something Seonghun hyung told me.
“Do you know Director Min Byeongki?”
“The one from Violence 17 Laws?”
“Yeah, that director. Isn’t he seriously something else?”
That was unusual.
Seonghun hyung was the elite of the elite, a director who had been educated in film from childhood. Since the rise of OTT platforms, the line had blurred a little, but as a rule, film directors looked down on drama directors.
Unlike drama, film put the director in command, and because that demanded a corresponding level of skill, there was always a subtle hierarchy baked into the relationship between the two camps.
And this was Seonghun hyung we were talking about—at the time, he was a rising star gaining recognition both at home and abroad. For him to defend a drama director who’d won nothing more than a single award was astonishing.
Even more so because, that day, hyung had sounded genuinely excited.
“Who would’ve known? That kind of direction was possible in drama action.”
“I saw it too, so I know. He did it well. But every technique he used looked expensive as hell.”
“No, that’s the opposite. He spent less than it looked like. He just pushed the performance to the limit through composition and rhythm control.”
“Oh?”
“It’s instinct. The scene is already in his head before the camera even starts rolling. He knows exactly how the camera will move to follow it, how the lighting will work, how the visual effect comes together!”
That was how Min Byeongki earned his nickname: the Magician of Tempo.
Drama might be the writer’s game, but turning that into moving images was the director’s job. And in that process, Min Byeongki didn’t just establish the tone of a story—he sometimes caught details in a scene even the writer hadn’t clearly envisioned, pulling the audience in deeper. Other times, he’d trim down overdone scenes with just the right amount of pace, then stitch them seamlessly into what came next.
And what was the result?
Anyone who found themselves swept up in one of Min Byeongki’s action sequences inevitably came away calling it “the kind of drama you binge at night and regret the next morning.”
By the time I died, he’d become so influential that if you mentioned action directors in Korea, his name had to come up.
Not taking him was stupidity.
Especially since Sword-Bound Gentleman was a genre that couldn’t help but lean heavily on action, making a director who knew how to handle rhythm absolutely indispensable.
The question was how to make that convincing.
“Ahh, sorry. It was just such an unexpected name.”
Go Yeongchan rubbed his chin.
What I needed to do here wasn’t force the issue, but plant reasons he’d find reasonable.
“I think it’s more than enough to consider him. I’ve been having quite a hard time tracking people down myself.”
“Tracking them down? For what?”
“Your chief’s last project back when you were still active—Espionage Comes After the Kiss.”
“Huh? Ah, right—Byeongki was in that! He came in as an assistant director!”
“There were a few parts in that show—so distinctive they almost felt out of place. The wire action in episode 3, the knife action in episode 7, the chase scene in episode 13, and the gunfight in episode 15.”
Go Yeongchan’s eyes went wide.
Of course they did. We’d been pressed for time and handed over whole scenes, and that was the result.
Later, in an interview, Min Byeongki had casually told that story himself.
“I knew because of the angles. He used forced perspective to heighten the sense of speed, and dynamic framing to amp up the motion without ever letting the focus drift off the characters. It had a sensibility different from the producer’s straight, heavy style.”
It’s frightening, how perception works.
I didn’t need to add anything more. Go Yeongchan would end up considering Min Byeongki as a possible director without even realizing it.
More importantly, Go Yeongchan wasn’t an idiot.
He’d climbed to his position on talent alone, and even if he was only checking because of the possibility, he’d look into it.
That was enough.
If it doesn’t work...
Well, then I’d probably have to use something far more extreme.
Anyway, that was where the conversation had reached when—
“...Writer Han.”
Go Yeongchan’s expression suddenly hardened.
I flinched. Had I read the room wrong? Was this the kind of guy whose tolerance for overstepping was low?
My mind spun.
I’d guessed wrong.
“You’re that deep into visual technique too?”
“Pardon?”
“...You understand the director? The director’s individuality! You understand that much!?”
“...?”
His eyes were a little wet, but his face was so rough-looking that it still seemed fierce, almost savage. My survival instincts rose before I even noticed them.
Leaving that aside—
“...In the end, drama is something everyone makes together, isn’t it? I think good work only comes when there’s enough respect and trust for each other’s territory.”
That was my honest answer.
The industry’s perceptions were what they were, but the truth was simple: good directors were as rare as good writers.
Blood vessels stood out in the whites of Go Yeongchan’s eyes.
