Han Jun-hee: 'Safe Choices Can End Up Becoming the Bigger Risk'

Director Han Jun-hee told a Busan masterclass that caution is the greater gamble in filmmaking. "If you only make extremely safe choices, those safe choices can end up becoming the bigger risk," he said.

Han, director of "Coin Locker Girl" and military drama "D.P.", delivered the masterclass at Netflix's Creative Asia program during the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), in conversation with Kim Kijae, a longtime creative executive at Netflix Korea. The session came ahead of the Nov. 20 Netflix release of his Korea-Japan thriller "The Blue Road."

The ambition traces back to binge-watching "House of Cards," which struck him as a game changer and left him wanting to make a story no one had told before that many people would watch. "I think you need to make bold choices so that the story is interesting," Han told the audience. "In Korea we call those gambles 'go or stop.'"

How does he make niche material mainstream?

Han's projects take on subjects that could seem too narrow: Korean military service in "D.P." and high school violence in "Weak Hero Class 1." His solution is genre wrapping.

• "For 'D.P.' we used the buddy-movie format; for 'Weak Hero' we wrapped it in action," Han said.
• "But when wrapping the material in genre, you have to wonder: does that genre neutralize its uniqueness and make it too ordinary?"
• "That collision is ultimately the defining moment of the work. I believe there is no story that cannot be made into a film or series."

What happened when he stepped back from directing?

Some bets have been made from outside the director's chair. In recent years Han has often worked as creator and producer on series others direct. "Weak Hero" is the case in point. Executives worried the violent hit series would appeal only to male viewers; Han believed anyone could relate to it.

"I had a strategy. There were three young actors. I thought among the three, at least one would be a crush for someone," he said, referring to leads Park Ji-hoon, Choi Hyun-wook and Hong Kyung.

He also judged himself not the best person to direct, and helped launch the career of Yoo Soo-min, then an emerging director. With debuts getting harder to land in Korea, he said, backing new talent matters for the future of the country's creative industry.

His most recent producer credit is "Dead-End Job," a Netflix mystery-horror series premiering Oct. 30. Kim Da-min, who wrote Netflix's "A Killer Paradox," directs; Han oversaw creative development. In the series, a young man buried in debt takes a part-time job paying 50 times the minimum wage at a staffing agency where every shift could kill him. The project packs in horror, black comedy, disaster, action and mystery.

"It's about the harsh reality of earning a living, but told through a fantasy wrapper," Han said, adding that they sought a very energetic director to meet this "reckless" challenge.

What is 'The Blue Road'?

"The Blue Road," which screened at Busan in the On Screen section, marks Han's return to the director's chair — though he does not call it a comeback, since he never stopped working behind the scenes. Adapted from "Blue Road," a Korean-Japanese manga written by Edogawa Keishi and drawn by Kwon Ka-ya in 2002, the co-produced series stars Son Suk-ku and Nagayama Eita.

"Rather than massive VFX or scale, I wanted to create a project driven head-to-head by the actors and their acting," Han said.

On set, Han worked with both Korean and Japanese crews. "In Korea we're very flexible, adaptable and fast. In Japan they prepare everything very meticulously and are very precise in their execution. It's very different," he said. "You need to figure out how to mesh those styles together." Early misunderstandings gave way to compromise, he said, and each crew learned from the other. The ending was rewritten many times; Han called the series "like a living creature."

Han closed with advice for aspiring filmmakers, calling luck one of the industry's most important ingredients. "Don't be afraid of criticism, keep writing. That is the preparation. If it doesn't work, try again. Artistic work is still work. If you've been doing your best to prepare, luck will come, and when that luck comes, you'll be able to capture it."