"If you ask why now, I didn't start this thinking I had to do it at this exact moment," he said. "It flowed naturally and I met it almost like fate. That made me feel even more grateful. And I was thankful to work with good staff and actors."
In 'Jjanggu,' Jung Woo went beyond acting, taking part in the screenplay and co-directing. He said that after holding onto the character for a long time, he wanted to look more closely at the full process of completing a film.
"What I felt is that actors often don't realize how much energy and care goes into postproduction," he said. "Experiencing it myself was interesting, but it also reminded me how much effort it takes to finish a film."
Jung Woo said he does not see 'Jjanggu' as a sequel to 'Wish,' even though the character returns.
"Strictly speaking, I don't think it's 'Wish 2,'" he said. "It's hard to call it that. If anything, since that character comes back, it could feel like a spinoff or a character movie. But it's different from what people usually think of as a series. It's definitely not the kind of continuation like 'The Roundup' 1 and 2."
In the film, Jjanggu's friends — including Jang-jae (played by Shin Seung-ho) and Kkangnaengi (played by Jo Beom-gyu) — are grounded characters with a lifelike feel. Jung Woo said they did not come purely from fiction but from the texture of people he has known.
"Like with 'Wish,' because I wrote this myself, I kept thinking of unique friends I'd seen in real life," he said. "Jang-jae and Kkangnaengi look ordinary on the surface, but if you look closely, they're not. I thought that sense of real life would be fun. I have even more unusual friends around me, and I'm a bit sorry I couldn't fit them all in."
'Wish' was a film whose impact could not be explained by its theatrical box office alone. It achieved meaningful results as an independent film, then found a longer and wider audience through IPTV and VOD, earning the nickname an "unofficial 10 million" film.
"Back then, I didn't even really know what the break-even point was," he said. "To us, it was just a meaningful step. We once went to Jeju for a stage greeting and only four people were sitting there. There were fewer audience members than us, so theater staff even filled seats. We still went around doing those greetings.
"After screenings, taking selfies and signing for each person was honestly hard. I didn't really understand the idea of fan service, and I didn't know how to enjoy that time. But now it's different. This time in Busan, taking photos and making memories with the audience felt really fun and I was grateful. The score isn't something I can control, so I see it as the process of thanking each person."
If 'Wish' was based on Jung Woo's story, adapted into a script by director Lee Seong-han, he said 'Jjanggu' was a more direct effort to write out his own time. Starting from a similar autobiographical place, he said he revised and refined the story more from the writer's seat than the actor's.
"Putting my story into writing isn't easy," he said. "'Wish' had the autobiographical label, but I think it was closer to a list of episodes. Still, because my real experiences were in it — including my father's story — it had its own arc. This film also started from my story, but I think I adapted it more. I rewrote it five or six times, up to seven, and I refined it with help from people around me."
Asked what changed most through the rewrites, Jung Woo said the work ultimately returned to the direction of the first draft, even after repeated revisions.
"It didn't change so much as it eventually went back to the beginning," he said. "Even after about six rounds of adaptation, I ended up returning toward the first draft. The production company heads said, 'We knew this would happen.' But you can't just do nothing and jump in. In any case, the process made what was rough at first feel smoother."
Though he is credited as a co-director, Jung Woo said he is not treating directing as a concrete plan or goal.
"I don't have a specific directing plan," he said. "I'm just continuing to write scripts. I don't know which one will become a film, but I write when I can and enjoy it.
"I really enjoyed being on set. It was tough and I could have gotten hurt, but thankfully I didn't. These days, shooting hours are set. The actors' condition matters, but the staff's condition matters, too, so we were able to shoot without going over time. We also filmed for quite a while in my hometown, Busan, so I had more time than expected with the staff and actors. I filmed with a grateful 마음."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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