I want to work with a wide range of genres because it gives each film a different cinematic energy.
Kim Jee-woon
I'm not an outgoing person. Compared to an average person, I am quite skeptical and pessimistic. This is different from being nervous.
I'm someone who has a singular goal in making films: I want to tell a story. There are certain stories that I want to tell. Hollywood's never really been the ultimate goal for me.
Whatever it is that I thirst for in my current project tends to turn up in my following project.
One quality that a director needs to acquire in Hollywood is to understand the system and figure out how to work within the system to express one's own ideas.
In Korea, the director is on top, and the power flows down vertically. On the set, I love to come up with ideas on the spot. But in Hollywood, if I were to come up with a certain idea on set, the idea had to be taken to all these different people who had to agree.
'The Good, the Bad, the Weird' is about individuals fulfilling their desires and just going the distance to fulfill that desire.
What can possibly be the common factor in a Kim Jee-woon film? I think what really ties a lot of my projects together is that there is always a character that believes his life is not exactly the way he wishes it to be. My regard for that character turns out to be a very sympathetic one.
The Western is as American as a film can get - there's the discovery of a frontier, the element of a showdown, revenge, and determining the best gunman. There's a certain masculinity to the Western that really appealed to me, and I've always wanted to do a Western in Hollywood.
In Korea, the director has the final word. If the director makes a decision, that decision is final. In Hollywood, every decision needs to go through the producer, the studio, and sometimes even the main actor. There is a certain procedure that needs to be followed.
I work from opposites to opposites, in a way. It's finding one thing and then doing the other from film to film. So maybe after 'I Saw the Devil,' I might do something like 'I Saw the Angel' or perhaps something warm and happy.
My background is in acting, so I enjoy being able to show what I'm looking for. With acting, it's very immediate when you show someone what you're looking for, and the feedback is instantaneous as well.
I'm someone who has a singular goal in making films: I want to tell a story. There are certain stories that I want to tell.
I think my tendency when working is to try and find what's lacking in my current project and then tackle that in whatever I do next.
Actors are the flowers of the film, of the set, and of the director. The term 'Flowers of the Screen' holds a deep meaning.
After my film 'The Tale of Two Sisters,' I received a lot of offers from Hollywood to direct, but because 'A Tale of Two Sisters' was a horror film, I received a lot of horror films. But I wasn't interested in working in the same genre, and the scripts I received for films in different genres were for projects that were near completion.
Obviously, I've made several films in Korea, so I'm very well accustomed and acclimated to Korean filmmaking.
Hollywood's never really been the ultimate goal for me.
Korean films have always been distributed to international audiences as arthouse films.
A lot of people are very interested that a Korean director has made a western. But when I look at the reactions of the audience, I realise the points at which people laugh are the same for a Korean audience and an international audience.
I want to do science fiction with dark stories.
I've been thinking of doing a sci-fi thriller or a sci-fi noir, if that's possible.
What can possibly be the common factor in a Kim Jee-woon film? I think what really ties a lot of my projects together is that there is always a character that believes his life is not exactly the way he wishes it to be.
We all desire things that we believe we cannot have, and so my films reflect that again and again. The mystery must be solved, the goal attained.
Overseas directors who want to work in Hollywood, the language barrier is not a problem. With the right talent, any director can be successful.
I've made the film 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' which was an Eastern Western film. Obviously, the Western film is American and American only; there's really no Western genre over in Asia.
America is a country that, even with all its flaws, has been able to flourish because there is a certain ideology about fighting for what you believe in. What you choose to believe in - no matter how small or big it is - is what you believe in, and that ideology has made America.
Of course, 'The Last Stand' has a villain who is traveling to the border to fulfill his own desires, but it's more about the main character. The Sheriff putting a stop to this villain and defending his town. 'The Last Stand' is more about protecting something. About protecting a value.
Lionsgate and Lorenzo di Bonaventura saw my Korean Western-style film, 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' and probably felt that I would be right for 'The Last Stand,' which could be classified as a modern Western.
I never make films thinking 'This is my film. This right here is undoubtedly Kim Jee-Woon style.' I am not even sure what 'Kim Jee-Woon style' is. When I make films, I never allow myself to make hard-set decisions ahead of time.
