Chapter 4: "International Market" Wraps Up Filming
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Unlike the usual mornings when the alarm clock would forcibly wake him, Jang Jae-hoon was roused by the heat today.
“This damned weather...” he muttered to himself as he got up to wash.
By the time he arrived at the set’s breakfast area, Kim Dae-won was already waiting.
“Big brother, you’re up early...”
“So, what do you think?”
Kim Dae-won didn’t bother with small talk and got straight to the point.
“Hm... I have three questions for you.”
Jang Jae-hoon pulled out the notebook where he had jotted down the questions from Hwang Jung-min the day before.
“Ask away.”
“The first question: What was the name of the extra who got cut from ‘Improper Deal’?”
Back then, the director’s team had indeed cut the scene of dock workers protesting due to runtime constraints.
But not even Wikipedia mentioned it.
“Park Sung-ho, the one who had seven stitches on his left brow.”
Kim Dae-won swiped open his phone gallery and handed it over.
—In the 2010 cast group photo, a scar-faced man was standing on tiptoe behind Hwang Jung-min, flashing a peace sign.
“He’s running a fried chicken shop now.”
As he spoke, he scrolled through his phone: “Last week, the ‘Pirates’ crew ordered 200 servings from him.”
Squinting, Jang Jae-hoon read the KakaoTalk group chat records—
Park Sung-ho had posted his location in the [Extras Survival Mutual Aid] group.
[Seong-ho’s Fried Chicken — 141-2 Yeon-gyeon-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul]
[Today’s Special: Buy ten, get a signed photo of Hwang Jung-min (2010 dockworker limited edition)]
“Second question: Where does the mistress of the CJ procurement chief live?”
“My cousin works as a security guard in Seongsu-dong.”
Kim Dae-won pulled out a security camera screenshot so blurry that even her mother wouldn’t recognize her: “She broke two bottles of Chanel No. 5 when she moved in.”
Just as Hwang Jung-min had said.
If Kim Dae-won could answer the first two questions, he was more than qualified to be his manager.
As for the third question...
Seeing Jang Jae-hoon’s expression shift as he stared at the notebook, Kim Dae-won suddenly snatched it from his hands.
When he caught sight of the words “Hwang Jung-min’s underwear color,” he burst out laughing.
“XL size, blue-and-black striped underwear.”
“How do you know that?!”
Jang Jae-hoon suddenly felt as if the sky had fallen.
“He was hanging his underwear to dry behind the open-air shower stall built on set the day before yesterday while practicing his lines.”
Kim Dae-won suddenly imitated Hwang Jung-min’s raspy voice: “And he damn well hummed off-key ‘Oppa Gangnam Style’—”
Jang Jae-hoon suddenly realized that being a background actor wasn’t so bad after all.
At least you wouldn’t have people obsessing over your underwear.
Not far away,
Hwang Jung-min was cooling off with a popsicle when he took a call from his assistant:
“Hey, honey... no need to look anymore, Jae-hoon’s manager has been found... What style? Ah-shi, buy it again!”
The banana leaves curled into a question mark in the heatwave.
...
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At 1 p.m.,
Jang Jae-hoon finally faced the second scene of his life.
Namely—rescuing Hwang Jung-min from drowning.
The backstory was that Duk-soo (played by Hwang Jung-min), to raise funds to buy his aunt’s shop and prepare a dowry for his sister, decided to work as a logistics technician in Vietnam.
(The middle plot omitted.)
Because their base was discovered by the Viet Cong, everyone had to relocate.
On the way out, local elderly, women, and children emerged from tunnels begging to be taken along.
The ensuing complications triggered a Viet Cong chase.
Duk-soo witnessed a little girl fall into the water, which stirred his guilt over having been separated from his sister as a child. Without hesitation, he jumped in to rescue her.
The girl was saved, but as he climbed aboard the boat, he was shot in the left leg.
At the brink of falling into the river,
a strong arm pulled him out.
And the owner of that arm was Nam-jin, played by Jang Jae-hoon.
Though the shot seemed simple, filming it was not easy.
Multiple rehearsals—sometimes dozens—were required before the director deemed it ready for shooting.
