JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival is making a visible effort to attract titles from across the world — with Arab, Bollywood, Hollywood and Korean celebrities gracing many a red carpet at the Nov. 30-Dec. 9 event in Jeddah.
Earlier this week, the star of the Korean thriller mini-series “The Deal” Yoo Seung-Ho walked the red carpet at VOX Cinemas in the Red Sea Mall.
“The Deal” is an eight-episode South Korean drama that is based on a Korean comic series made by artist Woonam 20. It tells the story of Jae-Hyo who kidnaps his rich friend Park Minwoo to ask for a ransom from the latter’s mother, and Lee Jun-Seong, played by Yoo Seung-Ho, who is torn between rescuing his friend Minwoo or assisting his friend Jae-Hyo in the criminal act due to his urgent need for money to save his and his father’s lives.
Only the first three episodes of the emotionally provoking series premiered on the silver screen in Jeddah. After the screening, the director spoke to the audience about why he decided to turn the comic story into a live-action series.
The poster for 'The Deal.' (Supplied)
“Why did I do it? Because the concept of a friend kidnapping a friend is very provocative, or as we say in Korea ‘very spicy’,” said director Lee. “I decided that this is a concept which can show how the younger people, the youth in Korea, live.”
When asked by Arab News about the scene he found the most challenging, Seung-Ho said the role as a whole was a tough nut to crack.
“The biggest challenge was having to be this character whose hostile hostage is a friend, and the kidnapper is also his friend. And I’m in the middle of it all,” said Seung-Ho.
“And of course, the fights were physically challenging, but there was also this psychological and mental challenge of playing the scenes where I am the friend of both the kidnapper and the hostage,” he said.
