Hiring an idol who’s good at acting for a supporting role is extremely beneficial from the production company’s perspective.
We cast Mojiri as a supporting actress for a reason…
Because, if you’re a K-pop fan, you’d probably watch a movie featuring your idol, right?
However, if the acting is terrible, it could backfire.
It’s likely that even TS opposed hiring Tae-kyu.
It’s not like it’s for a small drama—D-Pictures might have been quite hesitant about putting Tae-kyu in one of their big productions.
In that sense, Tae-kyu is undoubtedly an uncertain factor for Revenge.
But I don’t think there will be some massive problem arising from Tae-kyu.
These people aren’t stupid, you know.
It was foolish of D-Pictures to hire Tae-kyu without confirming his acting skills just by what they saw of his performance in the drama. Nevertheless, would director Sun Juhong just sit there and do nothing?
Of course, she’d take some kind of action.
Moreover, there are people on set like Yoon Ju-won or Jin Seo-hee, who could remain tight-lipped no matter how much Tae-kyu acts up.
Even if director Sun Juhong is a world-renowned maestro, and even if both Yoon Ju-won and Jin Seo-hee are on set, if there’s an unreasonable decision regarding Tae-kyu, he’d have no choice but to follow it.
Maybe the mood is like this:
Though he might be a bit irritated, it’s not going to cause a big problem.
Although just by being there, Tae-kyu already causes a significant disadvantage, it’s not to the extent that it would affect whether the movie is a success or not, now or in the future.
“So, we should probably make him feel more annoyed. If they’re just planning to shoot the movie, that’s one thing, but they keep provoking us.”
According to the martial law of Martial Forest, if you get hit once, you should give them one back.
“Let’s use Tae-kyu.”
“Ah, Tae-kyu. Tae-kyu.”
Considering there’s no other option left, we should probably use him. When I suggested that, Heavenly Yuah’s eyebrows slightly furrowed.
She’s calculating how we could use him.
And then, after a moment of thought, Heavenly Yuah snapped her fingers as if an idea hit her.
“Ah, I get it.”
“But how?”
“Just a second.”
“Why?”
“Let’s not argue. Why don’t we write down our thoughts on a notepad and compare our ideas to see if we’re on the same page.”
“Do we really need to?”
“It’s fun, isn’t it?”
So, this is like that, right? Like in the Battle of Red Cliffs where Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang quickly compared the character ‘fire’ written on their palms.
“Yoo-a hyung, are you into Romance of the Three Kingdoms these days?”
“Of course not, that country of big and rowdy barbarians doesn’t interest me.”
“But if you say that…”
You know she’s partly Chinese, don’t you? Or, to be precise, one-fourth. Yet, based on the way she talks, she does seem quite into Romance of the Three Kingdoms lately.
There’s a reason for that.
“But there’s no issue with Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I quite like the silver-haired young miss Luo.”
“Silver-haired young miss…?”
At first, she pretended otherwise, but after continuously glaring at me, she eventually confessed that she was watching Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
By the way, talking about Miss Luo—she’s referring to that legendary girl from Xiuzhou who notoriously targeted only married men, right?
From the way she suddenly brought up such a topic while we were talking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it seems she’s interpreting it more as a historical opera.
I recently heard she was reading male-oriented web novels, but has she now moved onto this?
It seems quite significant.
With all this in mind, I took out a notepad as she wanted and jotted down my thoughts:
-Lift Tae-kyu
-Boost Tae-kyu
“The answer’s out.”
“Agreed.”
We confirmed that we had the same thought. Yes, this is the right way to go.
Amazingly, Tae-kyu is now in the lineage of acting idols because his performance in Restaurant Promo was pretty decent.
Aside from the lines—which were covered up by playing an alien role—the rest was somewhat watchable. And only people involved in Restaurant Promo know about the actual content of the lines.
But D-Pictures, being captivated by this, made a grave mistake in casting Tae-kyu.
Thus, D-Pictures is now bearing the brunt of this decision.
Even though TS probably provided some investment support, that’s negligible for them.
In such a situation, director Sun Juhong finds it more convenient to use Tae-kyu.
Since the production company messed up so badly, Sun director’s decisions couldn’t easily be overturned.
However, director Sun Juhong feels a bit like an outsider.
This wasn’t Sun director’s original script, and Sun herself was brought on much later.
Therefore, director Sun Juhong couldn’t outright kick Tae-kyu out.
“So, how can we make use of this situation? We don’t have a lot of options, right?”
“I would assign him a character role without any lines if I were in charge. His performance, minus the lines, is decent.”
“Yes, I agree. Ideally, a character like an alien or artificial intelligence would work but, given the type of film this isn’t, we don’t really have other options.”
Therefore, if Tae-kyu must be used, his role will inevitably be without any lines.
Given the film’s atmosphere, this is a limitation that cannot be avoided.
And, under those circumstances, the result might not turn out too bad.
But just letting it go that way would be a bit… so our task is to create an atmosphere where it’s not easy to assign such roles.
To make the other side as annoyed as possible.
