‘Those things’ eat humans. In their merciless grasp, there is no sign of compassion. As if it were the natural order, as if they had every right to do so, ‘those things’ tear people apart.
Teachers are no exception. Roaming in packs, ‘those things’ are fearless. They use their numbers as a weapon to rip their prey to shreds. They believe that guilt is diluted when shared among many.
During each 10-minute break that comes around, while I hold my breath and try to avoid ‘their’ gaze. Then I hear the horrifying murmurs of ‘those things.’
“Fuck, Kim Ok-hee’s class is fucking tough.”
“Someone tell Ok-hee to stop with the damn pop quizzes.”
“Ah, don’t try to stop me! I’m going to the staff room to beat the shit out of her!”
“What the hell, you crazy bastard, that’s hilarious…”
“Ah! It sounds really cool!”
From a distance, veteran actress Lee Mi-ri, 42 years old, was watching the farce with a bittersweet smile.
She never thought she’d be acting in a witch costume at the age of 42.
To understand how a perfectly normal teen romance suddenly transformed into an astral school drama featuring zombies, witches, and aliens all at once, we first have to revisit the misdeeds of Kim Byul.
Foolish humans sometimes want power so badly that they would even sell their souls to the devil. This is something even Faust teaches us.
And so, Kim Byul summoned a devil.
His name was Moon In. His true name: Moon In-seop. To be precise, he was a devil of literature.
In fact, he was really the most occult-like existence in the world, so it wasn’t entirely wrong.
That doesn’t seem to make sense…
This section was adapted by the director, and what the director was going for here was…
In any case, Kim Byul’s strategy largely hit the mark.
To Kim Byul, a script is like a “problem set”.
It’s a puzzle where you have to deduce the director’s and the screenwriter’s intentions.
When you get into advanced levels, you need to extract something beyond the director’s intent, but the most important thing is to faithfully recreate what the director wants.
But if you’re studying the script and have the screenwriter right there to ask?
It’s like taking a test with the answer key open in front of you.
Kim Byul’s number of NGs rapidly decreased.
“Cut! Okay! You’re doing great. Let’s move on to the next scene.”
However, there’s one thing Kim Byul didn’t know.
Open-book tests are always tougher.
If she had experienced university life, she would’ve known the dangers of open-book tests, group projects, and campus couples (CC), but since she’s still just a high school student, she was unaware. This is why people go to college.
“What brings you here?”
“Senior Kim called me to help with the acting…”
There’s a word called ‘chemi’.
It’s a new word that’s short for Chemistry, comparing the interaction or compatibility between humans to chemical reactions.
As the wisdom embedded in that word suggests, there’s a formula to human combinations.
Just as mixing and creates toxic gas, plus also produces something.
And as with all science, truth can only be explored through experiments.
Reflecting on past experiments, when you combined and , what started as a simple teen romance mutated into a visually impaired zombie apocalypse genre.
So, what sort of chemical reaction would occur when these two meet on set?
The result is obvious.
– How about we conceptualize every character ? Aligning with the protagonist’s perspective, where she’s forced to perceive the world cognitively, we could visualize the essence of each character on screen.
– Hm, wouldn’t that make the film too abstract and difficult for audiences?
– Well, box office success is important too. I understand. I guess we shouldn’t expect radical artistry in commercial films…
– Chang-su, go to the U.S. and buy a space suit.
The two of them kept tossing out ideas as if competing over who could be the more radical artist, and since no one dared to oppose So Tae-woong, no one volunteered to be the brake.
And so, the film sped ahead like a runaway train.
In the chaos of the set, Kim Byul realized, belatedly, just what she had set into motion.
Something was happening.
“Sound is a medium through which humans communicate, right? But for the protagonist, it’s also a way to perceive the world. That’s why echolocation was included in the story. However, is viewing the world through a technical lens the same as viewing it emotionally? The core conflict of this piece lies in the difference in how the world is perceived, in the temperature of perception. So, the protagonist teaches the alien way of seeing, while in turn learning an emotional and spiritual perspective… We need to capture such synesthetic integration…”
A madman had entered the set.
A young, novel-writing, blanket-wrapped madman.
Like a deranged person you might see muttering to themselves in the subway or on the streets, he often spoke in cryptic phrases that only he understood.
The problem was that, though everyone ignored this boy, Director So Tae-woong would nod thoughtfully, arms crossed, taking him seriously.
“I see… So that’s how it is…”
If someone had just shouted, “Shut that nonsense up!” light and justice might have returned to this chaotic world. But unfortunately, So Tae-woong had no left arm and seven right arms instead.
And those seven right arms were all competing fiercely to be the first.
“Ah… I completely understand!”
“As expected, the director’s insight is unparalleled!”
“The combination of a genius boy and a genius director… We might even hit ten million viewers with this!”
As a result, the instructions handed down to the actors and staff were non-negotiable.
All sorts of bizarre and incomprehensible directions came down.
“Wear the space suit and ascend while holding balloons during a wire action sequence?”
“You want us to get 10,000 balloons?”
“You want us to make a school uniform that a 130kg adult male can wear?”
One might call this a chaotic era.
It was truly chaotic.
The emperor, enchanted by a wicked shaman, was surrounded by corrupt ministers, and the common people groaned under oppressive tyranny.
The beast of ruin cries mournfully atop the tree, and the omens point to the fall of the world.
But isn’t it said that heroes are born in troubled times?
One must untangle the knot they tied themselves.
Unable to suppress her righteous anger any longer, Kim Byul rose with determined resolve.
“Is this movie…! really being filmed properly?”
“I-I want to check it!”
Carrying the collective will of all the actors and staff on her shoulders, the veteran actress Kim Byul (gently) confronted So Tae-woong.
So Tae-woong, already grasping the situation with just that, smiled kindly and asked everyone to wait just one more day.
Convincing commoners who couldn’t understand genius was something So Tae-woong had grown quite accustomed to.