When Hwang Jung-min’s tactical vest slipped from Jang Jae-hoon’s palm for the nth time,
he wiped algae from his face as he surfaced and shouted,
“Jang Jae-hoon! How many times have I told you to grab the belt!”
“You’ve been flapping around like an electric ribbonfish...”
Honestly, Jang Jae-hoon felt genuinely wronged.
Hwang Jung-min was portraying decades of aging and naturally needed plenty of improvisation.
His struggling splash during those takes truly resembled an electric ribbonfish—no exaggeration.
“Ah-shi...”
Frustrated, Hwang Jung-min suddenly splashed water at Jang Jae-hoon.
If not for the fear of wasting filming time, he might have pushed the kid underwater.
After an hour and a half of fumbling,
the first actual shoot began.
“Scene 27, shot 7, take 1!”
“Clap!”
The sharp snap of the clapperboard was swallowed by the sound of Hwang Jung-min falling into the water.
“Rescue... gulp...”
Jang Jae-hoon fixed his gaze on Hwang Jung-min bobbing on the surface and suddenly reached out.
This time, his fingers precisely caught the tactical strap the props team had wrapped under Hwang Jung-min’s armpit.
As the veins in Jang Jae-hoon’s forearm bulged, a salty, fishy river scent flooded his nostrils—the splash stirred up by Hwang Jung-min smeared all over his face.
“Camera, zoom in!”
Director Yoon Ji-kyun shouted into the walkie-talkie: “Camera two, close-up on Nam-jin’s side profile!”
Suddenly, a few droplets splattered across the monitor screen.
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Jang Jae-hoon’s left hand clenched the lifeline taut, while his right hand gripped Hwang Jung-min’s ribcage, hoisting him up.
The water exploded around them like shards of glass, sparkling in his hair.
Droplets hung from his eyelashes and fell with each breath, yet a half-smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
The most striking thing was the veins bulging on his forearm, perfectly framed by the translucent outline left by the dissipating water plume.
To be honest,
Jang Jae-hoon looked incredibly handsome in this shot, the sexual tension palpable.
This left Director Yoon Ji-kyun somewhat puzzled: why insist on mimicking Hwang Jung-min’s technique of scrunching his face like a chrysanthemum?
Wouldn’t it be more advantageous to follow Song Joong-ki’s pretty-boy style and ride the wave of popularity?
But now he couldn’t afford to ponder this.
Because Nam-jin, in this moment on camera, shouldn’t be smiling.
Yet before Director Yoon could call cut, Hwang Jung-min’s improvisation flawlessly completed what seemed like a blooper.
His supposedly limp hand suddenly clutched Jang Jae-hoon’s wrist, his nails almost digging into the flesh.
It was the instinctive human reaction to confronting death, imbued with unwillingness and regret.
“Don’t... let go...”
Hwang Jung-min’s hoarse plea bubbled to the surface.
This made Jang Jae-hoon’s seemingly cynical smile entirely reasonable.
“There are only idols abandoned by fans, never idols who abandon their fans.”
“...”
“Cut!”
“You laughing? Trying to drown me so you can inherit SEM?”
As soon as the director called it, Hwang Jung-min gave Jang Jae-hoon a sharp smack on the back of the neck.
“No! It’s the water in my nose, a reflex I can’t control...”
Jang Jae-hoon covered his neck and fled, suddenly catching sight of a corner of Hwang Jung-min’s blue-and-black striped underwear peeking from his waist...
Elsewhere,
a group gathered around the monitor to watch the playback.
“The vein placement is perfect!”
The lighting director suddenly slapped his thigh.
The veins bulging on the side of Jang Jae-hoon’s neck glowed under the side lighting like raised steel rods, and even the shadow along his collarbone turned into a sharp line.
“Nam-jin’s last improvised line was good.”
Though some had looked down on Jang Jae-hoon before,
his performance in this scene had improved the assistant director’s opinion of him.
After a lively discussion, the director raised his megaphone and called out:
“That take’s a go. One more for safety.”
The stage crew quickly replenished the river with two bags of artificial blood plasma.
At the same time, the makeup artists touched up the actors’ makeup.
“Scene 27, shot 7, take 2!”
“Action!”
“...”