“In that context, undermining Tae-kyu’s acting skills would backfire.”
“Likewise, it would be counterproductive to build up too much anticipation by excessively praising his acting.”
“The rising young acting genius.”
“Perfect character interpretation.”
“Polished diction and breathing. Astonishing dialogue delivery.”
If we highly praise Tae-kyu’s acting to the point where his fans are going wild, things could get pretty awkward.
After all, Haifinchi fans are notoriously strong, and if our guy is playing a role without any lines, it won’t sit well with them.
If such articles go viral, it’s bound to cause discomfort throughout the production process.
“At this point, we’ve probably exchanged punches. But in the end, it’s a battle of skills, not a knockout.”
“So.”
However, this would merely irritate the opposition.
The current situation feels like two movies scheduled to release at the same time are saying “you go first” to each other.
And tapping each other lightly, while neither side truly wants to go.
If this goes on without one of them exploding due to something like school bullying, drunk driving, or drug use, the releases will eventually overlap.
“By the way, just checking, do you have any plans to delay the release?”
“No need. If we delay at this stage, we’ll have to push everything to next year, but we don’t know what else might come up then. Besides, tying up this much capital would also affect operations.”
“Yeah, D-Pictures probably feels the same way.”
Look at this. It’s inevitably turning into a battle of skill.
We hope our ‘tap’ makes the other side stagger just a bit.
*
The teeth that kept biting onto Mojiri were getting quite annoying.
Judging by how heated it remains with just this kind of situation, it seemed that other idol fandoms, beyond D-Pictures, were joining in.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess D-Pictures had somewhat anticipated such a trend.
Surely, they figured someone would be ready to bite alongside them.
-Someone’s sister acting as a supporting role, huh?
-Hayoung is indeed an acting idol. (Hayoung pretending to be cute in front of her older brother) Can you do this?
-No, if you really bring your actual younger sister and give her a younger sister role, what’s the problem?
The reaction was roughly fifty-fifty, slightly favoring our side.
Mojiri’s spirit in the music video had already gained fame in the idol community, so it was somewhat less volatile.
If it weren’t for that, things would have gotten much worse.
Still, our side’s lack of evolution despite continuing to stretch things has led PMC to ask us directly for support.
Since Mojiri’s acting skills are the crux of this issue, they asked if we could provide any behind-the-scenes clips or acting footage.
We willingly agreed.
For now, we shared the brother-sister acting footage from the first day and will send more later.
“And the next acting footage will, of course, be from the Jangsanbeom roar scene. Watching this will certainly shut them up.”
Fortunately, we’re about to have a group fight scene, so once it’s taken, sending it over will likely resolve this issue cleanly.
“The problem is these people insist on poking around our corner.”
Those who initiated the Mojiri insertion controversy weren’t satisfied with just holding on.
They were trying to link us up somehow, too.
Let’s be honest, our cast does lean a bit towards a certain bias, right?
Since actors from the same company gathered all in one work.
As a matter of fact, if you consider it that way, it’s not that uncommon for actors from the same company to be cast in the same film.
Especially when the company also invests, it increases production stability, and many producers prefer it.
In any case, as long as they act well, such criticism is unlikely to cause serious issues.
-Baek Siu (2 lead roles, last year’s rookie award)[Flame]
-Nam Hyun-ho (2 lead roles, -4M actor)[Flame]
-Heavenly Yuah (Radiance of Light)[Flame]
-Moon Suyeon (Luna)[Flame]
-Yang Miju (Our Grace)[Flame]
-Nam Hyun-a (Sundance prize winner)
-But, Flame has great actors, wouldn’t you want to hire them if they were around?
With all that in mind, the general sentiment was that it’s nothing more than the good actors from the same company coincidentally being in the same piece.
It’s not that rare for several actors from the same company to participate in the same production.
Sometimes, especially when the agency invests, many directors prefer to work this way to ensure production stability.
So ultimately, as long as they act well, these kinds of things won’t become big deals.
-But Flame actors do seem incredibly close, don’t they?
-Even their fan meetings and concerts, the cliquish atmosphere?
-There’s not even a single sighting rumor. What do these people even do?
The notion that our actors are friendly with each other spread like wildfire.
Of course, it’s something that we can’t really suppress.
Particularly since people like me, Heavenly Yuah, and Moon Suyeon have helped each other a lot in fan meetings and concerts, making it impossible to deny.
“There are no problems, but something seems off. It feels like they’re trying to steer things this way.”
Just as I was being stimulated by this vague sense of unease,
Something finally blew up.
-Baek Siu, date with Heavenly Yuah at a café?
-Luna and Baek Siu secret rendezvous!?
“…A scandal? Ah, that’s it. So these bastards were trying to…”
And there it is. The reason they continuously nitpicked at meaningless collaborations from Flame actors.
My scandal with Heavenly Yuah and Moon Suyeon.
And these despicable bastards made it sound like I’m romantically involved with both, crafting a very plausible fictional account.
“…Seriously, though. Was it really necessary to do it like this?”
They were truly devilish.
—
(Translated using the provided glossary and context to avoid commentary)
