In his debut feature film Work to Do, writer and director Park Hong-jun gives audiences a unique perspective of the innerworkings of the Human Resources (HR) department of a South Korean shipbuilding company amid a crisis set to change the course of the lives of its employees, namely that of its protagonist Kang Jun-hee.
After working for four years as an assistant manager at Hanyang Heavy Industries, Kang Jun-hee (Jang Sung-bum) receives a much awaited for but unexpected promotion to the HR department. But his excitement quickly fades when he’s assigned the daunting task of going through the companies hundreds of employee profiles to select who to remove in the company’s restructuring exercise to cut down on expenditures as the industry enters a phase of economic uncertainty.
Portrayed impressively by Jang Sung-bum (Summer Strike, Following), Jun-hee’s emotional transformation from an outgoing young man excited at the prospects his promotion to the HR department presents to his life, to one wracked guilt and shame for the choices he’s been employed to make changes him.
To Jae-yi (Lee Noh-ah) his longtime lower turned fiancé, Jun-hee becomes withdrawn. He’s no longer the man who would talk excitedly about the baby they’re expecting and the newly bought home in the city – a home with a hefty mortgage acquired through a company loan program.
For his friends, the guilt causes him to lash out and question when their beliefs in fairness and justice were replaced with being content to keeping their heads down and going along with the status quo. With his workmates, Jun-hee is lost at having to decide the fate of the people he sits across from in the office and the lunch table. He’s also given a little insight into how the status quo involves keeping women out of higher positions by judging their educational background.
Inspired by his own time working as a junior member of an HR team of a shipbuilding company located in the South Korean coastal city of Busan, Hong-jun set Work to Do in 2016, a year when the South Korean heavy industries as its known was in great upheaval due to a financial crisis that lead to many companies downsizing and restructuring, or firing to be more accurate, thousands of people from their jobs. Though there are many films to count with a similar premise, Work to Do is unique in that the filmmaker himself has personal firsthand observational experience of what takes place and knows intimately the emotional toll being tasked to select who stays and who goes, whose life to change forever, takes on a person with a conscience.
In my interview with director Park Hong-jun for the film’s presentation at the 2024 Ulju Mountain Film Festival, he shared about his path from working in corporate spaces diverged to filmmaking, working with actors like Jang Sung-bum, and how being inspired by the Candlelight Protests and Korea’s history of protests inspire him.
Work to Do stars Seo Suk-kyu, Kim Do-young, and Lee Noh-ah. It premiered at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival
Note: This interview was conducted video and email with the assistance of a Korean-English interpreter and has been edited for clarity and length.
I’d like us to begin by asking you to share a bit about your previous career working in Human Resources which you did before becoming a filmmaker, because I thought it was interesting as it ties into the plot of Work to Do.
I started work with the HR team of a ship building company in 2015, and I worked there for around four and a half years, and actually I began filmmaking around that same time. So, the company itself was in Busan, and I didn’t have any family there. I just went for the job. During the weekends I wanted have some fun, so as I was checking to see what there was to do in the city, I was told there was a place called the Busan Cinema Centre, where during the time there aren’t any film festivals taking place the venue offers filmmaking classes for the general public.
I went, took a screen writing class for short films, and with this class I had the desire to make a film, so I began the process of making a short film using my weekends and holidays with the help of friends I made in the classes.
So, I began making films while still working for that company.
So, you kind of fell into filmmaking then. It was a hobby and a way to pass time, rather than a calling as some people would say or by being inspired by other filmmakers.
Exactly. Yes, that’s right. Filmmaking did start as a hobby for me. However, I became more attracted to it the more I learned and got really into it as time went on. But my love for art started even before that.
While I was at university, I was in some of the clubs like music band and theatre where I was in plays, and so on. But, even with my love of such arts, I thought that filmmaking was done by some people who are special. Then after learning I was able to do it, the thought of making one became more attractive to me.
I have a question about your first film, the short film Moving Day. I’m curious about it because I was trying to find information about it but couldn’t. Could you explain what it’s about?
Moving Day is the story of a young woman who moves to a semi-basement apartment, and the film takes place over one day of her moving. It’s the first day of this woman becoming independent and living for the first time by herself in this small room.
