This morning in Florence seemed to be waiting for the red carpet of one of the world’s most mondane and patinate festivals: a kilometre row from 10 was, in fact, joyfully in line to attend the masterclass with Gong Yoo, one of the top names of Korean cinema and TV. And when the actor, also known to the general public with the interpretation of the Recruiser in the cult series Squid Game, delayed a minute in the ascent on stage of the Florence Korea Film Fest, the supervisor Caterina Liverani has reintuated the feverish expectation of the audience with a participation: “When we waited for this day!”.
It was the only small incitement of a surprising and never trivial encounter in which Gong Yoo really showed not to be just a divo but “a symbol of elegance and Korean class”, to use once again the words of the film critic who has curated the monographic exhibition that in these days will be possible to see at this XXIV edition. A man, first of all, very fun and affable that, conscious of the charm exercised by the audience present at the cinema La Compagnia, says that if he knew before enjoying this credit in Italy he would come even before drinking it. But that, at the same time, with the professionalism typical of many representatives of the South Korean industry, he retraces with particulars his career since the beginning: “My dream was not to become an actor from the beginning: when I was a child I wanted to become an advertising producer because I dreamed of being behind the camera and looking at the organizational side of the film. On the other hand, entering the theatre’s acting faculty, I almost accidentally had the opportunity to put myself in front of the goal by presenting a music program. I had a text already written and read only this information but so I began to feel the desire to express emotions in front of the room“.
Emotions that will begin to explore, of course, with a very popular K-drama like Coffee Prince, also famous here in Italy thanks to the streaming recovery that the platforms have been doing for years and of which Gong Yoo himself is amazed: “Romanticism in Korea in those years went very fashionable but with director Lee Yoon-jeong we wanted to do something less predictable, less incasellate and more new […] About the construction of the character I paid attention to some elements than others. Although I am heterosexual (the series plays pacamente with themes of disguise and confusion of NdA genre) I realized that the concept of love is the same for everyone“.
The turning point comes with Silenced, the feature film directed by Hwang Dong-Hyuk before Squid Game that told a terrible series of sexual abuses about deaf and deaf children. When the genesis of a job that the same actor has contributed to the production of the tone is serious: “Before the script I had already read the book on which it is based during the lever service. When I discovered that history was based on facts really happened at first I didn’t believe it. In me then the will to convey to as many people as possible the need for this story […] One thing I got after this film is the courage to be able to participate in a similar project in the future“.
The responsibility of such an important role also invests its most famous excursion in genre cinema, that Train to Busan that, as Caterina Liverani rightly recalls, aroused a lot of clamor ten years ago – and that here in Florence was rightly reproposed on the occasion of the anniversary – during the passage to Cannes, right in that section Midnight Screenings that launched many Korean films like this in the world: “The zombies looked like an exclusive Hollywood, unsuitable for the Korean industry that had not considered them much. When I read the script it seemed to me, however, immediately perfect, clean. The fact that director Yeon Sang-ho came from the manhwa – Korean cartoons and animated films (NdA) – was his strength, especially in some choices made for certain frames. The character of the father who must save his daughter is perhaps two-dimensional but I wanted to give him delicacy in his transformation“.
The latest curiosity of a masterclass that stretches more than half an hour than expected thanks to the histrionic qualities of the protagonist who, with gentle tenderness, often pretends modesty interloquendo directly with the public, can only be on the most important media phenomenon of the last five years: Squid Game. Also in this case the actor grants himself to some interesting divagations on the genesis of the character he interpreted, that is the Recruiser: “With Hwang Dong-Hyuk we have often talked about it, both outside and inside the set and during drinks. As you can see in the first season, the character at first had to have only a small part so much that my sheet of notes on the preparation came in half of an A4 sheet! I had only two poses, two working days in everything! After global success with the director we expanded his role, so much so that the first episode became a kind of spin-off on him. I too, like everyone, had in the meantime made some theories about the Recruiser and had come to the conclusion that he was simply a man who within the Squid Game System had made a career: after the three classes of characters with geometric signs there was this kind of salesman who had to sell the game worldwide. Of course it is a psychopathic monster but it can also be seen as a miniature of the same society, as a victim of this cruel system. However, I had a good time with such an adrenalic character and that does not have the classic arc of transformation of the bad ones.”.
The closing of this masterclass can only once again call the audience: so when Gong Yoo asks rhetorically “Have I been good at psychopaths?”, the enthusiastic choir of participants at the meeting is a response that can be extended to the entire career of one of the most intelligent and sensitive divi of the unstoppable K-world.
L’articolo FKFF 26 – Meeting with Gong Yoo, star of Squid Game proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
