[Interview] Korean indie film 'Little Dreamers' meets Michel Gondry's imagination: Director Lee Kwang-ho, actors Yoo Hee-je and Kim Se-won ①

Geon-woo is an unemployed young man who quit baseball and now stands at a dead end in life. Mina is a teenage girl who wanders after her mother's death, unable to fit into her new surroundings. The two characters illuminated by 〈Little Dreamers〉 are burdened by their own struggles as they try to survive harsh realities. Their lives begin to change when they happen to meet Yoseop, a guide to the world of dreams, in a coin-operated laundromat.

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Geon-woo and Mina are dreamers. For them, a “dream” is both an escape from the problems of reality and a source of hope that might open up another possibility. The word “dream” appears twice in that sentence, but it means something different each time: one is the dream we have while sleeping, and the other represents hope. Director Lee Kwang-ho, a graduate of the Korean Academy of Film Arts, has explored ways to express real-life struggles through fantasy, from his short film 〈Save the Movie〉 (2018) to 〈The Way of Love〉 (2019) and 〈The Traveler〉 (2019). In a Korean independent-film landscape heavily rooted in realism, he has consistently been someone willing to dream a different dream. His feature debut, 〈Little Dreamers〉, is an expanded version of the distinctive way of thinking he has developed over the years. It is as if Michel Gondry's imagination had absorbed Korean concerns and colors. Attention turns to the two actors who joined this unprecedented film and helped complete its world. Yoo Hee-je, who has mainly appeared in realism-based films such as 〈Long Live the King: Mokpo Hero〉 (2019) and 〈Casino〉 Season 2, plays Geon-woo, while Kim Se-won, who showed the spirited energy of a determined teenager in 〈Math Genius Hyung-joo〉 (2024), plays Mina.

You enter the world of dreams through a coin-operated laundromat. I thought you might be someone who easily drifts into dreams. Have you ever had an experience like that in a laundromat? (Laughs)

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Director Lee Kwang-ho I'm not sure. I was actually thinking about where to set an idea like this, and decided it had to be a coin-operated laundromat. But while writing this screenplay, I definitely spent a lot of time in a somewhat dreamlike state.

Dreams have two meanings, and these characters experience both of them.

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Director Lee Kwang-ho When we talk about a “dream,” we use the same word for the dreams we have while sleeping and the things we hope for. Aside from a few Eastern European countries, I found that the word “dream” carries both meanings simultaneously, just as it does in Korean. Once I started thinking about that, it seemed strange. Geon-woo dreams of making money and earning recognition from his family and friends, while Mina dreams of repairing a relationship that has gone wrong. Then the other kind of dream enters their lives, and the resulting confusion felt dreamlike.

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When you first encounter it as a screenplay, the premise can seem rather absurd. How did you respond to this fantasy world?

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Yoo Hee-je I didn't understand it all at once. (Laughs) I spent a lot of time wondering where exactly it was going. Apart from 〈The Silent Sea〉, which is an SF project, I've mostly done realistic acting. Moving back and forth between reality and fantasy like this left me feeling confused. But when I watched the finished film, I saw that the director had connected everything remarkably well. And amid all that, I thought, “I did a pretty good job too.” (Laughs)

Kim Se-won I really like science-fiction and fantasy. From the moment I read the screenplay, I liked its distinctive, inventive imagination. It reminded me a little of a Michel Gondry film. I thought it would be fun to act in scenes that moved between reality and fantasy, and I felt challenged by it. It was a screenplay with an irresistible quality that drew me in.

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They experience a fantasy world, but they are also characters with very real concerns. How would you describe Geon-woo and Mina?

Yoo Hee-je Geon-woo looks like an unemployed layabout. He quit baseball because of an injury and is now stuck up against something in his life. People around him wonder, “Why does he live like that?” I think it would be difficult for me to have someone like Geon-woo beside me too. (Laughs) But I think everyone goes through a period like that at least once. There are times when burnout hits or even taking one step forward feels difficult. The difference is simply how we find a way through it. His current dream of making a fortune overnight may be a foolish choice, but I didn't see him as a completely pathetic person.

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People pursuing dreams in other fields will probably relate to that situation too.

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Yoo Hee-je Because Geon-woo had such a clear goal in baseball, his sense of loss must have been especially deep. He can't let go of his lingering attachment to being a baseball player. I have many friends who act. I've seen friends give up acting but still be unable to let go of their dreams. I also experienced frustration when I had to quit taekwondo after doing it for many years because of an injury, so I thought about that time a lot. When something you've done all your life is suddenly taken away and your self-esteem collapses, it's not easy to accept.

Director Lee Kwang-ho In fact, many people go through situations like Geon-woo's. Even among people around me, I've seen aspiring cinematographers end up selling or renting out equipment. But I saw this process less as success or failure than as passing through a point in life that anyone can encounter.

Kim Se-won Mina is also passing through a period after her mother's death when she lives with her aunt and has nowhere to turn. I saw her as someone completely consumed by dreams. She is trapped in the past and unable to plant her feet in the present. I thought of her as someone who keeps wavering and gradually fading. Mina's key word was “loneliness.” Until then, I had thought of loneliness simply as sadness. But as I read the screenplay, I realized it could become the motivation behind a character's choices and actions. I thought I had to reveal that through the character.

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The story truly gets underway when two people with different generations, genders and concerns—and no apparent point of connection—meet.

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Director Lee Kwang-ho At the starting point, this was a story about Geon-woo having precognitive dreams. I wondered what it would be like for Geon-woo to meet his past self, but then I thought that was a familiar setup. So I expanded the story by having him meet someone with a similar experience and created Mina. Like Geon-woo in the past, after losing his mother, Mina is in a similar situation now. I began imagining how to bring their shared dreams to life and where they might go if their dreams became mixed together. The “dreamer” became “dreamers.”

Yoo Hee-je I also saw Geon-woo as an immature person who had lost his direction, like Mina. He had stopped somewhere in childhood, so when he met Mina, I thought of him not so much as an adult but as someone who wasn't all that different from her. Even when they fight the first time they meet, we decided to make it childish. He may seem to offer Mina advice, but he is also someone who doesn't really know much about life. I thought people in their 40s and 50s might watch them and relate, thinking, “I went through a period like that too.”

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Although they clash, they eventually become the people who recognize each other's deepest wounds.

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Director Lee Kwang-ho I thought that was the film's greatest driving force. The two become a source of salvation for each other, taking on roles that allow them to resolve something for one another. I think finding that was the central task of my screenplay. The scenes where Geon-woo and Mina clash early on made me think of the characters' first meeting in the TV series 〈Beef〉. In that series, their conflict grows out of social class. In our film, there is also a generational difference. I thought people who maintain a certain distance from each other might be more willing to open up than they would be with someone close to them.

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▶ The interview with 〈Little Dreamers〉 director Lee Kwang-ho and actors Yoo Hee-je and Kim Se-won continues in Part 2.