Usually, semi-basement apartments do not have good living conditions, so she encounters some difficulties such as the toilet not working and flushing well, and there’s a noise from upstairs, and most frustrating of all, because of the location of the semi-basement apartments, if a window is opened, everyone who passes by can see inside of your apartment. So those kinds of living conditions are during this story of moving day in detail.
Ok. I asked about it because I was curious to know what kind of stories interest you as a filmmaker, because Work to Do is very much focused on Jun-hee and is what would be called “a human story” where you’re trying to show how the situation is affecting him emotionally.
I can’t pinpoint exactly what kind of story attracts me. I don’t think I’ve found a specific preference as yet, but there are of course some stories that interest me, so I guess I like the kind of story where a person contemplates on their way of living, how to build a relationship, and how to live in society.
Those are the kinds of stories I think I like. In fact, I do find that the films by Ken Loach and Dardenne Brothers very interesting. But I’m still in the learning phase of my filmmaking so I’m open to any genre.
You’re still trying to figure out what your identity is as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Yes. Exactly.
It’s interesting hearing you say that you’re interested in stories about people who are in a way, figuring out life for themselves, because Work to Do is kind of like that. The film is set in 2016, and in doing some research I found that it’s set during a very pivotal time in South Korea’s economic development then, because at that time a lot of the heavy industry companies were restructuring, as they called it.
So, I’d like you to talk a bit about your personal experience working in HR management at that time because it’s fascinating you had an inside look at the economy with a perspective that few people had at the time.
Well, I was just a junior on the HR team and was a new member, so I didn’t exactly take part in the restructuring process, nor did I have to persuade people to resign. But the atmosphere itself gave me a lot of stress because in that environment people are on guard, and you have to be. Your colleagues become competitors, and you must be on guard all the time. Before this restructuring happened, I had my own world view…my perspective about life. But in encountering this restructuring, I had to ask myself whether I am living my life properly and whether I am walking on the right track.
In 2016 there were Candlelight Protests in Korea and people were letting their voices be heard to make Korean society a better place to live. However, at the same time in the company I was with, the opposite happened which was the restructuring.
So, because of these two different situations, I felt like I was separated from the rest of society. A lot of other films that address labour and working-class workers, they usually portray the companies as villains, but I knew that my colleagues who had to conduct the restructuring process weren’t villains per se. We could give some criticisms of them, but we can’t just point at them and say that they’re villains.
So that got me thinking and I asked myself “If my colleagues aren’t villains, where did the original problem begin?”
I remember the Candlelight Protests. I was paying attention to Korean politics at that time and was aware of it. So, as all of this was happening, when did the idea for Work to Do come to you and when did you begin working on the script? It seems that while you were contemplating you place within the company, you were also discovering your desire to pursue filmmaking. This was all happening at the same time.
I’ve been contemplating this a lot. I was really stressed and emotionally drained by what was happening, so I talked with my friends a lot about this, or some seniors at the company and they tried to comfort me by saying “It’s not something you can handle so don’t think about it too much because either someone else would have to do it, or you. It’s not something that you can decide, so just let it go.”
But these words never comforted me, so I had to think on this issue further. But then, I had this opportunity to start making short films after taking the filmmaking classes. I was employed full-time in the company, but it became challenging because my time was limited. I found myself trying to justify that thinking “Because I don’t have much time, maybe I can do this much.”
I was at the point where I had to decide either I give up filmmaking or give up the company, so I just eventually quit the company. That was the choice I made and as I started to seriously begin making films, I thought about what kind of story I could begin as a start to becoming a filmmaker and I couldn’t avoid talking about this (Work to Do) story.
My urge to make this was probably from my sense of guilt or shame.
I kind of got a sense of that while watching the film. I had seen it last October during the Busan International Film Festival and I wanted to speak with you about it even then because it left a deep impression on me.
For those of us who’ve worked outside of Human Resources, HR is seen in a negative light because we see HR as working for the benefit of the company rather than working to protect the employees. I think Work to Do is a necessary film because it shows that for some of the people working in that department, they don’t like the things they’re told to do and the way they’re told to do them, and in hearing you speak, I wonder if the film was a method of catharsis for you. A way to let people know how you and others doing that job feel about it.
You mention the sense of catharsis, and I as the filmmaker didn’t actually feel this sense of catharsis because I had some fear when I was making the film. I do know that HR is viewed as the enemy of the regular employee as you mentioned, but I didn’t want to be considered as someone who speaks for HR teams. I didn’t want that kind of perspective.
