INTERVIEW 'Narco-Saints' lead actor and director boast years-long friendship

Actor Ha Jung-woo plays the role of a businessman involved in a drug crime investigation in the Netflix new original series, “Narco-Saints.” Courtesy of Netflix

By Lee Gyu-lee

• Published Sep 16, 2022 7:46 AM KST
• Updated Sep 16, 2022 4:33 PM KST

Yoon makes directorial debut for series with longtime friend Ha

By Lee Gyu-lee

Actor Ha Jung-woo and director Yoon Jong-bin, who went to the same school, have had quite a long-term relationship both professionally and personally, getting their careers off the ground together with the film “The Unforgiven.”

Picking up their partnership as actor and director since the period film “Kundo: Age of the Rampant” (2014), the two have reunited for Netflix's new original series “Narco-Saints.”

“There's no other director who had filmed me more than director Yoon. He knows my strengths and weaknesses. So he knows what would come out as convincing (in acting) and what wouldn't. It's like he has a user's manual of me,” Ha said in an interview with The Korea Times, held at a cafe in Jongno-gu, Seoul, Tuesday.

Inspired by a true story, the action crime series, which was released on Sept. 9, revolves around entrepreneur Kang In-gu (Ha), who travels to the South American country, Suriname. He starts a fish trading business, dreaming of achieving success for his family back in Korea. However, his plans soon take an unexpected turn when he meets a Korean priest, Jeon Yo-hwan (Hwang Jung-min), who secretly uses In-gu's business to smuggle drugs to Korea.

After finding out that Yo-hwan is actually a Korean drug lord, In-gu becomes part of a secret government mission to take him down with agent Choi Chang-ho (Park Hae-soo).

Yoon said he initially declined to direct the series, which originally was offered to be made as a film.

“(The real-life story) interested me. But I just had finished the crime film 'Nameless Gangster,' and after I finished filming 'The Spy Gone North,' Ha brought (the series) up again … and people were telling me that 'this is the story that you are best at,'” he said. “I felt that this is the type of genre that the audiences want from me and that was the start of it.”

The series picks up parts of the real-life story of Suriname's Korean drug lord, surnamed Cho, who was apprehended in 2009, and his former roommate, a civilian who helped carry out the operation to arrest the kingpin.

The director shared that he felt the story deserved more than a two-hour film and decided to make it into a series. This is Yoon's directorial debut for a series.

Ha, who joined the series in the early stage of development, faced one of the biggest scandals of his career in 2020 when he was investigated for drug abuse. He was convicted of illegally using propofol ― a sleep-inducing drug ― for non-medical purposes and was fined last year.

Saying that he wanted to express his apology during the interview with reporters, Ha said that he took time to reflect on himself after facing the charges.

“I just walked a lot (during the time) and had a chance to look back on my life as an actor; not just with that situation but also about other faults that I've come across,” he said.

“I came to think a lot about fundamental things like how I should live as an actor and move forward, and what mindset I should have. I used to think that I should just focus on what's ahead, but it taught me that it's not always the answer.”

The actor said that he tried to bury himself in work to take his mind away from the circumstances that he was in.

“I just tried to stay more focused and tried to forget about the situation I was in. And that brought up the feelings I felt when I started acting and I found the things that I was missing,” he said. “When I stood in front of the camera on the set, it felt like I was getting a breath of fresh air and I could breathe.”