Interview'Parasite' writer Han Jin-won makes directorial debut with school election drama

Han Jin-won, the writer behind the Oscar-winning film "Parasite," officially made his directorial debut with Tving's "I Am a Running Mate."

The 39-year-old, who shared the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award with Bong Joon-ho in 2020, initially joined the new project as a scriptwriter. However, a desire to direct soon blossomed.

"I wasn't initially contracted to direct, but as I wrote, I became more ambitious, so I said I wanted to direct. This wasn't just a delivery-ready script, it was a screenplay with a director's vision already embedded. I even made notes on camera movements," Han said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul Tuesday.

"That's how my affection grew, and when a script I wrote over a decade ago started to be developed, I found myself with a craving to direct. Unlike my previous works, I was nervous about seeing a creative project that I had spearheaded put to the test."

With a cast of rising stars, the Tving series, which dropped all episodes on Thursday, is a cheerful teen political drama that follows Se-hoon (Yoon Hyun-soo), who becomes the school's laughingstock after a humiliating incident only to find himself nominated for vice-president on the student council election. The series then plunges into his journey navigating a world of schemes and machinations on the road to election victory.

In the show, the two student council candidates, wearing contrasting blue and red, fiercely oppose each other with calls for "tradition" and "innovation." As the election heats up, factions emerge. Damage to candidate displays, personal attacks, suspicions and fake news cause the school's politics to devolve into an emotional battle.

The series mirrors aspects of real-world politics through the lens of school life.

"There's a line in the narration that says, 'School is a microcosm of real society.' In reality, doesn't power emerge when even just two people gather? There's someone with a louder voice and people who follow, and I wanted to tell a story about power and authority with a school as the backdrop," Han said.

"Things like school bullies and outcasts, which can be dealt with acutely and overtly, are in some ways very violent. But I wanted to try a different approach, and I wanted to deal with power and authority in a way other than an action film."

Bong Joon-ho's Influence

Han said one of the key lessons he learned from director Bong was how to handle even heavy subject matters with a light yet sharp perspective.

"In Bong's works, even when the atmosphere is serious and heavy, he'll interject strange or physical jokes or suddenly use unexpected fast or slow motion to break the tension — those were some of the things I was influenced by," he said.

"For example, the feeling of suddenly cutting off an emotional line and then resuming it — I tried to emulate that, and I believe those elements might have been subtly reflected in my work."

Rather than presenting election campaigning as a rigid ideological battle, Han wanted to infuse the show with the energy of a sports drama.

"It's like a sport, something we do to become better for a good cause. I really tried to capture that, and I hope it feels lively and fun. I was really pleased when overseas fans described the drama as 'exciting' rather than saying, 'So this is what Korean politics is like.' There's this perception that politics and voting are issues only for adults, but that's not the case," he explained.

One of Han's favorite lines from the series doesn’t come from the protagonist, but from a seemingly inconsequential character named Jae-won: "No matter how screwed up the situation is, if a person acts too screwed up, things will truly get screwed up."

Han hopes this line sticks with the viewers for a long time, adding it's also something he often tells himself.

"When you're all alone, stuck in your own head, just writing and doing your thing, you can really turn into a monster sometimes. I've become a monster that way, too — not seeing people and ending up being a pain to everyone around me. So yeah, I've definitely had times when I acted like a total jerk when things were screwed up, and then things really got screwed up for me," he said.

He intentionally gave this raw, meaningful line to a minor character, not the protagonist.

"I wanted to show that a good message doesn't always have to be conveyed through the words of someone educated or with a sophisticated vocabulary. Jae-won, who seems the furthest from academics in the show, is the one who says it. I wanted to convey that a truly good idea is something we all grasp with our hearts and minds, and how smoothly you express that idea with words isn't all that important," he said.

While balancing both screenwriting and directing can be burdensome and demanding, Han said he has no plans to stick solely to one role.

"Maybe being a full-time writer would make me more money, but it’s different. Rather than just writing and staying on the sidelines, directing and creating a work under my own brand is a completely different experience," he said.