Lee Eon-hee’s ‘Love in the Big City’ is about the romance of platonic love

With their performances, Kim (Exhuma, Yumi’s Cells), and Noh (Love My Scent, Pachinko), give each character a unique feel and energy of their own. Kim’s Jae-hee subtly transitions from a brash and confident young woman to one who blends into the background. She becomes someone she never thought she’d be, but never loses her passion when it comes to her love for Heung-soo. 

Audiences more familiar with Noh’s portrayal of the quiet self-effacing Baek Isak in Pachinko will see a new facet of his acting as Heung-soo. His moments of self-recrimination juxtaposed with his sexual confidence are a joy to watch because they perfectly capture the dilemma of how being forced to hide who you are can affect a person and their relationships.

With writing and directorial credits to her name including K-dramas such as …ing., Missing, and The Killer’s Shopping List, Lee has crafted a story about the importance of fighting for ourselves in a world that tries to beat us down. Love in the Big City is as much about learning to love ourselves for who we are, as it is about loving and appreciating the people who believe in and love us. And if that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is.

JoySauce recently spoke with Noh, Kim, and Lee in Toronto to discuss the film’s themes of social judgment, self love and acceptance, losing one’s identity through conformity, and more.

This interview was conducted with the assistance of a Korean-English interpreter and has been edited for clarity and length.

Carolyn Hinds: To me, Love in the Big City is a film about first impressions. Can each of you share your first thoughts and impressions of the characters in the story? Director Lee Eon-hee, you can speak to both the novel and creating the script.
Lee Eon-hee: When I first read about these characters in the novel, I thought that they were very special. That there was something good about it, so I was really drawn to these characters, and to their inner weakness. But in terms of the film, I was the one to create those first impressions, so I tried to focus on that aspect.

Kim Go-eun: I think to put it simply, when I saw the Jae-hee character in the script, I felt like it was a very simple narrative of youth. A story about youth.

Noh Sang-hyun: When I saw the character of Heung-soo in the script, I was really drawn to him because I was able to see some kind of deficiency within his character, and he goes on this pathway to find himself, and he grows. He matures through the relationship with Jae-hee, and I think that's why I was more drawn to him.

CH: Their friendship is formed through their deficiencies, and they help each other to become stronger. Can you speak to how you went about developing the friendship between these characters? Because it progresses very naturally as their bond deepens, even through all of their individual hardships and their arguments and fights.
KGE: I think that Jae-hee became close to Heung-soo because she was able to recognize how he was so on edge, like a hedgehog, and she felt like in this sense he was very similar to how she was. Even through the hardships and the things she says to him…their conflict and fights, I think what she's essentially telling him are things that she wants to tell herself. 

CH: What do you think she wanted to tell herself through him?
KGE: For example, there’s a scene where they talk about what love is about. Love starts by taking off their protective shell, and I think it goes both ways. I guess in that way what they’re both talking about and telling each other is something they really want to truly say to themselves.

CH: And Sang-hyun, for Heung-soo, can you speak specifically to what you saw as his deficiency and how you worked to bring that out in the character?
NSH: So, I think just like what (Kim) said, Jae-hee really embraces her identity, so she really stands out from the crowd. Heung-soo is a little bit different, and I think…it’s the same idea that he isolates himself from the world. There’s this scene where his secret is found out by Jae-hee while they’re going to school together, and as she’s always the center of all these rampant rumors, and I think in a sense, he felt camaraderie with her because of it. Besides that, I think the two characters had really strong bonds and I think I was able to see that throughout the script.

CH: For you director, we don’t often get stories about platonic soulmates that have that specific type of love for each other that is strictly “I love you for who you are.” Can you speak about developing that aspect of Heung-soo and Jae-jee’s relationship?
LEH: In the original work, the story is written from Young’s perspective about Jae-hee. But as a woman, when it came to creating this narrative, I wanted to make it balanced and about both characters. And as Young is mentioned a lot in the original work because it’s from his perspective, I wanted to make him a more familiar, sort of objective character that could resonate with people, and in terms of his name, I thought it was just too sleek. Like it wasn’t really fitting the character I had in mind, so I changed his name.

CH: I guess Heung-soo is more old fashioned?
LEH: [Laughs.] Yes. It being old fashioned makes it funny.

CH: It does in a way. In talking about balance with the characters, there are very serious issues being dealt with, for instance, family separation. Jae-hee doesn't have a close relationship with her parents, and Heung-soo mother's getting older. I want to ask about balancing the lighter elements of the film with the heavier aspects.
KGE: Actually, the whole vibe and tone of the script wasn't that heavy. I think the story unfolded in a very cheerful and vibrant way, and of course, some of the subject matters or the themes that are talked about are sensitive subject matters. But when we were talking to the director, I think we wanted to express it in a nonchalant attitude, and some scenes…I think we thought that they would be very emotional, but at the end of it, they just turned out to be very humorous. 

And you know, there's a saying that when you look at something up close, it's a disaster, but when you look at it from far away, it's a comedy. It's sometimes not intentional. We tried to really focus on the emotions, and I think it just happened to unfold in different ways in terms of the whole balance the director achieved.

CH: For you Lee Eon-hee, as the director and writer, you must be very careful that you balance not only the tone, but also give the characters equal time to grow. How challenging is that for you, especially adapting a novel into a full-length film?
LEH: I had a very clear goal. It's a story, a narrative about the characters going through trials and tribulations throughout their youth, how they grow. In every moment, they’re really focusing on their emotions, and this is something that anybody can go through. For these two characters, they’re going through this period with their lives and are seeing things from their own perspective, in their own way.

In terms of the script, it was actually getting too long for the film. I think I really had a lot of fun adding all these little details and could’ve probably made it into an endless film.

CH: One of my favorite details and scenes in the film happens when Jae-hee is on a train and she sees a woman opposite her, wearing the exact same outfit. When the woman leaves, Jae-hee sees her reflection, and she's really starting to reflect on how much she’s changed and become someone she doesn’t even recognize.

So for my last question want to ask you director about working with your cinematographer to develop this scene on the train, and for the both of you Noh Sang-hyun and Kim Go-eun, I want to ask what are the impressions you have of Heung-soo and Jae-hee now that you've settled into your characters and played them.
NSH: In looking at the character comprehensively, I think in a way there’s some clarity. After the editing, the character is more shaped into its current form, and I felt it was a little different than what I actually performed. There are some scenes that I thought, “Oh, maybe this could be a new perspective for it to be looked at.” And so overall, I think it was a different experience for me.

KGE: To continue from that train scene that you mentioned, I think, Jae-hee in her 20s, in a way, was very rough in that she was very sure about the way that she was expressing herself. But when she comes to the point where she has to compromise too much that she starts to question, “What does she really like?” or “What does the world want for me?” And at that point, I think she lost herself in a way. 

But at the ending scene, she just looked so pretty in that scene. And I guess at that point that she understood what she liked, and why she was making certain choices and how to properly express herself, and to just see Jae-hee like that, it made me really happy.

LEH: (Emotionally) I really want to thank you for pointing out that scene on the train because I really like that scene, and I think that was one of the most important moments for Jae-hee.

I really wanted to do a good job putting that scene together. It was during summer, there were lots of mosquitoes, and it was an outside set. As you mentioned, with the cinematography the most important part that we focused on was that we used computer graphics, and we tried to not make it look like it's computer graphics in that scene and so that people's emotions won’t deviate while watching it. So, adding the computer graphics was probably the most important thing to try to make it look realistic.