An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo For ASURA THE CITY OF MADNESS

As the 11th London Korean Film Festival 2016 is taking place right now in London, the latest film of Director Kim Sung Soo was shown in Regents Street Cinema which stars South Korea’s super star Jung Woo Sung. Both the Actor and Director attended the screening of their film. I have although already written a review of the film which you can read here, but I will first tell you what the movie was about. An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo

Asura The City Of Madness is a mixture of political and gangster genre. It has characters which are all connected to each other in one way or the other, and at times it gets difficult to know which character is the protagonist and an antagonist. There are twists in plots, but they can be well predicted before time. It is full of action, car chases, fist and gun fights; and a lot of blood! The film has a number of big names working in it which other than Jung Woo Sung include Hwang Jung Min, Kwak Do Won, Ju Ji Hoon and Jung Man Sik who all give excellent performances. The movie revolves around Detective Han (Jung Woo Sung), a corrupt cop who is secretly working for Mayor Park Sungbae (Hwang Jung Min). Trouble starts brewing when he is caught by Procecutor Kim Cha In (Kwak Do Won) who pressurises him in getting proof against the Mayor. Thus, a game of cat and mouse ensues.

I met the director and actor at the Korean Cultural Centre in London, where I got the chance to ask them a question each. While I met them, they looked very cheery and we greeted each other very warmly. While Jung Woo Sung drank his tea, I asked him a question concerning his very unique role in the film:

Out of all the roles that you have previously done, this one is the most bloodiest of all. How did you pull it off?

Jung Woo Sung laughed a bit at my question and jokingly said: ‘I did not want to do it!‘, while Director Kim Sung Soo sitting next to him said ‘I forced him to do it!‘ and they both laughed together.  Continuing on with the answer, the super star said that before I had read the script, I did not know that my role would be of such nature. In fact, even before I read the script and took the role, I told Kim Sung Soo that I would work in his next movie. I was stunned and a bit frustrated when I actually read the script and realised that the character that had been given to me will be very hard to perform and it will be near to impossible to charm the audience with it. The subject matter that the film was dealing with was such that I knew it would create questions from the audience, so in order to make sense of that, I had to go deep into my character and give my best.

Director Kim Sung Soo added in that Jung Woo Sung gave him a positive answer before even reading the script and looking at Jung Woo Sung he said ‘That was your biggest mistake!‘; and we all broke into a laughter again.

Focusing on the directional side of the film, I asked Director Kim Sung Soo the following question:

The script had a lot of complex characters and intertwined stories. How long did it take to plan it all out?

Kim Sung Soo: It was five or six years ago when the main concept of the story came in my mind, but the detailing of the characters and working on the entire script took me only ten months. When I completed the script and showed it to a few producers, they told me that it is very unique but adapting it for the big screen is near to impossible as it did not contain the element to give it a commercial success. I literally got the same answer from any body I went to, except one person, and that was Producer Hun Jae Duk. For him, the script and the story line looked quite interesting, and he thought that it is fun and worth trying. In order to give it a commercial success, we planned that it should have well known actors working in it. As Jung Woo Sung had already said yes to me for working on my next project, he was already cast. I approached other actors including Hwang Jung Min, Kwak Do Won, Ju Ji Hoon and Jeong Man Sik, who readily accepted the offers. Plus, they all wanted to work with Jung Woo Sung, which gave them an added reason to join in. I really thank them all because it was they who helped me in making this movie a commercial success.

I got very informative and in depth answers for my two questions. I wish I had got more time to spend with them, but I had to respect the strict time schedule that I got. Before saying goodbye to them, I had a picture taken with them. Watch this movie. You will know what makes Korean cinema great. An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo. An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo. An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo. An Interview With Jung Woo Sung And Kim Sung Soo

A photo posted by Adnan Kundi’s Blog (@thelondontree) on Nov 3, 2016 at 12:12pm PDT