User Rating
Current user rating: 86/100 (5512 votes)
You need to enable JavaScript to vote
Profile
- Movie: A Werewolf Boy
- Revised romanization: Neukdae Sonyeon
- Hangul: 늑대소년
- Director: Jo Sung-Hee
- Writer: Jo Sung-Hee
- Producer: Lee Young-Suk
- Cinematographer: Choi Sang-Muk
- Release Date: October 31, 2012
- Runtime: 125 min.
- Genre: Romance / Fantasy / Award Winning
- Distributor: CJ Entertainment
- Language: Korean
- Country: South Korea
Plot Synopsis by AsianWiki Staff ©
A mother moves with her older daughter (Park Bo-Young) and younger daughter (Kim Hyang-Gi) to a large home in the country side. The older daughter suffers from a lung ailment and her doctor advised the family to move out into the country side. The home is provided by Ji-Tae (Yoo Yeon-Seok), the son of a business partner who worked with their deceased father.
While the family gets acclimated to their new surroundings, the older daughter makes a remarkable discovery. Within a locked room in the barn lives a wild boy (Song Joong-Ki). The family takes him in believing he is just an orphan with little social skills. The boy with little social skills begins to take an interest in the oldest daughter. Meanwhile, Ji-Tae has his own plans in marrying the oldest daughter. What's the secret behind the wild boy?
Notes
- Filming began December 21, 2011 in Jeonju, South Korea.
- Opened #1 at the South Korean box office during the movie's opening weekend (November 2-November 4, 2012). The movie sold 1,030,264 tickets over the 3 day period.
- A novel version of "A Werewolf Boy" is released on October 31, 2012, authored by Kim Mi-Ri and published by Esoope Publishing in South Korea. The novel is based on the movie's original screenplay written by the movie director Jo Sung-Hee.
- On Saturday, November 15, 2012, "A Werewolf Boy" surpassed the ticket sales of movie "Architecture 101" of 4.1 million tickets at the Korean box office to become the all-time best selling romance film in South Korean history up to that date.
- A director's cut version of "A Werewolf Boy" will be released in Korean cinemas on December 6, 2012. The running time is extended from 125 minutes to 127 minutes. The final scene is a new scene with wolf boy and Soon-Yi (Park Bo-Young) meeting.
Cast
Additional Cast Members:
Trailers
Image Gallery
Film Festivals
- 2012 (37th) Toronto International Film Festival - September 6-16, 2012 - Contemporary World Cinema
- 2012 (31st) Vancouver International Film Festival - September 27-October 12, 2012 - Dragons and Tigers
- 2012 (17th) Busan International Film Festival - October 4-13, 2012 - Open Cinema
- 2012 (32nd) Hawaii International Film Festival - October 11-21, 2012 - Spotlight on Korea *U.S. Premiere
- 2012 (6th) Abu Dhabi Film Festival - October 11-20, 2012 - Showcase
- 2013 (37th) Hong Kong International Film Festival - March 17 - April 4, 2013 - I See It My Way
- 2013 (15th) Udine Far East Film - April 19-27, 2013 *European Premiere
- 2013 (5th) Terracotta Far East Film Festival - June 6-15, 2013 - Current Asian Cinema
- 2013 (62nd) Melbourne International Film Festival - July 25-August 11, 2013 - Next Gen
- 2013 (4th) Korean Film Festival in Australia - August 14-September 11, 2013 - Opening Films
Awards
Q&A (Busan International Film Festival)
Q&A for "A Werewolf Boy," with actor Yoo Yeon-Seok, actress Jang Young-Nam, actress Park Bo-Young and director Jo Sung-Hee, took place at the 2012 Busan International Film Festival on October 14, 2012. AsianWiki editor Ki Mun was there and transcribed/translated the session.
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): Hello, I'm Jo Sung-Hee the director of "A Werewolf Boy". Thanks for coming to watch this film at such an early time.
- Park Bo-Young (actress): Thank you for attending this screening.
- Jang Yeong-Nam (actress): Hi, I'm Jang Young-Nam who played Soon-Yi's mother. I watched the movie for the first time here. I cried a lot. I think the movie will be a big hit. Thank you for coming so early.
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): Hi, I'm Yoo Yeon-Seok who played the bad guy. Thank you for watching the movie and ask me a lot of questions, I'll try to answer carefully.
- Audience Question: This question is for Park Bo-Young. How did your midterm exam go in college?
- Park Bo-Young (actress): I took time off from school.
- Audience Question: Question for Park Bo-Young. When you first received the script what did you think of it? Also, why did you select this film?
- Park Bo-Young (actress): The director expressed very well the movie with his script and I cried when I read it. I did worry whether I could portray Soon-Yi as the director wanted, but I decided to do it because I really wanted to portray Soon-Yi. I wanted to express the feelings of a girl who turns into a woman. I really wanted the role and I said "yes" right away.
- Audience Question: Question for Park Bo-Young. What was the most difficult thing while working on this movie?
- Park Bo-Young (actress): The most difficult thing was fighting through the cold weather. Filming took place during winter and a lot of the scenes were shot outdoors at night. The coldest time was around 4 AM. Everyone involved in the filming suffered from the cold weather. Another thing is that Chul-Soo (Song Joong-Ki) doesn't have any lines for the most of the film. While rehearsing, I had a hard time with that, but when shooting, Song Joong-Ki performed well with his eyes and I was able to perform smoothly. While memorizing my lines, it was difficult for me to envision my physical performance.
