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| Lee Na-young/ Courtesy of eden9 |
By Park Jin-hai
When describing Lee Na-young, the word "mystique" always seems to crop up.
Despite the chic, modern and glamorous persona seen in TV commercials, the model-turned-actress has portrayed a surprisingly diverse and challenging range of characters. She portrayed a stalker in "Someone Special" (2004), a rape victim who attempts suicide in "Maundy Thursday" (2006), an emotionally tormented sleepwalker in Kim Ki-duk's "Dream" (2008) and a transgender photographer in "Lady Daddy" (2010).
The past six years have been relatively quiet for Lee. Since her last film, "Howling" (2012), she has been absent from the cinema scene. In 2015, she surprised fans by tying the knot with top actor Won Bin in a wheat field in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province. Despite the couple's significant celebrity status, their married life has remained private.
This November, Lee is making a welcome comeback to the big screen, breaking her six-year hiatus, with small-budget independent film "Beautiful Days."
"Although it has been a long time since I've had an interview, I'm not nervous. Many people around me say I don't speak much, but it's not true. I really love to talk and even more about my acting work," said the 39-year-old, laughing comfortably and breaking the ice during a recent interview with The Korea Times.
In "Beautiful Days," which opened this year's Busan International Film Festival in October, and is based on a true story, Lee plays a North Korean woman who fled the North in her teens only to be deceived by a broker, and sold to an old ethnic Korean man in rural China.
Lee said the moment she read the short script, even though there were very few lines, she thought she must be part of the film project.
"I liked the script. Even without much explanation, I could feel the character with my heart and understand her entirely. After the first read I made up my mind to accept the part," she said. "After watching documentaries directed by Jero Yun I was even more determined to be a part of the project. I heard he hadn't expected me to accept the offer, so he was surprised."
The woman, whose true identity was kept vague in order to distance herself from who she was in North Korea ― like many other defectors ― was not given a name in the film. She is forced to leave the family home in China after her broker resurfaces and gives her an ultimatum ― she pay her debts or have her five-year-old son sold on the black market. After suffering sexual abuse at the hands of the broker and being forced to work nightspots in China, she manages to escape and comes to Seoul to work at a bar.
Passion for independent films
Lee's fondness for independent films and her passion for Yun's small-budget film led to her taking part in the project without pay
"I like this kind of independent film ― stirring stories about a person's difficult path through life ― it provokes thought in the audience. After the long break, I pondered for a long time about my next project and then this film came to me. It was like destiny," the actress said.
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The film follows the journey of her son Zhen Chen, who came to Seoul to search for his mother some 14 years later. Disappointed by his mother's life in Seoul and her seemingly cold and composed demeanor, Zhen Chen returns to China brokenhearted.
But on his way back, he finds his mother's notebook detailing her tragic past.
Lee, depicting the woman's life from her teens to her 30s, reflected on the differences she felt. "While I was playing the woman in her teens and 20s, I focused on the North Korean defector's hard life who took risks for their own survival. I heard many real stories of those women from the director who stayed in the northeastern Chinese city of Yanbian, home to some 2 million ethnic Koreans, for five years to research and interview defectors in preparing for his documentary. While I was acting I cried a lot because I felt their piercing pain in my heart," she said.
"But the most challenging part was when I was acting the mother in her 30s. I had a hard time thinking of what kind of eyes the woman would have after going through all her ordeals and what emotions she would have after seeing her son 14 years later. I tried many tones to portray the woman and I thought it would be more like her if I held back my emotions as best as I could. In the edited version, the mother was even more composed."
She said she would like to see more films like "Beautiful Days" in local theaters. "There aren't many films like ours. I would like to let audiences know that Korea has many unique films, too. I like my latest film, because I think it tells a human story using plain language," said the actress. "Without overtly being a family film, the theme of the meaning of family subtly permeates throughout the narrative."
Unlike the title, the film ironically focuses on the terrible past of a female North Korean defector, whose life was never "beautiful," but it hints at hope in the end.
"The scene in which the characters sit around the dinner table, simply sharing bean paste stew without a word, after such tragic incidents, embodies what it is to be a family. This is why I personally like the ending so much," she said.
Discussing her thoughts on the future, she said: "I never plan ahead, but I do have a goal, which is to become an actress whose next move is always unpredictable, so that people wonder what new tone and ambience I will reveal."
Lee Na-young is set to appear in the upcoming tvN rom-com "Romance Supplement" next year.
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| Lee Na-young makes a comeback to the big screen, breaking her six-year hiatus, with small-budget independent film 'Beautiful Days.' Courtesy of Contents Panda |