I swear, it was the most overwhelming look I’d ever received in my life.
Without meaning to, I looked away.
His voice, thick with emotion, hit my ear.
“...You’re a really good person.”
“...”
“Yeah, all right. I’ll keep every single thing Writer Han said in mind and choose carefully!”
“Yes, well...”
As long as he did, I was grateful.
...Anyway, that ended the meeting.
The good part was this, at least:
Writer Han! It’s me, Chief Go! I thought about the director issue, and like you said, Byeongki’s the one!
The goal had been achieved, however I looked at it.
* * *
Every group has its social misfits.
No matter how strict the hierarchy, there are always people who secretly look down on their superiors.
And then there’s the rare bastard who’s both.
Min Byeongki, a somewhat worn-down rookie PD who’d thoroughly flopped his debut project, was that kind of person.
He’d once been an aspiring film director.
He’d won recognition at university film festivals and even at small indie competitions after graduation, and the future had looked bright—until reality as an unknown director crushed him, driving him to turn toward drama, where he now collected his salary with disciplined regularity.
His goal here was to live quietly, thinly, and for as long as possible.
No, let me be a little more honest.
I’m going to build connections and quit this damn place someday!
The terrestrial broadcaster’s drama division was basically the heart of Korea’s entertainment industry. Byeongki’s distant dream was to build enough career and enough connections here that he could eventually leave, land a flashy investment, and make a great film.
Big dreams, huh?
That would’ve been a fair way to put it, but in truth, Byeongki was pretty damn good at managing scenes.
Even when he’d first been given his debut project, there had been enough in him that experienced PDs acknowledged his ability.
The problem was that his debut project had been a straight-up romantic melodrama, the complete counter to his strengths, and that was what twisted his career into knots.
And if there was another problem, it was that he knew that fact all too well, which left him still full of arrogance.
At any rate, he was exactly the sort of creature to feel awkward in the current situation.
“So, Byeongki! Your second project has been selected as a finalist in this year’s competition!”
“S-suddenly...?”
“Yeah! I looked at it, and the writer’s really good! You’re lucky, punk!”
Go Yeongchan, the senior chief, laughed boisterously and slapped Byeongki on the shoulder.
The casual display of force from a man who looked like he could crack boulders with his fists crushed the rebuttal that had been trying to crawl out of Byeongki’s mouth.
If it’s the finalist project this year, isn’t that the one Jo-sunbae was screaming his head off about?
Among the PDs at WBS, if you asked who had the strongest pull, Jo Duho was easily in the top three.
It wasn’t as if Byeongki respected or followed the man...
No, if he was being honest, he found him deeply repulsive on a human level. But in the long-term plan for his career, getting on Jo Duho’s bad side was a spectacularly stupid idea.
Whether it was relationships inside the company or outside business dealings, one word from that bastard could mess a lot of things up in a hurry.
Byeongki spoke carefully, bowing and scraping.
Mostly because he wanted to avoid trouble at all costs.
“I-I’m not sure I’m capable of doing a good job...”
“Of course you are! You’re incredible with action! This one’s a historical noir! Sword fights! Chases! Brawls! It’s got all that!”
“Th-that does sound fun...”
“And most of all, Writer Han specifically picked you! He found the parts you directed in Espionage Comes After the Kiss and praised them like he had x-ray vision!”
“...Seriously?”
Byeongki’s ears perked up.
Like many people starved for recognition, his affection meter for the writer rose by about ten points at the news that someone had discovered and acknowledged him.
N-no, wait! I still have to think about office politics...
But I’m just doing what the higher-ups told me to criticize. Is that really a problem?
No, but Jo Duho is such an emotional bastard. He throws a fit over nothing all the time.
But isn’t this a real chance? If the writer is my “fan,” then the production too...
Before he knew it, Byeongki’s mind had already turned Jaekyung into his fan.
With Go Yeongchan’s approval on top of that, it started to feel as if something might actually come of this.
It was a perfect cocktail of flimsy resolve and overgrown ego.
His heart began to tilt in one direction.
Hmm, maybe this works out after all. I read that script too.
Back when it was still blind submissions, during the period when the entire drama department was tearing each other apart, he had read Sword-Bound Gentleman and even thought he’d like to take it on himself.
To Byeongki, it was that promising a project.
It had been a thought he’d abandoned quickly because of internal politics, but if things were turning out this way, what could he do?
