Yoo Eun-jeong on ‘Shadow Child’: Im Soo-jung Said ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’ Brought the Film to Mind

What if you met someone who looked exactly like a loved one you had lost? That familiar premise has been reshaped into an original film with a fairytale-like setting: 〈Shadow Child〉, which opened on July 1. 〈Shadow Child〉 follows Geum-ok (Im Soo-jung) after her eldest daughter, Su-ryeon (Yuna) — who was also Su-an's (Park So-yi) older sister — dies; three years later, Jae-in (Yuna, in a dual role), whose face is identical to Su-ryeon's, appears before them and sets the story in motion. Director Yoo Eun-jeong, who explored the encounter between a ghost and a girl standing on the border between life and death in 〈The Night's Door Opens〉, returns after seven years with a more dreamlike mystery. After further postproduction following the 2025 Busan International Film Festival, 〈Shadow Child〉 is ready for release, and Yoo Eun-jeong has already left a distinct mark with just two feature films. We spoke with director Yoo Eun-jeong about the film.

〈Shadow Child〉 opens in theaters. How do you feel ahead of the release?

I'm a little nervous about how audiences will receive the film, and at the same time I'm very happy that the film is finally coming out into the world.

After its first screening at last year's Busan International Film Festival you did additional VFX work. What did you focus on revising?

In the script we refer to a "black space," another world where time doesn't flow. At first we envisioned that space with more of an outer-space concept. During revisions we added more visual work to bring that world closer to a fairy-tale realm. The work in between was about turning that space into the world of the story.

〈Shadow Child〉 mixes fairytale elements with a story about families bereaved by suicide. I'm curious where the idea for this film started.

The starting point was a family: Su-an (Park So-yi), Su-ryeon (Yuna) and Geum-ok (Im Soo-jung). The story begins when Su-ryeon dies for reasons no one understands. A support group entered the story naturally when I started thinking about how Geum-ok would live with that loss. In the very early stages of planning and the script, there wasn't a support group element.

So that direction led you to set Geum-ok as a psychological counselor. Did you conduct any reporting or research for the film?

We referred a lot to materials that are already public — broadcasts, YouTube videos, and the stories bereaved families have openly shared. I thought what they said could be helpful to people and could create a sense of connection, so we used those public accounts as reference. I did consider conducting direct interviews, but I didn't pursue them because it felt too delicate and would not have been respectful to those families. Instead, our research relied on open-source materials: books, YouTube content and related papers.

You originally unveiled the film under the title 〈The Second Child〉 and then changed its title before release to 〈Shadow Child〉. Why did you change the title?

When I was writing the script I used the idea of a family curse tied to the birth of a "second child" and the symbol of a "black well," so I wrote it with the title 〈The Second Child〉 in mind. Su-an is also the younger sibling, so the title pointed to her as well. But while the title The Second Child makes sense to someone who has seen the film, we needed a title that would provoke curiosity and indicate the genre to an audience encountering it for the first time. I thought the original title might be a bit unclear, so we changed it to a title that better conveys the film's tone: 〈Shadow Child〉. We considered many other candidates, but none rose above this one.

Park So-yi and Yuna play sisters in the film. At the press meeting you said resemblance wasn't a decisive factor in casting. I felt the two were similar in some ways and different in others. How did you cast the two actresses?

We first cast Park So-yi as Su-an, and then we cast Yuna. My dilemma was whether to find someone who resembled Park So-yi for the roles of Su-ryeon and Jae-in, or to work with an actress like Yuna who has strong acting chops. At the time I didn't see them as particularly similar. Yuna had played mature child roles in previous works like 〈Kidnapping Day〉 (2023, ENA) and 〈Good Partner〉 (2024, SBS), while So-yi projects an innate cuteness and innocence. I felt they carried very different energies. Because Su-ryeon is an older sister to Su-an while Jae-in is a friend, I weighed image versus the ability to express difference in performance — and ultimately I decided acting ability mattered more, so I met with Yuna.

Both actresses take on demanding roles in the film. How did you direct their performances?

With Yuna, I explained the backstory for each character. I told her, "Jae-in has this history and behaves this way in that situation; Su-ryeon grew up in this kind of household and acts this way in these circumstances." I broadly separated Jae-in and Su-ryeon and discussed their histories. Even at our first meeting, when she did a light reading, Yuna already gave the two characters distinct colors. The character discussions we had later developed from that reading, and I shared backstory details that I couldn't fully include in the script. For example, I explained how Jae-in's relationship with her grandmother was, what kind of person the grandmother was, and for Su-ryeon I fleshed out what role she played when she was with Su-an and Geum-ok — those kinds of details we developed together.

Im Soo-jung also served as a producer, but she originally joined as an actress. What in the script attracted her to the role?

Im Soo-jung said she liked the film's worldview. She has a strong interest in science and physics and enjoys reading books on quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics discusses time not necessarily flowing uniformly but existing as dispersed, local instances, and she found that aspect of the script intriguing. Second, she told me she wanted to try playing the character Geum-ok. Third, during our pre-production period there was a 20th-anniversary screening of 〈A Tale of Two Sisters〉 with Director Kim Jee-woon and a Q&A. After watching 〈A Tale of Two Sisters〉, she said it reminded her of our film — she mentioned that to me.

※ The interview with director Yoo Eun-jeong on 〈Shadow Child〉 Part 2 continues.