‘Return To Seoul’ Author-Director Davy Chou Interview — Contenders Los Angeles – Deadline

In 2011, director Davy Chou was heading to South Korea for the primary time when considered one of his finest associates determined to tag alongside to indicate him round “her nation.”

“It was stunning to listen to her say ‘my nation,’ ” Chou stated throughout an look at Deadline’s Contenders Movie: Los Angeles, since his buddy by no means talked about Korea as a result of she was adopted in France at an early age. “[It was] additionally very displaying of her impulsive character that Freddie, the character of the movie, has.”

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Upon assembly his buddy’s organic father and grandmother, Chou had the inspiration for Return to Seoul. Written and directed by Chou, Return to Seoul, or All The Folks I’ll By no means Be, follows Freddie (Park Ji-Min), a 25-year-old French girl who travels to South Korea to search out her organic household. Having been adopted and raised in France, Freddie’s journey to an unknown nation takes her life in new and surprising instructions. The Sony Footage Classics movie premiered at this yr’s Cannes Movie Pageant within the Un Sure Regard part.

Chou stated essentially the most placing a part of the assembly he witnessed was “the depth of the contradictory feelings mixing collectively. A lot anger on the facet of my buddy, a lot remorse and unhappiness from the opposite facet, and the impossibility of those two sides of the desk to essentially talk with the barrier of the language and the cultural barrier.”

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Casting introduced a problem for Chou, because the restricted quantity of Korean immigration to France introduced solely a small pool of candidates. “The movie coping with identification and tradition, I wished the primary actress to have some Korean blood,” he says. Fortunately, he managed to search out Park Ji-Min to play Freddie, regardless that she had by no means deliberate on being an actor. “The charisma, the vitality, she has all of that,” says Chou. “After three hours of listening to who she was and what she has skilled, I used to be feeling, ‘If that girl can act in entrance of a digital camera, she’s gonna be the one.’ ”

Test again Monday for the panel video.