[Kim Ji-yeon's Gem Box] 38-Year 'Rookie' Actor Nam Kwon-a of 'Tazza: The Song of Belzebub' and 'Gyeongju Trip'

If I had to name just one Korean commercial film released this year whose performance fell short of expectations, it would unquestionably be 〈Gyeongju Trip〉. The film's provocative story and its sheer determination to swing between comedy and tragedy with almost ungainly roughness certainly shone, but so did its supporting characters—so natural that viewers might have missed what made them distinctive. The film becomes especially intriguing when viewed with the knowledge that women played all the roles that men have traditionally handled in genre films. In 〈Gyeongju Trip〉, the detective known as Detective Nam (Kim Jung-young), who pursues the case of Baek Sang-hyun's (Byun Yo-han) escape, is a woman despite the character's name. She also bears little resemblance to the stereotypical career-woman police detective so often depicted in the media. Have you ever seen a female detective with graying hair on screen? Kim Jung-young's Detective Nam, with her cold, rational gaze, sharp eyes and clipped delivery, naturally moves into territory usually occupied by male detectives or career-woman-style female detectives. For viewers who watched Kim Jung-young, an actress who had mainly played mothers, undergo such a striking transformation on screen, the role offered the liberating feeling of shattering established stereotypes.

Beyond Detective Nam, the standout scene-stealer in this inventive black comedy-thriller-crime film is unquestionably ‘Pillye’ (Nam Kwon-a). As actor Gong Hyo-jin said in an interview with Cineplay, “The detective in 〈Gyeongju Trip〉 and Pillye both have women newly taking on roles we had seen men play in film noir. While we were shooting, it felt so natural that I only realized it anew when I watched it back.” Pillye is the kind of character traditionally played in genre films by rough-faced men. Smoking while casually slinging a box of Gyeongju Hwangnam bread over her shoulder like a luxury handbag, Pillye embodies the distinctive, twist-filled character of the film. In 〈Gyeongju Trip〉, Pillye serves as the discreet accomplice who helps with Baek Sang-hyun's kidnapping because of her unusual connection to his mother, Oksil (Lee Jung-eun). With a chilling expression that reveals nothing of her thoughts and an overwhelming presence, she commands attention and heightens the tension. The film never explains what prompted her to help Oksil or why she and her sons became so calm and skilled at staging the kidnapping. But the face and expressions Nam Kwon-a gives Pillye—seemingly filled with untold stories—and her strange aura, impossible to read as either goodwill or hostility, are more than enough to spark curiosity.

Coincidentally, viewers can find another noir-inflected performance by Nam Kwon-a in 〈Tazza: The Song of Belzebub〉, which opened around the same time. Nam plays the mother of Park Tae-young (Roh Jae-won) in 〈Tazza: The Song of Belzebub〉, delivering a chilling performance. Park Tae-young's mother is a fanatical figure deeply consumed by religious extremism. She subjects her young son to emotional and physical abuse at home and, without hesitation, points a finger at her own flesh and blood and calls him “Satan.” Nam Kwon-a lays bare the character's twisted inner life, poised between blind faith and bizarre madness, through a terrifying performance. Her work underscores the warped inferiority complex and feelings of inadequacy that Park Tae-young carries throughout his life, as well as the narrative logic behind his eventual murder of his mother and descent into ruin. Roh Jae-won, who played Park Tae-young, also recalled in an interview with a news outlet the spine-chilling moments he shared with Nam Kwon-a on set. In a beating scene he could not even begin to imagine how to play from the script and had vaguely assumed would be simply desperate and sad, Nam reportedly unleashed the ad-lib “Begone, Satan!” and exploded into a frenzied, ecstatic performance of religious tongues that the script had not described in detail. Roh said he could do nothing but naturally make a stunned expression of injustice and disbelief, as if he had truly become Park Tae-young.

That is not to say Nam Kwon-a is confined to noirish charisma. In the drama 〈Shimwoo-myeon Yeon-ri-ri〉, she played a neighborhood women's association president deeply devoted to her community and attentive to others. In 〈Reply 1988〉, she played the Seonnyeogung shaman who read the fortunes of the three women from Ssangmun-dong. In the Netflix series 〈When Life Gives You Tangerines〉, which likely introduced her to the largest audience, she appeared as “Jenny's housekeeper” and helped make memorable the “ring war” scene with Jenny's mother (Kim Geum-soon), one of the series' most frequently discussed moments. Nam Kwon-a has thus demonstrated a versatile duality, moving freely between good and evil, comedy and tragedy, and between slice-of-life dramas and genre fare.

Nam Kwon-a has spent 38 years onstage, yet the media still calls her a “rookie.” She is a veteran actor who has worked in theater and musicals for 38 years, a theater director, and an educator who has trained the next generation in Yongin University's Department of Musical Theater. As head of Theater Healing, she also works as a drama therapist, leading community theater with members of the public and dreaming of making theater part of everyday life. At 22, she moved audiences to tears and laughter playing a woman in her 70s in the play 〈Ogu〉. Now in her late 50s, she is newly entering screen acting and taking on film and television with the freshest face of a rookie.

Even when she won the Scene Stealer Award at the 2022 SBS Drama Awards for the drama 〈From Today, We're Us〉, Nam Kwon-a's mindset was no different from that of a rookie actor. She had not expected to win and was not planning to attend the ceremony, but changed her mind after hearing, “Showing your face once at an awards ceremony is better than sending out your profile 100 times.”

Nam Kwon-a has spent her entire life acting, but says it was only recently that she began thinking, “I really want to be an actor,” and finally started making acting her own. She dreams of becoming an action actor at 60. Recently, she has taken on short-form dramas including 〈The Most Painful Kiss in the World〉 and 〈Dating After a Lightning-Fast Marriage〉, and made her variety-show debut on 〈Midnight Horror Story〉. There is still plenty left to add to the profile of this actor in her 38th year.