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| Chang director of Tving's original series "Rose Mansion," which hit the platform last month Courtesy of Tving |
Spine-chilling series revolves around residents of eerie apartment
By Lee Gyu-lee
The mononymous Chang, who directed local streaming platform Tving's recent original series "Rose Mansion," shared that his latest work is intended to portray the realistic horrors and suspense of people's everyday lives.
"I wanted to portray the horror in everyday life that is closely related to us. So I came up with the idea to use an apartment building as the setting (of the story). In other horror flicks, like 'Whispering Corridors,' there are ghosts and sometimes zombies. But unlike those, I wanted to create a horror that could happen in real life on an ordinary day," the director said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The mystery thriller series, which hit the streaming site last month, revolves around hotelier Ji-na (Lim Ji-yeon) who seems to have a normal life but suffers from insecurity, leading her to make up lies constantly.
When her sister goes missing, she returns to her family's home, an apartment building called the Rose Mansion, which she had been avoiding visiting. As Ji-na tries to find her sister with detective Min-soo (Yoon Kyun-sang), they discover there's more than just a missing person case, which leads to deeper, darker secrets of the suspicious residents of the building.
The 12-part series tells the story with suspense, making each resident seem to have their own suspicious motives.
"There's the sense of constraint that the structure of an apartment building gives. So I thought it was a good setting that shows the overall (theme) and that can be used to portray a message using 'obsession' as a keyword," the director said.
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| A scene from "Rose Mansion" / Courtesy of Tving |
The series, which originally was intended to be a film, is the series directorial debut for the filmmaker, whose previous work includes the 2016 drama film "Canola."
Director Chang said he enjoyed the difference between making a film and a series, saying he was able to develop the story in more depth.
"I was able to approach the story in deeper depth (with the series) than I originally had pictured with the film version. Because it was a series, I used that advantage and tried to make people continue to watch the following episodes. This is getting audiences engaged, and receiving feedback from both ends. So, I'm satisfied with this 12-part work," he said.
"It was difficult when I first started filming because I had to shoot eight times the amount that I would have done normally. It was hard but thanks to that, I've gotten used to adapting quickly to the environment."
The director noted that the secret to the success of Korean thriller flicks and series is incorporating reality into the story.
"The reason Korean thrillers work (in global markets) is that those projects are committed to the genre and incorporate reality," he said. "K-content was able to draw the spotlight worldwide thanks to the diverse elements and genres it uses. Korean creators are really taking different approaches (to creating a story), which is the strength of K-content."
