[INTERVIEW] 'Monstrous' creator Yeon Sang-ho gives his thoughts on divided reaction

Creators Yeon Sang-ho, left, and Ryu Yong-jae wrote the Tving's new original series "Monstrous." Courtesy of Tving

Occult series revolves around small town swept up by supernatural phenomena

By Lee Gyu-lee

Star director and writer Yeon Sang-ho, known for directing the hit apocalypse film "Train to Busan" (2016) and Netflix's dystopian series "Hellbound" (2021), shared his thoughts on the polarizing reviews on his latest work, the Tving original series "Monstrous."

"Frankly speaking, there hasn't been a time when my work hasn't had split reviews. But I'm keeping track of the ratios (of those praising and criticizing)," the series' co-creator Yeon said during a recent interview with the Korea Times.

"I review the factors that people responded positively and take them into account for my next work. It feels the trend and media platforms are changing every time I prepare my next project, so as an artist who makes works for the public audiences, it's not easy to predict and keep up with them."

The occult, suspense series, which hit the platform on April 29, follows an archaeologist Jung Ki-hoon (Koo Gyo-hwan) who follows and researches supernatural phenomena. He goes to a small town, where his ex-wife and archaeologist Lee Soo-jin (Shin Hyun-bin) moved after losing their child.

The two encounter a bizarre phenomenon in the town, caused by a cursed Buddhist statue "Gwibul" that leads people to face their darkest fear. Amid the chaos among the townspeople, the former couple comes together to track down the key to the phenomenon.

It is co-written by Yeon and Ryu Yong-jae, who scripted the Korean adaptation of "Money Heist," and is directed by Jang Kun-jae, who led the 2014 film, "A Midsummer's Fantasia."

"The mind can hold painful feelings or some sort of twisted desires, but when people put their focus on those thoughts, they can be fixated on them," the co-writer Ryu said. "And this is the story about how people can get themselves out of that."

Scenes from the series "Monstrous" / Courtesy of Tving

In the first week of its premiere, the six-part series made the record on the platform for scoring the highest number of new subscribers and the views from unique visitors ― a term referring to a person who visited the platform and is counted only once in the reporting period.

However, despite the series' success, there was feedback that criticized the series for the lack of understanding and backstories of the characters.

Yeon explained that this series is different than his previous works in the way the story develops.

"When my previous works were about piecing puzzles together (as the story goes on), 'Monstrous' is one whole story ― a straight, fast-paced one," he said. "So there was a sense of taking on a challenge. And the responses that the series needed to have more backstories of the characters might have been because the story happens in such a short period."

He expressed that developing the subplots of the characters is always the difficult part of creating his works. "I always have a conundrum on how in-depth I need to go in giving the backstory of the characters," he said. "The films that I used to like were the ones that left things unexplained and that was the charm. But nowadays, it seems that people want things to be more specific. So I'm trying to take that in."

Yeon, who has directed most of his projects, said it was interesting to take part as a writer alone and have a different director lead this series.

"Even though I wrote the script, it was strange to see it directed by another person. I felt that the series captured director Jang's uniqueness and the story developed, revolving on the parts that he thought were important," he said, adding that he did not step in during its filming process. "It's usually not fun to watch a piece that I filmed but it was very refreshing and exciting to watch the work that someone else has led."

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