Yeon Sang-ho goes lo-fi With 'The Ugly'

Lately, director Yeon Sang-ho has been building his reputation on spectacle -- zombies tearing through train cars, supernatural messengers delivering divine death sentences -- via Netflix's formidable checkbook. So there's something deliciously offbeat about his latest move: A $150,000 thriller shot guerrilla-style where one actor plays dual roles and his co-star acts entirely without showing her face.

At Friday's production briefing at Lotte Cinema Konkuk University, Yeon seemed almost gleeful about the constraints. "I kept thinking -- to create something with a new soul, maybe you need a completely different body," he said, his tone carrying a wry self-awareness about the experiment he's undertaking.

Based on Yeon's 2018 graphic novel of the same title, "The Ugly" follows a son investigating his mother's decadesold disappearance. Park Jeong-min pulls double duty as both the present-day son and his younger father in flashbacks, opposite Kwon Hae-hyo as the older version. Shin Hyun-bin plays the missing mother whose face remains hidden throughout.

The production specs tell their own story: Three weeks of shooting, a skeleton crew of 20, a budget that would barely cover catering on most features. Yet Yeon seemed energized by the stripped-down process, calling it "paradoxically, my richest filmmaking experience."

"Budget's always limited -- I feel I've never shot a film with abundant resources," Yeon said. He framed the minimalist approach as liberation rather than limitation: "Massive productions can't pivot – too much infrastructure. Here, we had time to talk, to experiment, to actually craft scenes together. If something wasn't working, we'd just change it, right there, on the spot."

Park seconded the notion: "When you can't afford to mess up during shooting, you over-prepare everything. Every prop, every gesture -- nothing was arbitrary."

Park, whose dual-role concept was his own pitch to Yeon, described finding unexpected depths in the arrangement. "These two roles started bleeding into each other in ways I didn't anticipate," he said. "Playing the young father completely changed how I understood the son's obsession."

The intimate production reunited Yeon's informal repertory company -- Park and Im Sung-jae from "Hellbound," Kwon from "Peninsula" and "Parasyte: The Gray," and Shin from "Revelations."

Kwon, who plays the older father (a blind seal engraver), brought personal stakes to the role. "My father-in-law was visually impaired," he said. "When you wear those contact lenses and can barely see, there's an unexpected calm that settles in. You're not performing anymore, you're just present in the moment."

But it's Shin who drew the production's most unconventional assignment: Playing a character whose face never appears on screen. "Every acting instinct tells you to angle toward the camera, make sure your expressions land," she explained. "I had to completely rewire myself. Everything became about shoulders, hands, the way you hold space."

The film premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival next month before hitting Korean theaters, a trajectory that has Yeon both excited and apprehensive. "It's deeply Korean in its DNA, the kind of story that Koreans will understand instinctively," he said. "Presenting that to North American audiences first is quite nerve-wracking."

Asked about the Korean film industry's current struggles, Yeon pushed back against the prevailing pessimism. "It's not dying, just morphing. These transitions birth new types of films. We just adapt and keep going."

"The Ugly" opens in Korean theaters Sept. 11.