Lee Chang Dong on his eight-year hiatus and returns with ‘Potential Love’ Movies Counter

Lee Chang-dong finally returned to feature filmmaking.

The Korean director has been on an extended hiatus for eight years, which he attributes to his “pathological shyness.”

“Unless I have that conviction, I can’t make myself start working, no matter what the external circumstances are or what others around me say,” he says. Delivery time via Zoom from his office in Korea, ahead of his trip to Venice, where he will screen his latest film this weekend potential love, A title full of condemnation but also comedy and sharp social criticism, making its debut in competition.

Director Lee directed the film from a screenplay he co-wrote with Oh Jung-mi. The duo previously worked together in Zhang Dong’s latest film, “Excellent.” burn (2018). The story follows a married couple whose lives become uniquely intertwined. There is Mi Ok (Jeun Do Yeon), who lives a quiet life with her husband, Ho Seok (Sol Kyung Gu), and their young son, Cheol.

Ho-seok was laid off from his job after an accident that hampered his life and his ability to communicate with his family. We don’t learn what that incident is until the family meets Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker working on a project about the lives of laid-off workers, and her wealthy husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung). When Mi Ok agrees to be photographed, she grows closer to Ye Ji, creating uncomfortable friction that shakes their families.

Run for only three hours, Potential love It’s a brilliant comeback for Chang-dong. Below, the director, joined by one of his leading men, Sol Kyung-gu, discusses why it took him nearly a decade to make the film. Potential love. The director says he initially shelved the project, fearing he wouldn’t be the most appropriate messenger for a film about workers’ rights. Chang-dong also explains the reason for the tribute to Krzysztof Kieślowski Ten Commandments At the end Potential loveAnd why he thinks so many contemporary Korean filmmakers have successfully interrogated the relationship or, as Marxists say, the conflict between labor and capital in their work.

Netflix will be released Potential love It will be released in cinemas on October 23. The film will be released on the streaming device on November 6.

DEADLINE: Director Lee, where did this idea come from?

Lee Chang Dong: A few years ago in Korea, a Korean company experienced mass layoffs. This was met with an all-or-nothing strike by the workers. There was also a merciless crackdown by the authorities. At the time, I remember thinking it would be a transformative event in the Korean job market. I also knew that this would probably mean the beginning of the normalization of conglomerate restructuring that would dramatically change the lives of these workers. I wrote a screenplay, but at the last minute I started asking myself: Do I deserve to tell a story like this? I mean, do I have the right? Documentaries have already been filmed on this topic. Can I really justify turning this into a drama? I couldn’t get a clear answer to this question, so I put the project on hold. A lot of time passed, and then my co-writer, Oh Jung-mi, came up with the idea of ​​telling this story alongside the story of a documentary filmmaker. This made me think I could do this project. This prompted me to reconsider the project.

DEADLINE: I was blind, so the documentary element really surprised me. What do you want people to take away from this side of this story?

Chang Dong: This is the story of all people who make films, regardless of the genre. It can be a genre film or a drama film. As filmmakers we deal with and photograph people’s lives and, therefore, we are bound to be strongly connected to social issues. When we deal with the pain of others, we must think: Are we really sure to treat them as we treat our own pain, openly and honestly? Or do we only consume it to make our films? This question is inseparable from the work of those of us who make films. That’s why I wanted to take this question and expand it, not only in relation to creators but also to audiences. I hope they can reflect on their relationship with themselves and with others.

DEADLINE: Sol, you’ve worked with director Lee before. When did you first hear about this project?

Sol Kyung Joo: First time heard about Potential love Last March. Director Lee and I met about two years ago, at the end of 2024, and he did not mention a new project. In fact, when we are together, we still often meet fans of our previous film, Peppermint candy. A few months after that meeting, he reached out to me and told me about it Potential love. At the time, I was confused because I was already attached to a different project, but I knew I had to get this work done. I spoke to the other manager and begged him. Finally, they made it work for me.

The true story and meaning Potential love It wasn’t even important to me. What was important to me was working with director Lee Changdong again. I didn’t even ask to see the script. Director Lee actually asked me, “Hey, you’re not even interested in reading the script at all?” When I read it for the first time, it felt like a script by Li Changdong. It literally smelled of him. And he had his perfume. When you get something that a director writes for me, it makes you anxious, in the sense that you really want to make it work and do it well.

DEADLINE: Director Lee, people have been anticipating your next film for some time. It has been nearly a decade since the Burn. Did you feel anxious about this anticipation?

Chang Dong: I remember promising people after that burn My next movie won’t take long. But unfortunately, I was unable to fulfill this promise. Many people have reached out to me asking when I will be directing my next film. I guess you could almost say it’s the obsessive side of me, or almost pathological shyness or whatever. But unless I have this conviction, I cannot bring myself to take action, no matter the external circumstances or what others around me say.

DEADLINE: The music in this movie is great. Jung Jaeil, who previously worked with director Bong and Kore-eda, worked on the score. How did you work together?

Chang Dong: I’ve never been a fan of using a lot of music in my films. That’s just something I carry as a filmmaker. I feel that music tends to focus on emotions outside of the film, and I believe that music in films should lie within the film itself. So I shared these ideas with Jung Gil. I told him I wanted the music to be kept to a minimum while still conveying the structure and emotions of the film to the audience. He completely understood me, and I truly believe that his findings were absolutely correct.

DEADLINE: There’s a tribute to Kieślowski’s Dekalog at the end of this film. This is not an adaptation of that film series. What is contact?

Chang Dong: When I was writing this script, it was Kieślowski Ten Commandments They have been adapted into a new project, with different feature films assigned to each series. I had the opportunity to participate in the project. This movie has nothing to do with the movie Ten Commandments One, but I thought I could incorporate the commandment that they were dealing with in this movie into this story: the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.” All the other nine commandments relate to human action. However, the Tenth Commandment is about human desire, so I thought that in today’s capitalist world, we could really grapple with the question: Can we really live without coveting the lives of others?

DEADLINE: You mentioned the capitalist world today. Can you tell me: Why are so many Korean filmmakers able to engage so subtly and powerfully with our relationship to labor and capital in their films?

Chang Dong: This is something I’m personally curious about as well. But what I can say is that this shows how rapidly economic change and development Korean society has experienced over the past decades. Just a few decades ago, Korea witnessed a massive war. We were one of the poorest countries in the world, and within a few decades we achieved very rapid economic development. However, as a result, we have had to pay a heavy social cost, and I believe the effects of this change are deeply rooted in our society. In the process, we also witnessed political change that led to conflict between academia and intellectuals. All of this has been engraved in the Korean people, and I think that’s why we take these issues in such a serious way. We carry all of this with us in our daily lives.

Kyung Goo: I agree. It is a result of the rapid change our society has undergone and the intense conflict it has led to. And I think we’ll have a lot of stories going forward as well.