Ji Chang-wook X Do Kyung-soo, Intense Action and Villain Transformation in 'The Manipulated'

Actor Ji Chang-wook has embarked on a completely new challenge through the Disney+ original series 〈The Manipulated〉, which connects to the world of the film 〈Fabricated City〉 released 8 years ago. Actor Do Kyung-soo joins as a villain for the first time, engaging in a breathtaking acting competition.

⬦ Ji Chang-wook "It's different from 'Kwon Yoo' 8 years ago... I want to temporarily retire from action"

In an interview held in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 11th, Ji Chang-wook stated, "Since I played the character Kwon Yoo in the film 〈Fabricated City〉 8 years ago, I was more eager and wanted to do better in this work."

〈The Manipulated〉 is an action thriller that depicts the process of Park Tae-jung (played by Ji Chang-wook), who lives an ordinary life, being wrongfully imprisoned for a heinous crime and seeking revenge against Ahn Yo-han (played by Do Kyung-soo), who planned all these events.

This work is an adaptation of the film 〈Fabricated City〉 released in 2017, in which Ji Chang-wook also played the lead role of Kwon Yoo. While the worldview was maintained during the adaptation process, character names, character traits, and major episodes were significantly changed.

Ji Chang-wook expressed, "When I heard the rumor that the film 〈Fabricated City〉 was being adapted into a series, I thought I absolutely wanted to do it. Although it’s not the same work, I had both expectations and pressure about how my changed appearance would be since it has the same worldview as 8 years ago."

However, he emphasized that Kwon Yoo from the film and Park Tae-jung from the series are completely different characters. "Kwon Yoo was a character who was a former athlete and a slacker, while Park Tae-jung represents an ordinary person living diligently, so the starting points were different," he explained. "When I first started the work, I couldn't completely erase the Kwon Yoo character, but the more I read the script, the less I thought of Kwon Yoo."

Ji Chang-wook revealed that he focused most on the scene where Tae-jung, wrongfully imprisoned, experiences the depths of life and awakens. He stated, "I thought the biggest task of this work was to show how much an ordinary character like Tae-jung can fall to the bottom. In fact, the prison scenes were the hardest because there were many scenes of being hit and rolling around, and it was emotionally very burdensome."

"The scene where I fight with Yeodeok-soo (played by Yang Dong-geun) in the prison infirmary took about 5 days to shoot. It was the longest action scene throughout the entire work."

In this work, Ji Chang-wook performed various action sequences such as motorcycle chases and car chases. He expressed gratitude for the talk of a season 2 while joking, "I want to avoid action for a while."

"I once discussed with other actors about what roles we would want to switch, but no one chose Tae-jung. It seems that it looked that difficult."

Ji Chang-wook expressed his ambition to challenge a villain role like Ahn Yo-han if given the opportunity. "I think Yo-han is a character with a lot of imaginative possibilities. I thought he had a unique job and had a fantastical and grotesque atmosphere."

⬦ Do Kyung-soo "Thrilling to play my first villain... I was really impressed by Lee Kwang-soo's acting"

Do Kyung-soo, who plays Ahn Yo-han in 〈The Manipulated〉, shared his thoughts on his first villain role in an interview conducted on the same day.

He said, "I have always had a strong desire to play a villain. It’s not easy to experience emotions to the extreme in a work, but through Yo-han, I felt a height of emotions I had never felt before in my life, which relieved my stress and was fun."

Do Kyung-soo mentioned that he worked hard to portray a non-typical villain and expressed great satisfaction with the positive reactions after the work's release. "Actually, my close colleagues like Kim Woo-bin told me that I handled a non-typical villain well, which made me very happy. When the staff or passersby looked at me with the same gaze they had for Yo-han, I felt both disappointed and really proud."

However, Do Kyung-soo claimed that his close friend Lee Kwang-soo's character Baek Do-kyung is a more malicious villain than Yo-han and expressed surprise at Lee Kwang-soo's acting. In the series, Baek Do-kyung is the true culprit of the murder case for which Tae-jung is wrongfully accused, appearing as a despicable character who commits numerous evil deeds without remorse.

"I was surprised by the instantaneous concentration that Kwang-soo showed on set," he recalled. "I actually got annoyed by the ad-libs Kwang-soo showed on set, but it helped me a lot in my acting."

Do Kyung-soo expressed some personal regrets about his first villain role and revealed his desire to challenge various villain roles in the future. "Watching the work, I felt that if Yo-han had a wider emotional range, he could have been a more three-dimensional character. If I take on a villain role in another work, I would like to try a role that directly commits evil deeds like Do Kyung."