South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
‘Squid Game’s’ Lee debuts as director
Lee Jung-jae, the award-winning star of Netflix’s “Squid Game,” spent years developing the 1980s-set Korean spy thriller “Hunt” before electing to direct himself. He did it a little reluctantly, without big plans to continue filmmaking. But Lee did have a vision for what it could be — and where it could premiere.
“Before deciding to direct, I thought I just wanted to make a very fun film,” Lee says. “After I got my hands on it and started writing the script myself, I actually wanted to come to Cannes. Because I wanted to come to Cannes, I had to find the subject matter that would resonate with the global audience.”
Few actors know more about capturing the attention of the global audience than Lee. Already one of Korea’s top movie stars, Lee, 49, is at the nexus of the “Squid Game” phenomenon, starring in the dystopic series that became Netflix’s mostwatched show in some 90 countries.
Lee was in Cannes recently to premiere “Hunt,” which will test how far Lee can further extend his already borderless career.
“Working in Hollywood would definitely be a good experience for me,” Lee said recently in Cannes. “If there was a good fit for me, a good character, I’d definitely like to join. But right now, I feel like global audiences are wanting more Korean content and Koreamade TV shows and films. So I would work in Korea as well very diligently. I might seem a little greedy, but if there was a role for me in Hollywood, I’d definitely like to do that, too.”
But if Lee’s ascension to being an increasingly world-renowned actor typifies the pop-culture power of today’s Korea, his film is set in an earlier, less harmonious chapter in Korean history. “Hunt” takes place several years after South Korean president Park Chung-hee was assassinated in 1979 by the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, a coup that ushered in the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan. “Hunt” is loosely inspired by his subsequent 1983 assassination attempt orchestrated by North Korea.
“Hunt” grippingly follows a pair of agents (one is played by Lee, the other by Jung Woo-sung) who are both assigned to uncover a North Korean mole within the agency. Lee proves skilled at mounting large-scale action sequences and marshaling a dense plot while managing to keep the suspense up.
Lee is often asked how his life has changed since “Squid Game” by Western journalists who might be less familiar with his nearly three decades as a top star in Korea in films like “An Affair,”
“New World” and “The Housemaid.”
Lee laughs. “It’s natural because a lot of people in the West might not have known me before ‘Squid Game.’ ”
That’s changing rapidly, though. Lee will return for season two of “Squid Game,” which the series’ creator Hwang Dong-hyuk recently said should be expected in 2023 or 2024.
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