What if I hit big with this?
Then wouldn’t Jo Duho be nothing special?
After all, Jo Duho was just some scrub who strutted around because he’d scored a few mid-to-high hits with romantic comedies.
Before long, that thought crossed his mind.
If the writer’s my fan, then I control the set. I control the direction too.
Generally speaking, people with swollen egos and firm self-belief but no actual achievements tend to carry around some vague expectation that “I’m going to be a success.”
Unfortunately, Byeongki was one of those people.
...Wait. Is this a comeback?
Min Byeongki, having glimpsed something, changed his mind in that instant.
“I’ll do my absolute best! I won’t waste your trust, Chief!”
“That’s the spirit, punk!”
He grinned.
Yeah, if it was just Jo Duho—who he neither liked nor was close to—couldn’t he just beat him with results?
If it were me, I could do it!
Several days later, buoyed by those dreams and hopes and confidence, he arrived for the meeting with Jaekyung.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Director. I’m Writer Han Jaekyung.”
Not PD, but director.
The word choice flattered the film-director ego tucked inside Byeongki just enough to lift his chin a little higher.
The first time he’d seen Jaekyung, the man’s sharply edged, stylish air had made him feel a bit intimidated, but even that feeling had already faded.
“Yes! Nice to meet you! I’m Min Byeongki!”
As Byeongki sat down with a thud, he had no idea.
He had no idea that the shallow core of his personality was being analyzed in real time by a regressor made entirely of malice toward human beings.
* * *
This industry was small, no matter how it looked.
Two or three links down the chain, everybody knew everybody else, and stories about “what kind of person so-and-so is” traveled constantly through the grapevine, whether in film or drama.
I’d spent my whole life in this business.
That meant I had a rough sense of what kind of person Min Byeongki was.
How should I put it? Kind of a loser? He doesn’t have the guts for anything, but his ego’s so bloated you have to poke him now and then just to get him to straighten up.
That wasn’t my evaluation.
It was the words of a senior who had once stood at the bottom rung of what might generously be called the “average writer” social order.
One of the greatest cautionary examples of my life. A person I still remembered with a mix of nostalgia and regret.
Was he credible?
There was no way he wasn’t.
Heh-heh, the first time we met was really fun. What I did then was...
Because he was the writer of Violence 17 Laws, the hit that turned Min Byeongki into a star director.
So let me dress that man’s words in socially acceptable language.
Min Byeongki could be summarized as someone with “no malice, but an irritating personality” and “real ability, but an ego larger than that ability.”
A pity.
As I thought.
At that moment, I could no longer deny that my senior’s judgment contained a piercing, almost anatomical intuition about human beings.
“Hah! So you recognized that technique! Actually, if you mimic speed ramping with a shaky cam...”
“Writing is certainly important. But drama is still visual! And visual is the art of sight, after all!”
“A director needs a director’s ego! As for me, well... I’d say I’m already complete in that department. You can set aside your worries about filming—no, really. Though I suppose that’s why you chose me in the first place, hah!”
One little compliment, and he was like that.
At some point, dopamine had fried his brain, and he’d forgotten where he even was, rambling like a drunk.
He wasn’t the kind of person who made for easy teamwork.
But was his personality flaw some fatal defect to me?
No, it wasn’t.
Sexual bribery, affairs, suicide, drugs, school violence, tax evasion.
From my position, having already collected every one of those stones of endless ruin and snapped my life away with a single finger, this really wasn’t much of a problem.
What we had to remember was that this was a business relationship.
In business, what matters isn’t “How close can I get to this guy?” but “How reliably can we secure mutual benefit?”
On that front, Min Byeongki was still an S-rank acquisition.
Of course he was. Aside from his personality, he had no major flaws, and his ability was undeniably excellent.
Even his personality could be controlled.
Let’s see...
Even so, I was a regressor.
I had a manual for handling people.
...Right, I remember.
— First, set the mood. Act a little pissed off!
I interlaced my fingers and rested my chin on them.
My expression turned faintly displeased, and I lowered my voice a little.
“Hmm. I heard you out.”
“Y-yes?”
“I said I heard you out.”
I let the corner of my mouth lift just slightly.
I was trying to look like I was swallowing my discomfort.
I wasn’t trying to do anything extraordinary.
“Though, there’s something I’m curious about. May I ask?”
I was just going to use a little of my writer power, after a long time.