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): I guess there isn't any questions for me so I'll go (audience laughs).
- Audience Question: How did you feel when you slapped Chul-Soo's (Song Joong-Ki) face?
- Park Bo-Young (actress): I felt bad, because I slapped him a lot. Filming for that scene took place quite a few times from different angles ... aimed at my face, aimed at Chul-Soo's face, from the side with both of us in view, but I didn't have to slap him really hard during all the shots. I only had to slap him hard when they filmed Chul-Soo's face. I was completely immersed in my character's emotions for all the shots and, because of this, Song Joong-Ki told me to slap him hard for all the shots. Thanks to him, I think my feelings were well conveyed through the movie. Even though he could not be here today, I want to thank him and sorry for the slaps.
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): After Song Joong-Ki watched the movie, he told me his face was swollen after that scene.
- Audience Question: I always thought Song Joong-Ki and Park Bo-Young would make a great pair in a film. Could you tell us about the casting process?
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): As I mentioned in interviews, Park Bo-Young has all the qualities of Soon-Yi. She is pale and seems to have a story behind her. With Song Joong-Ki, he has different images ... a boy and also a man. Like his nickname "Milk Man," he has softness and a sense of wildness. Without them, the movie would have turned out completely different. The pairing of Song Joong-Ki and Park Bo-Young worked very well.
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): Many of her lines were ad-libbed, like the murmuring.
- Jang Yeong-Nam (actress): Many of my lines were also written by director Jo Sung-Hee.
- Audience Question: I think the color of the movie is very pretty. Can somebody mention some of the best scenes?
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): This is my personal opinion. I watched the movie a lot of times already. Whenever I watched this scene, I feel like the scene is really something. The scene is when Chul-Soo is locked in the barn and Soon-Yi gets there. She tells him that she won't read the fairytale book until he reads it for her. That scene, with the above the waist shot of Soon-Yi, really makes me emotional.
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): When Ji-Tae goes to the barn and tells Chul-Soo where the guitar is. I put a lot of effort in that scene and I still remember it vividly.
- Jang Yeong-Nam (actress): I like the scenes with Chul-Soo and Soon-Yi as their relationship gets closer. Especially when Soon-Yi plays the guitar and sings. With my scenes, the best scene is when I wash Chul-Soo's back.
- Moderator: The scene when Chul-Soo wore the hanbok (Korean traditional dress), didn't you have a lot of takes?
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): No, not really. Not many takes. On the filming set, Song Joong-Ki and Park Bo-Young got along well and I just watched them.
- Audience Question: I enjoyed the movie a lot. Nowadays, staff and cast makes a promise if a certain amount of people watch their movie. What's your promise?
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): Yesterday, when we all got together, the director told us if the movie passes 5 million admissions than he will draw on his face like Chul-Soo and Soon-Yi did.
- Audience Question: I have watched the film 3 times so far at film festivals. It was hard for me to get the movie tickets. I love the screenplay. I would like to know if the story is based on something else and who wrote the script? My favorite scene is Chul-Soo rolling the snow to make a snowman. How did you come up with that final scene?
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): I wrote the screenplay. I began to write the script at the Korean Academy of Film Arts where I studied filmmaking. I showed a synopsis of the story to a professor. The synopsis was quite different from the final screenplay. In that synopsis, the roles were reversed. The woman was wild and she waits for the guy. Also, the synopsis was more tragic. In order to make a commercial film, the man became the wild one and the ending changed with the last meeting occurring. The story changed quite a bit from the original script. About the ending scene. We held meetings and talked about many different possible versions with the elderly Soon-Yi. After all the deliberations, we came up with the ending you see in the movie. When Chul-Soo rolls a snowball into a snowman, that is what Chul-Soo is. Chul-Soo doesn't blame Soon-Yi and keeps his promise. I think that's Chul-Soo.
- Audience Question: To each of the actors, when you were assigned your characters what part did you focus on most?
- Yoo Yeon-Seok (actor): Ji-Tae is an evil guy, but as Ji-Tae gets worse and worse, the love between Chul-Soo and Soon-Yi becomes more earnest. Because of this, I abandoned my own personal desires and tried to become as evil as possible. I think what Ji-Tae does comes from his love for Soon-Yo. He loves her so much that he takes such drastic actions. I hope the audience feels pity for him. There's a scene where Ji-Tae kicks Soon-Yi and he says "I love you, but why don't you love me?," but his words are inaudible. Even though I performed as a villain, I tried to show love for Soon-Yi.
- Jang Yeong-Nam (actress): I'm getting a little older, but I recently got married. I wondered, since I didn't have experience as a mother, could I perform as Soon-Yi's mother? My character doesn't have a strong character or personality. She is a very ordinary mother who seems to be always behind Soon-Yi. On the filming set, I was obsessed with that and the director kept mentioning it. That was the most difficult thing while filming.
- Park Bo-Young (actress): I thought a lot about how to show Soon-Yi slowly opening up to Chul-Soo. On the filming set, I acted according to what the director wanted. He didn't want me to prepare a lot for my character. On the filming set, he always told me "you are acting, but don't act." So I tried to follow what the director wanted.
- Moderator: We are now out of time. Could the director give some final words?
- Jo Sung-Hee (director): Thank you for watching my movie today. I hope when the movie is released in theaters that you will have more fun and watch the movie again with your friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and family.
|
|
Latest News
|
Latest Trailers
|
|
|