“Bloodhounds” Director Kim Joo Hwan has candidly talked about the situation with Kim Sae Ron’s DUI that happened last year and how it affected the drama.
In an interview with a news outlet on the 13th of June, director Kim Joo Hwan, who directed the Netflix series “Bloodhounds”, expressed his honest feelings about having to extensively modify the latter part of the production due to Kim Sae Ron’s drunk driving incident.
Kim Sae Ron caused an accident while driving under the influence in May last year, colliding with trees and a transformer at the intersection of Hakdong in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The court sentenced her to a fine of 20 million won. At the time, Kim Sae Ron, who was filming “Bloodhounds,” had to abruptly leave the production, affecting significant portions of her role. Director Kim Joo Hwan also had to hastily make modifications to the latter part of the story, removing Kim Sae Ron’s character to wrap up the project.
Director Kim Joo Hwan revealed, “I thought a lot about how to take responsibility for the work when things happen that I have no control over. Many thoughts were flying around like bullets, and I couldn’t organize them. If you watch the series, you’ll see that there were scenes featuring Kim Sae Ron’s character until episodes 7 or 8. It was a simultaneous continuation of the events where the most important person to the main character dies due to their own mistake. Geon-woo and his friend lead the events of episode 7, and in episode 8, Sang Yi’s character joins them. That was the original plan.”
He continued, “I had to rewrite a lot to minimize the inconvenience. It was a situation where the team had to be maintained and costs continued to accumulate, so there was tremendous pressure. I wrote while feeling dizzy and vomiting. Even after it was over, my body didn’t recover. I developed four herniated discs in my neck and had problems with the autonomic nervous system. Despite that, Kim Sae Ron had a significant role. In fact, I edited the earlier parts very tightly. Because of that, some actors might have felt unfairly treated. There are cases where actors who were supposed to be associated with that friend had their roles completely removed. So, if I have the opportunity to work on another project, I am making efforts to give them a chance somehow.”
Director Kim Joo Hwan mentioned, “I refined it a lot. I tried to cut even more, but we had already shot over 150 scenes. I tried cutting it in various ways in the latter part. We had difficulties, but we felt the energy of overcoming them and wanted to finish it well. It was quite challenging.”
After Kim Sae Ron’s departure, the series “Bloodhounds” had a significant gap in important characters, so Joo Da Eun was quickly brought in for the latter part, attracting attention. Director Kim Joo Hwan explained, “There were many horizontal movements, so we needed vertical movements. It was like a game where we needed a long-range magician. Since the main characters had to bid farewell to a character like a younger sister within the story, we needed someone to heal the pain caused by that, so she appeared spontaneously.”
Finally, Director Kim Joo Hwan sighed when asked about Kim Sae Ron liking the photos on social media after the release of “Bloodhounds,” saying, “We are not in contact at the moment. It’s not something I can choose either. It’s actually personal freedom. I don’t know what kind of impact this has on me. It’s a bit difficult to think about. But she may have her own reasons, and there may be aspects that I cannot understand. There are parts that are difficult to talk about.”
Meanwhile, “Bloodhounds” was released on Netflix on the 9th and is currently available for streaming.
Source: (A)
