On Their Fourth Team-Up, the Many Faces of Koo Kyo-hwan Through Yeon Sang-ho’s Lens

It started with Yeon Sang-ho. Koo Kyo-hwan was already a star of the independent film scene, an idol of sorts for outsiders. But if you trace the origins of how he came to appear in so many commercial projects, you arrive at Yeon’s 〈Peninsula〉. Peninsula, released in 2020, was the first commercial film to feature Koo, who began acting in 2008. Yeon, a director who often works with a circle of regular collaborators, cast Koo repeatedly and reunited with him for 〈Gunche〉, once again pairing Koo with an outbreak story. To mark the release of 〈Gunche〉, here’s a look at the roles through which Yeon has framed different sides of Koo's screen persona.

Peninsula — Captain Seo Sang-hoon, a man who wanted to survive

After building his name in short films and then breaking into features with works such as Kkum-ui Jane and Maggie, Koo Kyo-hwan stepped before a wider public in 2020 with Peninsula. He plays Captain Seo Sang-hoon, commander of Unit 631 who survived on a Korean Peninsula ravaged by a zombie outbreak. His entrance, however, is deliberately ambiguous. With his hair slicked back and a rare bottle of liquor beside him in what passes for his "office," he puts a gun to his mouth on the clipped line, "Me, I’m going." Then, when Kim Young-ho (Kim Gyu-baek) arrives, he instantly switches into a staged performance and flashes a wide smile. That loose, almost comic demeanor sits oddly beside the role of a unit commander on a ruined Peninsula. Viewers familiar with Koo likely felt the part was tailor-made for him; those unfamiliar would have been struck immediately. Yeon saw in Koo someone who had despaired at a ruined world but who also cleverly concealed that despair.

Monstrous — Jeong Ki-hoon, an archaeologist chasing the occult

The drama Monstrous was not directed by Yeon Sang-ho, but it was written by him. Yeon has said he did not take part in casting, but director Jang Geon-jae remembered Koo after reading Yeon's script, which suggests Yeon’s script already carried something of Koo in the character of Jeong Ki-hoon. Jeong Ki-hoon is an archaeologist investigating unusual phenomena in Jinyang County. He will brazenly lie if necessary and is obsessively tenacious — willing to take risks and pursue a lead to the end. That premise — that anyone who looks into the eye of a Buddha statue known as the gwi-bul confronts the hell they carry inside — also gives Koo room to confront a brutally painful past, adding emotional weight to the series.

〈Parasyte: The Grey〉 Seol Kang-woo — the man bridging humans and nonhumans

The second meeting between Yeon Sang-ho and Koo came in the Netflix original series Parasyte: The Grey. Based on Hitoshi Iwaaki's manga Parasyte, the series portrays what happens when parasitic organisms appear in Korea. Koo's character, Seol Kang-woo, serves as the story’s closest thing to an ordinary human point of view between Jung Su-in (Jeon So-ni), who coexists with a parasite, and Choi Jun-kyung (Lee Jung-hyun), leader of The Grey team, who harbors an extreme hatred of parasites. Admittedly, in this brutal drama Seol Kang-woo is no typical everyman; he endures a deeply unfortunate life. Still, without him, Su-in and Heidi would not have stayed safe. Koo said Yeon cast him because he "matched the visual style of Parasyte: The Grey," and since Koo had long been a fan of the original manga, he accepted the role readily.

Gunche — Seo Young-cheol, the scientist who spread the infection himself

Yeon Sang-ho's new film Gunche returns to themes of contagion and humanity. In this project he again casts Koo as a villain, but the role differs sharply from Captain Seo Sang-hoon. In Gunche, Koo's Seo Young-cheol is a brilliant biologist who directly spreads the disease. Lines in the film mention "the perfect communication of humankind," and the trailer shows infected people moving in response to his motions — suggesting, as the title Gunche implies, that he can control the infected. In fact, Koo said he called the infected who followed his movements "children" and approached the role with "the concept of creating 100 Seo Young-cheols." He built Seo Young-cheol by synchronizing his performance with those of the actors playing the infected. Yeon Sang-ho, having seen the striking portrait Koo delivered in Peninsula, cast him again and again uses him to deliver a new kind of villain.