General Chun Doo-hwan seized power in South Korea after leading a bloody coup in 1980. The opposition, made up mainly of young students, tried to overthrow the cruel new dictator. The communist regime in North Korea also wanted to see Chun Doo-hwan dead, since his death could open the door to Korean reunification.
The 1980s were bloody and complex for South Koreans. The secret services contributed to generate instability and death. Agents of the National Security Planning Agency (NSPA) were very busy in those years, not only torturing and murdering their fellow citizens, but also fighting their North Korean colleagues and trying to prevent the assassination of the unappreciated president.
Lee Jung-Jae has chosen that historical period as the background for Hunt, his first film as a director in which he also stars and which has been screened at the Sitges Festival. The actor has gone through the contest to present this work - which already premiered in Cannes where it received good reviews - and has been showered with fans. It is not for less, the public adores Lee Jung-Jae since he discovered him playing squid in the famous Netflix series that has earned him this year's Emmy in the best actor category.
"Although I was very young at that time, I was born in 1972, I have many memories of the moment, which was very difficult, but which gave way to a democracy and a stage of economic and cultural growth," explains the actor in an interview with La Vanguardia at the Sitges Festival.
When he received Hunt's script "by chance", the actor read it carefully and decided that it was worth turning it into a film that would make known that intense historical stage of his country. But the project did not quite convince him, so "I made some changes and when I showed them, they gave me the opportunity to direct the film and I threw myself fully into making it."
Of course, without neglecting the interpretation that has given him so much joy since he began acting in his country in the 90s and now, after The Squid Game, also in the rest of the world. In Hunt, Lee Jung-Jae becomes the spy chief of the sinister APSN who, after saving the president from being killed in an attack during a visit to the United States, begins a race against time to discover the infiltrated agent among his ranks who is passing vital information to the North Korean regime: "The film is based on real events, sadly at that time there were many deaths that occurred for no reason," he says.
It was not difficult for him to prepare the role, because “I recovered my childhood memories when I lived with my family that was very poor. At that time I wanted things that I couldn't have and that some of my classmates did enjoy, and I have prepared the character by concentrating on that unfulfilled desire.”
Now, at the age of 50, Lee Jung-Jae has almost everything. He has become one of the best-known actors in the world, he was able to travel to the United States to promote The Squid Game for the Emmy Awards, which "was very gratifying because he can thank all the fans from the proximity", he plans to direct again and is also writing a film script, although "I can't reveal the details yet" and will soon face the second season of The Squid Game, which "is in the writing phase".
In addition, Lee Jung-Jae has had to live in his adult life a stage of prosperity far removed from the turbulent times of his childhood that he recounts in Hunt, although he is aware that the wound between the two Koreas is not yet closed. : “Tensions between North and South continue. That has not changed. All Koreans want the relationship to improve, perhaps reunification is impossible, but yes, it could achieve a cultural and economic rapprochement”, he concludes.
