Latest news with #NextSohee
Forbes
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Director July Jung Confronts A Societal Problem In ‘Next Sohee'
Bae Doona plays Yoo-jin, a detective in the film 'Next Sohee.' When July Jung made her film Next Sohee she suspected that her preferred methods of storytelling would not result in the film becoming a blockbuster. Yet, taking cinematic risks to convey an important message has paid off with multiple awards and nominations. One of the unconventional aspects of Next Sohee is that the film relays its story in two parts. The first half focuses on Sohee, a high school student with few prospects who takes a job at a call center. As part of her job she must persuade consumers to sign on for unwanted services, but no matter how zealously she masters the con, it's impossible to achieve the company's goals. Unable to meet such arbitrary goals she decides to take her own life. The second part of the film focuses on a police investigator named Yoo-jin, who wants to understand why Sohee committed suicide. She suspects that it has to be someone's fault, but no one is willing to take responsibility. The story was partly inspired by a real incident that Jung uses to explore larger issues. Who is to blame for this kind of soul-deadening exploitation? 'I actually had no idea of this incident when it first happened, to be honest,' said Jung. 'While I was making the movie, I came across this incident and I learned more about it. And the more I looked into the details of this incident, I realized that none of these details were coincidental. All of this was just a reflection of how all of society is at fault, including myself. This is merely not just a coincidental incident, but it's more of a structural problem.' Kim Si-eun plays Sohee in the film 'Next Sohee.' Although the story is set in a small office and focuses on one individual, Jung sees it as a reflection on society, how having unrealistic expectations in a highly competitive society can work against individuals getting the basic human respect they deserve. 'I think that was the reflection that I was trying to derive from this story,' she said. Sohee wants to succeed at her job, but can't because of the company's odd ranking system, which is also a con designed to benefit the corporation. She wonders what she's doing wrong and without any clear answers assumes she's to blame. Although Yoo-jin has some authority, being a detective, she also faces obstacles in discovering the truth, including colleagues who want to close the case and corporate spokespeople who refuse to take any responsibility. Splitting the narrative allowed viewers to first spend time with Sohee and understand her motivations. 'When telling the story, I really focused on a few things and the first thing I wanted to focus on was what happened to this girl, what her life was like that it led her to commit suicide,' said Jung. She also wanted to stress that Sohee is not the first person to be exploited in this way and it can still happen to others. 'I wanted to depict this in a way the audience can see the daily life of Sohee in the first half of the movie, what kind of environment she's living in, what kind of work she's doing, what kind of hardships she's suffering," said Jung. 'In the later half of the movie when Yoo-jin starts investigating and we start going backwards with Sohee's story, that comparison shows the reflection of the same societal problem. And although the problem is not resolved by Yoo-jin in the end, I think that's the message it's supposed to send, where it could happen to anyone. And at any time.' Bae Doona's character seeks to understand who is to blame for a girl's suicide. For the role of Yoo-jin, Jung enlisted actress Bae Doona. Jung worked with Bae in her 2014 film A Girl At My Door, which won Jung a Best Director Award at the 51st Baeksang Arts Awards. In both films Bae plays a police investigator. In A Girl At My Door Bae's character protects a bullied and abused girl, played by Kim Sae-ron. The collaboration between Bae (Cloud Atlas, Kingdom, Stranger) and Jung also won Bae several Best Actress awards and nominations. 'Working with her has been like a dream," said Jung. "I'm very, very lucky to have worked with her, especially a big star like her.' Jung acknowledges that its a challenge when a character is introduced halfway through a movie, as Bae's character was. 'It's difficult because it's hard to explain to the audience who this person is, the details about this person, and the audience can be confused a lot of times,' said Jung. 'I thought that Doona is the only one who could really deliver these emotions without any dialogue or anything, but just simply through her face and her facial expressions to this extreme level of detail. So that's why I was very, very happy to work with her again.' Casting Bae was a given, but Jung was sure that finding a young actress to play Sohee would require multiple auditions and readings. That did not turn out to be the case with Kim Si-eun (Squid Game 2, Run-On, Mental Coach Jegal). 'Actually she was the first person who came to audition and immediately from that meeting I knew that we would be working together," said Jung. "When I first met her it wasn't really like I knew right away that she would fit just from seeing her or seeing her acting, but rather this came through a simple conversation that I had with her. And the question that I asked her was a very simple question. How do you like the scenario? How do you like the script? And I was very surprised by her response when she said, 'I want this story to be told to the world.'' Between Girl At My Door and Next Sohee, Jung had time to think about her priorities. After finishing A Girl At My Door, many people expected her to work on large scale commercial projects. "I was actually more interested in smaller films that really focus on telling the story," said Jung. 'Smaller independent films.' In the time between A Girl At My Door and Next Sohee the film industry has changed significantly for Korea's female filmmakers. 'When A Girl At My Door first debuted, it was hard for a female director to even debut,' said Jung. "So I was very, very lucky to be able to have debuted it. However, after that things actually got a lot more progressive. For example, the biggest thing is that there has been a new grant and fund support for women directors to produce films and create more opportunities. This was also the influence of the Me Too movement, which was a global movement. And I think due to these kinds of changes in the way the funding and the society works, we've moved a lot forward. And of course, mainstream films, having large commercial films, we're still lacking female directors in that area. But definitely since then in the independent film scene, we've been able to see a lot more female directors.' Next Sohee was released in Korea in 2023, winning Jung several awards and nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. The film hits U.S. and Canadian theaters on May 16 and will be available on streaming platforms at a later date. The film is distributed by Echelon Studios and Zurty Studios.
