Lee Jong-seok, director of “Bystanders”, “The work of building a worldview is the course of time”

For director Lee Jong-suk, who adapted (2015) and directed (2011) and (2018), the short film was “a new challenge and a good study”. Director Lee Jong-suk was experienced and calm in the situation of the scene where more than 100 staff members had to film in just two rounds.

– How did you get the director’s offer?

= PUBG Universe is a worldview that started from a game, and the idea of ​​building a one-by-one worldview rather than just game information was interesting. I also enjoyed the previous work from Universe, which depicts the Hosan Prison riot in Taigo City. That’s why I said I would participate as soon as I received the offer.

– What was interesting in ?

= It seems to be the era of building a worldview with a narrative and spreading it to people rather than just advertising a game. I watched without knowing any information about the PUBG universe. The whole time I was watching, I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ ‘How does this relate to future episodes?’ It was interesting enough to raise the question, “What kind of story is arranged before and after?”

– In the pre-production process, it must have been an important task to imagine the story in the PUBG Universe.

= The key was how the worldview of PUBG Universe and the narrative of were connected, like how the city of Taego was created and how it was combined into this worldview. In this regard, it can be said that the character of the film adaptation is similar.

– What did Krafton, the producer, specifically order?

= Like when we were working on the adaptation, we communicated a lot. fixed and fixed again What I agreed with Krafton is that the two main characters of Kim Nak-soo (Lee Hee-jun) and Jeong Ik-je (Ko-soo), had been friends since childhood and had to put the fact that they grew up together in Taego to good use.

– What aspects of Lee Hee-jun and Go Soo do you think suit Kim Nak-soo and Jeong Ik-je?

= Kim Nak-soo is a free-spirited and righteous person who cannot tolerate injustice. Among the aspects of Lee Hee-jun, I thought there was a tone that touched the hearts of the audience when he played a righteous role. Jeong Ik-je is a sincere and self-reliant person. He is angry that Taegoshi has reached this point, and he knows how to make the strict distinction between what he should do and what he shouldn’t. She’s a person with a pure side to her heart, and that suited her well. Before shooting, I met two or three times with two people to talk about the script, and the two actors prepared a lot and came on stage and expressed their characters well.

– What role do play in PUBG Universe?

= To arouse suspicion or suspect that there might be a conspiracy. As you can guess from Kim Nak-soo’s last line, “The truth hidden in the great darkness, we will unravel”, the purpose of is to convey the fact that a huge conspiracy is hidden.

– Kim Nak-soo’s last line makes the next series curious.

= You can’t just throw rice cakes, you have to catch them, so I think it would be interesting and fun to talk about it for a long time as a series. Of course, I also want to challenge the next series. I recently restarted the game by Krafton. (Laughter) Now, it seems that the work of constructing a worldview has become the trend of the times. How are you going to communicate with the public, whether it’s games or movies? Also, isn’t it a time when you can enjoy content that isn’t bulky, whether it’s a movie or a series? There will be more and more such attempts in the future, and it seems that directors and actors have to get used to this trend.

– It means you did a good job with it . (laugh)

= I studied very well. PUBG Universe was a very interesting project as it broadened the vision of the gaming world .