Of course, I wanted to show the human side of HR teams, but I didn’t think that what they did was right. So, there wasn’t that sense of catharsis for me. I felt a heavy sense of guilt and shame and I’m just living with these feelings.
At the beginning of the film Jun-hee is very open, fun loving and affectionate with his girlfriend and their friends, but as he becomes overwhelmed and weighed down by his feelings of guilt and shame he begins to withdraw from the people in his life.
Can you talk about casting Jang Sung-bum to play Jun-hee, and how you both worked through the emotional arc the character went through? I was very impressed with Sung-bum’s performance as it wasn’t heavy handed but felt balanced and subtly executed.
After writing the screenplay, I did some research in order to find my cast and I encountered the TV drama “Dance Sport Girl” ( 땐뽀걸, 2018) by KBS, the Korean Broadcasting Services, and this drama also had a shipbuilding company as part of the background story, and Jang Sung-bum played the role of a teacher in it. I saw him and thought that there was something in his face, a kind of energy or power that came through in his looks.
I could see how he portrayed subtle emotions and that’s why I cast him, and we had a look of discussions together about them. We talked about how Jun-hee would think, why he wouldn’t do certain things like not pick up his girlfriend’s phone calls, his relationship with his mother and so on.
However, when it came to filming, I didn’t give a lot of specific directions to Sung-bum because I trusted him. As long as they didn’t go over certain guidelines I gave, I allowed the actors to play the characters as they liked, and we had a great result.
Regarding the scene that takes place with Jun-hee and his mother (played by Jang Ri-woo) there’s many things I really enjoy about it. First being that it’s about her years of political and social activism and Jun-hee being prompted to seek her out by his feelings of confusion and guilt about his work. Jun-hee going to her shows that he trusts her and seeks her counsel, which isn’t something I see very often depicted with mother and son relationships in South Korean films or dramas.
For you what was the importance of having a scene like this in the film and having a mother rather than father? I think the gender of the parent matters as the context of this scene would be different.
First, I thought Jun-hee needed a deficiency. That made Jun-hee become a little more attached to the family he would achieve.
I don’t think this is limited to Korean society, but even now, women are a little more responsible for housework and raising children than men. However, when Jun-hee was young, the burden on women was more severe, and Jun-hee’s mother was a person who prioritised social activities over raising children in those such circumstances. That makes her feel sorry for Jun-hee all the time.
Perhaps if the social activist was the father, I don’t think Jun-hee’s parents would have divorced. This is because behind the activities of many men, it was a generation where women’s dedication was taken for granted. I don’t think Jun-hee would have grown up in an environment where he felt deprived of his mother’s attention.
Jun-hee spent his childhood separated from his mother, and he sometimes resented her for it, but I thought he must have been curious about why she was forced to do such activities, and I think as he understood her life more and more, he began to gain more respect for her.
The second thing that I really like about their conversation is that it’s a completely honest discussion between parent and child where they treat each other as equals, discussing her regrets at what was sacrificed in her inability to provide for him, as well as his respect and understanding for what she does speaking up for what she believes in.
Please speak about the importance of including a scene like this in a film that centers around a male protagonist essentially having a crisis of conscience related to his employment, something that capitalist societies never prepare anyone to experience once they enter the workforce.
In order to allow the audience to immerse themselves in the main character of this movie, he had to go through a severe internal conflict. If it was a protagonist who wasn’t worried, the audience would probably consider it as a non-serious thing. In the process, I thought about what kind of environment Jun-hee had grown up in and if it would be in conflict with what he was going through at work. As a result, I established this relationship between him and his mother.
In the meantime, Jun-hee is so frustrated with work that he goes to her looking for answers. Knowing her social activist background, he was wondering what kind of answers she could have. If this is someone else’s job, could she talk about the consequences of what they’re doing and the possible reasons to oppose it, etc.
However, she is someone who feels sorry for her son all the time because she feels she hasn’t done anything for him, and so she can’t give him a clear answer either. She tells him the answers are for him to find, not what others can tell him.
What also really stands out to me about this scene now, is I believe its connection to what you said before about the Candlelight Protests which lasted for months from late 2016 to spring 2017. You mentioned that period as being a defining time in your life, and I’m curious about two things, if the prevalence of parents taking their children to the protests also served as inspiration for this scene with Jun-hee and his mother and the presence of the book ‘Civilizing the State’ by John Restakis on her dining table.