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
In ‘Next Sohee' Bae Doona Seeks Answers To One Woman's Fate
Bae Doona plays detective Yoo-jin in 'Next Sohee.' Bae Doona's character in the film Next Sohee is looking for answers. She's investigating the reasons a young call center worker chose to end her life. It's not enough to rule the death as a suicide. Her character Yoo-jin wants to know why a company treats its workers so cruelly that death seems like a better option. Next Sohee is the second time that Bae (Kingdom, Stranger, Cloud Atlas, Rebel Moon and Air Doll) has worked with South Korean director and screenwriter July Jung, having appeared in Jung's award-winning 2014 film A Girl At My Door. When she reads Jung's scripts Bae immediately falls in love with them. 'I'm very, very passionate about and interested in the stories that she has to tell,' said Bae. "The personal stories and what's almost like another world that she wants to bring into our world. Those are the parts that I really respect and why I enjoy working with the director. When I see the scenarios that Director Jung produces and directs, I immediately notice that there's no bluff or there's no beating around the bush or sugarcoating it. This is all very real stuff. It's real societal issues that are happening right now in our world, and I really especially enjoy the part about how she leaves the message or the meaning up to the audience. That's the part I enjoy the most.' In both of Jung's films Bae plays a police officer. In A Girl At My Door, she plays Lee Young-nam, an officer transferred from Seoul to a small seaside town after a personal scandal. Young-nam tries to helps Sun Do-hee, a withdrawn 14-year-old girl who is bullied by classmates and beaten by family members. In Next Sohee, Bae plays Detective Oh Yoo-jin. Yoo-jin investigates the death of Sohee, a high school student, played by Kim Si-eun (Squid Game 2, Mental Coach Jegal). Bae was at first surprised that both characters were police officers, but quickly realized the characters existed within totally different stories. Kim Si-eun plays Sohee, the young worker who soon finds it impossible to get ahead at her job. Once the police establish that Sohee's death was a suicide, some of Yoo-jin's fellow officers see no reasons to investigate any further, but Yoo-jin wants to hold someone accountable for Sohee's terrible treatment at work, for the actions that led her to feel so hopeless. 'I think that any normal person can't ignore what happened,' said Bae. 'Maybe it's because I myself am Yoo-Jin and I think it's just impossible to imagine how anyone that's in their right mind would see such a thing happen and ignore it.' However, she does understand why police officers might become numb to the steady onslaught of tragedy they face in their line of work. 'They could become a little bit numb as time passes and, I feel, a little bit less righteous,' said Bae. 'For the character of Yoo-jin, she's still a new officer and she still has a bit of ambition left in her. Another big factor is that Yoo-jin is just as lonely, I would assume, and she is societally neglected, which kind of explains how she reacts, so sensitively and understandingly empathetically with Sohee.' The movie is not just about the impossible situation that trainees encounter at the call center, but illustrates how a highly competitive society might devalue individual human lives. Bae's character Yoo-jin wants to persevere with her investigation, but some of her colleagues are ... More not so determined. 'No matter your age or your socioeconomic status being treated with just basic respect and having basic human rights, that is a big issue," said Bae. 'When I read the script, I understood it very simply. Basically it's not just about call centers or about a particular company or something like that, but how at the very least we should be treating people with basic human rights.' In a recent interview with the Korea Times Bae talked about the kind of societal expectations that might drive a young person to despair. It was part of her motivation for telling the story of Next Sohee. 'The big message is that for young people and young adults in general, I hope that they live a better life and have a better society than us,' said Bae. 'As an actor, I'm always focusing on trying to be empathetic and positive and therapeutic in the ways I can. These days, in modern day society, with pressures that range from social media to parents' expectations or societal pressure and constant comparison, it's a very hard society to live in. I'm just doing my role as an actor to try to spread that positive message and be a little bit of help.' Bae's next project plays with a happier premise. She laughs just thinking about the rom-com film titled Virus, which took more than five years to be released because the COVID pandemic made the subject matter and title less than desirable. The film also stars Kim Yun-seok, Jang Ki-ha and Son Suk-ku. 'The movie Virus is about a virus," said Bae. 'If you get it, you fall in love. It's a big rom-com movie. In the story an antidepressant pharmaceutical company accidentally creates a love virus. My role in the movie is that I have a super cell in my body that keeps me safe from love. My past roles have been darker. I picked it particularly because I wanted a more happy and more loving type of movie.' Bae notes that she never 'officially learned how to act," so in her 20s and 30s her criteria for choosing projects was based on whether she thought she could play the character. 'These days, to be honest, I don't really look at the character when I pick my role,' said Bae. 'Instead, I focus more on the story and the message and the world that the director is trying to portray through the movie. So whether the role is bigger or small, I think in the last 10 years I've been focused more on the bigger story and the meaning.' She sees acting as therapeutic. 'I think being an actor or an actress is such a cool job,' said Bae. 'I love how you get to live the lives of the characters that you are playing in the movie or film. When I do this, I can forget about myself and reality. My personality is quite sensitive and I think my life would be a lot more difficult if I didn't have acting to take place as healing within me. Besides the fact that becoming an actor, you're recognized everywhere and you become a public figure, I think it really is a healing part to my life.' Next Sohee won multiple awards and nominations after its Korean release in 2023, including a Best Screenplay Award at the Baeksang Arts Awards and a nomination for Best Director, as well as a Best New Actress Award for Kim Si-eun and a Best Actress nomination for Bae. Next Sohee hits U.S. and Canadian theaters on May 16 and will soon also be available on streaming platforms. The film is distributed by Echelon Studios.
