[Kim Ji-yeon's Jewel Box] The Film's Biggest Discovery, 'Jjanggu' Jo Beom-gyu

How did they find someone like this? I wondered right away, thinking they might have literally brought in some unemployed neighborhood freeloader crashing at a friend’s place. The moment Jo Beom-gyu appears in 〈Jjanggu〉, bouncing his leg flippantly, that thought crossed my mind. In the film 〈Jjanggu〉, the character 'Kkangnaengi' (Jo Beom-gyu) comes home plastered, casually sprawls out on the floor under his friends’ bed while the couple is sleeping, and despite living off them he never pays the electric bill and can be shamelessly brazen. Yet he also nonchalantly blurts out their own catchphrase “Gonna take a raccoon with me~” and, in that same deadpan way, still remains deeply loyal to his friendship with Jjanggu (Jung-woo). He feels like an extremely realistic character.

The film 〈Jjanggu〉 is unrealistic in many ways. Although the movie bills itself as “the story of an aspiring actor’s 109 audition attempts,” the actual plot centers on the aspiring actor Jjanggu dating the aloof woman Min-hee (Jung Soo-jung) who seems to embody male fantasy. The age gap between the actors who play the protagonist and his peers is another example. In any case, in a film that’s close to fantasy, the moments when Jo Beom-gyu shows up made me feel like 〈Jjanggu〉 was a documentary. In this paradoxically unreal movie, Jo Beom-gyu’s performance is the single most realistic element.

The moment he appears, an otherwise far-fetched film suddenly gains credibility. Maybe 〈Jjanggu〉 should really be called 〈Kkangnaengi〉. The film’s theme of “youth facing the wall of reality” is made clearer through Kkangnaengi’s story.

Kkangnaengi looks at first like a careless youth without dreams or plans: swaggering, loose talk, a realistic Busan-accented dialect as if he’d just arrived from Busan, legs that can’t sit still and shake constantly, and the perfect, casual back-and-forth where when Jjanggu asks, “Gonna take a raccoon with me~,” he replies with deadpan timing, “Eat lots of ham.” Jo Beom-gyu’s Kkangnaengi is the sort of unemployed slacker you could imagine hiding out in some corner of real life. He lives with Jjanggu and looks for work, and when he’s told they need waiters, the place he ends up at is none other than a host bar. He seems indifferent to scornful eyes that say, “You’re selling your youth for money,” but the truth is Kkangnaengi’s struggle is a desperate fight for survival to pay his grandmother’s hospital bills. In the film’s final act, the sincerity behind the swagger that once looked shallow becomes clear, and only then does the movie deliver a heavy emotional weight to the audience.

The true “real-life Jjanggu” might be Jo Beom-gyu. Jo Beom-gyu beat out roughly 4,000:1 odds to be cast as Kkangnaengi in 〈Jjanggu〉. Jung-woo, who directed and starred in 〈Jjanggu〉, said he cast even minor roles strictly via auditions without considering prior recognition or star power; among them, the role he meticulously cast was Kkangnaengi. After four rounds of auditions, Jung-woo selected Jo Beom-gyu, and they ran camera tests for three to four hours, matching acting rhythms until both were sweating through their backs. In fact, Jung-woo initially wanted a more intense-looking actor for Kkangnaengi, but he liked Jo Beom-gyu so much that he changed Kkangnaengi’s profile from Jjanggu’s friend to a younger-brother-like junior he was close to, and ultimately chose him. The result is that Jo Beom-gyu brought the film’s realism with a newcomer's natural, lived-in acting, so Jung-woo’s choice proved to be a masterstroke.

Jo Beom-gyu is a true newcomer who debuted in 2024 on the tvN drama 〈Love Is on a Narrow Bridge〉. He was also selected through a public audition hosted by BH Entertainment in 2023. After performing Choi Woo-shik’s scene from 〈The Witch〉 and delivering an original monologue, Jo Beom-gyu passed the final round and joined the same agency as established stars like Lee Byung-hun, Park Hae-soo, and Kim Go-eun. In other words, a top agency that represents renowned actors had already stashed him in its “jewel box.” After that, Jo Beom-gyu played the frank, unabashed high school student Eom Gi-seok in 〈Love Is on a Narrow Bridge〉, showing refreshing chemistry with actress Choi Yoon-ji, and in episode 5 of the tvN drama 〈Seocho-dong〉 he portrayed a job-seeker caught up in a theft case, delivering a steady performance that left a strong impression despite a brief appearance. He is proving, right from his debut, the reason a reputable agency picked him early on.