Become A Star

Chapter 110

Prince Myeong-Hwan’s ready — people looking at Chae Woo-Jin had this written all over their faces, but Chae Woo-Jin himself was swamped and out of it because he had a lot of things to prepare for. First of all, he had to thoroughly read through Prince Myeong-Hwan’s data that Director Yoon Seon had sent him previously but wasn’t interested in looking at back then.

There was so much information about Prince Myeong-Hwan that Woo-Jin wondered if a lot of historical records still existed. As he read through them one by one, Woo-Jin realized this movie was the story of Prince Myeong-Hwan that was seen through other people’s eyes. The works and letters left behind by Prince Myeong-Hwan alone weren’t enough to make a movie. Eventually, they had no choice but to fill the void with information and data left behind by others.

The glamorization of Prince Myeong-Hwan in Red Enemy had also ultimately reflected the gaze which the people who lived back then used to look at him. Regardless of how well Woo-Jin knew Prince Myeong-Hwan, he couldn’t possibly have known how other people viewed him at that time. Thus, the materials used as the movie's foundation contained a lot of information and stories that Woo-Jin was unfamiliar with.

The truth unbeknownst to the prince himself, as well as the objective evaluations of him, felt like a completely different story. It piqued Woo-Jin’s interest, causing him to gather and look into the data of not only Prince Myeong-Hwan, but also the other individuals. Additionally, he practiced Prince Myeong-Hwan’s geonmu in his spare time. Fortunately, Director Yoon Seon had suggested that the dance would be based on the geonmu performed by Woo-Jin on The King of the Masked Singers. He had unintentionally picked a dance that was most historically accurate, just that he wanted to tweak the choreography to be more in line with the prince’s frightening and powerful dance.

The master of Korean traditional dance, Jang Ho-Seob, was in charge of the choreography. However, Jang Ho-Seob didn’t modify Woo-Jin’s geonmu as much as possible either. Instead, he would rather ask for Woo-Jin’s opinion and study the dance together before making revisions. Jang Ho-Seob had been focusing his efforts on increasing the awareness of Korean traditional dance via the media. He was pleased to meet Woo-Jin and also had a great deal of respect for him. He also tried probing by asking Woo-Jin where he learned to dance from. He seemed to have thought that Woo-Jin had learned the dance from an unknown dancer that hadn’t revealed their identity to the cultural community. Apart from the occasional difficulties of introducing people from the traditional culture community, he was a teacher that was easy to get along with.

“It’s been a while.” Woo-Jin happily greeted Kwon Eun-Mi. She was cast as Seol Ha in the movie and had been taking dance lessons from Jang Ho-Seob for a longer time than Woo-Jin.

Kwon Eun-Mi had only worked as a model when they had done the Biltman photoshoot. Having experienced the taste of acting after working with Woo-Jin on the set, she later studied acting and started her acting career by appearing in a couple of dramas and movies. Woo-Jin was in awe of how much she had grown in such a short period. Regardless of how hard one worked, innate talent still mattered to a certain extent. However, Kwon Eun-Mi had it all.

She had also proudly landed her role as Seol Ha by auditioning for the role with her own skills and nothing else. Even though she was tall, her dance moves looked very pretty because her slender limbs matched Seol Ha’s dignified and alluring image. Even to Woo-Jin, who knew Seol Ha in real life, Kwon Eun-Mi was the perfect person to portray Seol Ha. More importantly, it was better for someone he had worked with before, like Kwon Eun-Mi, to play the part of Prince Myeong-Hwan’s close friend than someone he barely knew.

“It’s my first time doing geonmu, so I’m nervous.” As soon as rumors about the production of Red Enemy started circulating last winter, Kwon Eun-Mi’s agency quickly signed her up for Korean traditional dance classes. Since she had been preparing for Seol Ha’s role right from the beginning for several months, she was able to do well in the audition. However, because they added the geonmu scene that wasn’t included in the original script, she was so nervous that she froze, like when she first learned how to dance.