Park Chan-wook, Son Ye-jin, and Lee Byung-hun will work on Park’s new movie. Image: CJ ENM
South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook will begin shooting his new film “I Can’t Help It” (tentative title) starring Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin on Aug. 17, the film distributor CJ ENM said Monday.
Based on the US novel titled “The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake, the movie revolves around Man-soo, an employee who is fired from his paper manufacturing company. Lee, who worked with Park on the 2000 mystery thriller “Joint Security Area” and the Korean section of the 2004 horror trilogy “Three… Extremes,” plays Man-soo. Son Ye-jin plays Man-soo’s wife Mi-ri, a bright-hearted woman who takes the lead in coping with the situation after her husband’s unemployment.
The movie will be Park’s return to the silver screen after the 2022 romance mystery “Decision to Leave.” His most recent work was the HBO original series “The Sympathizer,” based on the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen. The series is available in Korea via Coupang Play.
It will be the first time Lee and Son are starring together in a movie, and it is also Son’s first time working with Park.
Lee Sung-min and Yeom Hye-ran will co-star as a couple who has gone through unemployment like Man-soo.
Park Hee-soon plays the company’s team leader while Cha Seung-won plays Man-soo’s competitor Si-jo. Yoo Yeon-seok plays Dr. Jin-ho, Mi-ri’s colleague at work.
The date of the film’s release is undecided, CJ ENM said