[HanCinema's News] Park Shin-hye Talks About "The Call"

With the worldwide release of "The Call" on Netflix comments by leading actress Park Shin-hye on the supernatural mystery thriller have taken on new interest. A recent interview with the actress had Park Shin-hye expressing a sense of being unnerved at how the movie is only releasing now, some eight months after the first press conference in March. Nevertheless, Park Shin-hye was appreciative of how the movie is now releasing to an international audience instead of the original limited Korean one.

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"The Call" deals with a young woman played by Park Shin-hye who starts receiving mysterious time slipped phone calls at her new residence. The feature film is the first from director Lee Chung-hyun, who premiered on the festival circuit with an award-winning short back in 2015. Director Lee Chung-hyun has drawn special attention for being a young director. He is thirty years old- the same age as his leading lady.

 

Park Shin-hye described the experience of working with such a young director as being quite strange at first. She mentioned an anecdote of jokingly saying to him, after filming had completed, that they could talk to each other in informal terms now. But Park Shin-hye noted that she didn't really mean it. Over the course of "The Call" she appreciated that Lee Chung-hyun was a serious professional who knew how to take charge of a movie set.

Park Shin-hye mentioned that being the same age allowed for easy give and take when it came to various filming ideas. In contrast to the older directors, Lee Chung-hyun has had similar life experiences to Park Shin-hye, and could more easily relate to her ideas. Park Shin-hye claimed that getting into the script filled her with an increasing sense of revulsion. When Park Shin-hye discussed this with Lee Chung-hyun, alterations were made to better take this into account.

One specific example was a scene that, as scripted, involved an explicit plea for help. Park Shin-hye thought this made her character look callous, particularly as it was originally edited right before a scene involving serious bodily injury. Re-takes of the scene were done as necessary to the point that minor lines which seemed like ad-libs were actually originally scripted, given greater impact with more fleshed out context. "The Call" was released internationally on Netflix on November 27th.

Written by William Schwartz