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| Actors Yoon Kye-sang, right, and Park Yong-woo in a scene from the film, "Spiritwalker" / Courtesy of Megabox Plus M |
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Actor Yoon Kye-sang plays multiple characters with very different personalities in director Yoon Jae-keun's fantasy action film, "Spiritwalker."
The movie is about a man named I-an (Yoon), who loses his memory after a car accident and subsequently wakes up in a different body every 12 hours with no memory. As he attempts to find his true self and make his way back to his own body, I-an realizes that he is being chased by a spy agency.
The director explained that he came up with the movie idea a decade ago, while he was writing a screenplay in a public library. "I was writing the script for another film. One day, I felt as if everything was so mundane and boring. I wished I could wake up the next time as somebody else, and then thought that it would be fun to make a movie based on that premise," he said during a press conference for the film, Thursday.
Actor Yoon, who is reuniting with the "The Outlaws" production team again after four years, said that he liked how the action weaves in with the story.
"The concept of waking up in different bodies was interesting, and I liked the action-packed story. Any male actor would love to do it. I personally like spy movies, so I had no reason to decline the role," he said
"It looks as if I'm the one taking on the biggest workload, by playing seven different characters, but other actors also play two roles. Because they swap bodies and minds with me, we had a lot of discussion about making that switch happen."
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| From left, actors Yoon Kye-sang, Park Yong-woo, Lim Ji-yeon, Park Ji-hwan and director Yoon Jae-keun attend an online press conference for the film, "Spiritwalker," Thursday. Courtesy of Megabox Plus M |
On doing action sequences that are filled with car chase and fistfights, Yoon said, "It was a nonstop action film for me, because I'm constantly being chased by others. At first, I was really excited to show off all the cool action sequences, but later, it became so physically demanding that I regretted it a bit," he said.
Actor Park Yong-woo said he believes that "Spiritwalker" is a "new type of Korean movie."
"When I read the script for the first time, the story was hard to follow. After meeting with the director and listening to his explanation, I finally got the main idea and felt that this was going to be a new type of Korean movie," he said.
Lim Ji-yeon, who appears as mysterious woman Jin-ah who tracks I-an, said she tried to keep the action fresh and energetic.
"Jin-ah appears emotional and tender, but she is also a strong and tenacious woman who shows those aspects off in impressive fight scenes. I religiously trained to master my action sequences. Because Jin-ah is a multi-dimensional character, I also focused on expressing her raw emotions," she said.
The film will be remade into a Hollywood film by renowned producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced the action blockbusters, "G.I. Joe" and "Transformers."
"Spiritwalker" will hit local theaters, Nov. 24.