I looked up the book and it speaks about true democracy existing when the decision-making power of a country is a comprehensive cooperation between the government and the people.
Can you speak to democracy as a concept and being a theme in the film not only on a macro scale in the country’s politics, but I think also on a micro scale with how companies operate, as well with Jun-hee’s personal relationships with Jae-yi and his friends.
Yes, there is a part that reflects parents taking their children to the protest. However, it is in the relationship between Jae-yi and Jun-hee, and it’s not deeply reflected in the relationship between Jun-hee and his mother. I haven’t read the book, but looking at what you said, I think it would be good to read it.
Jae-yi is an old lover who along with his best friend, has known Jun-hee since college. All three of them went to school together, including a senior they met at a bar in the middle of the film. They all met while doing social activities in the school. He had been curious about Jae-yi and his friend because they reminded him of his mother’s social justice activities.
In the 70s and 90s, college students often took the lead in social movements in Korea. They fought against dictatorships and made great contributions to solving many problems in Korean society. However, I think in the current era they have become unclear about what to fight for. In the increasingly complex social structure, capitalism is exploiting many people without revealing itself. So, in Jun-hee’s generation, it was different. The social movement in the school was weak, and Jun-hee got a job like an ordinary person.
As mentioned, Jun-hee expresses frustration with the company’s work. In that process, he meets his senior from school who works for a conservative media company that has been criticized by many people. It’s a newspaper that they cursed at when they themselves were in school. But, it’s a place that provides high wages and a stable working environment for employees, despite this Jun-hee criticizes the senior for changing his mind and struggles with the change because he was a person Jun-hee once trusted and relied on. So Jun-hee suggest they do something, take some kind of action together as a kind of a process of asking for answers.
But he can’t give Jun-hee an answer either. He just asks, “What’s the difference between you and I?”
I think it’s not a question of the concept of democracy, it’s a question of how deeply capitalism is involved in our lives.
In speaking about interpersonal relationships, we’ve spoken about the feelings of guilt and shame you yourself experienced during your time in HR, Jun-hee’s feelings and even his mother’s, and I’d like to speak a bit about Jae-yi, too. I think she’s as much the emotional core of the film as Jun-hee is because I see a parallel between Jae-yi returning home to her parents when feeling neglected and distanced Jun-hee, and the employees of the company feeling unappreciated and undervalued by the HR team and the company.
Talk about your thoughts on this character and her importance to the story.
The interpretation you mentioned is interesting. I’ll think about it again. The part where Jun-hee alienated Jae-yi from his conflict wasn’t done with bad intentions. He had no choice but to work hard to be recognized by the company, and as a result, he has a guilty conscience.
However, I think there are some problems that I can’t say anymore because I’m close to them. When I tell someone about my concerns, or my faults, the worry arises; “What if this person is disappointed in me and leaves me?”, for example. Hiding something from his parents like a child when in trouble.
Jun-hee is a person who feels deficient because of his parents’ divorce when he was young, and in that sense, he hesitates to tell Jae-yi about his shameful job. When the senior asks her, “Why do you like Jun-hee?”, she says, “When he’s in the wrong, he’s man enough to feel shame.” She has conscientious standards, and Jun-hee becomes more hesitant to disclose what he is doing as a result. But at the same time, I needed at least one person to comfort Jun-hee. I had no other choice than Jae-yi.
Regarding what you said about the culture of protests in South Korea from the 70s to the 90s, it made me think about how college students have had such a rich and powerful impact on South Korean history and culture through various long-lasting protests such as the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. But it also made me think of even more recent events globally such as the 2019 Sunflower protests in Hong Kong, and more recently the student uprising in Bangladesh this summer.
As much as Work to Do is a call for people to come together to talk about labor issues, I think the film also serves as a subtle homage to the seemingly bygone days of student protests in South Korea, and the progress they lead to. If you could say something to students currently in college and high school about the importance of protesting, what would you say?
Well, we have voting, which is a great tool for democracy. But what we should keep in mind here is that this right to vote was something our ancestors fought for. If something is unjust or unreasonable, and if it causes harm or discrimination, I believe we should know how to stand up and fight against it.