Jung Jin-young Brings Vertical Short Drama 'Father's Home Cooking' to Theaters

"If a film is a large window, a TV drama is a mid-sized window in an apartment, and a short drama is a small ventilation window," said veteran actor Jung Jin-young. "The sizes are different, but they all exist to show you the good view outside. The shape changes with the format, but the story still fits."

In his 39th year as an actor, Jung stepped into an unfamiliar format with "Father's Home Cooking," directed by Lee Joon-ik. He admitted he did not know much about short-form content before signing on the project. But once he read the script, he felt the story and the role were the kind of chance an actor rarely gets.

"Father's Home Cooking" opens in theaters on the 9th. The story follows an ordinary family. Sun-ae, played by Lee Jung-eun, has cooked for her family her whole life. One day, she can no longer cook. Her husband Ha-eung, played by Jung, is a traditional patriarch. Instead of worrying about his wife, he worries first about no longer eating her home cooking. He then tries to make a home-cooked meal for the first time in his life and starts to look back at himself and his family.

Jung is close in age to his character, and some parts of the role hit close to home. "The scruffy beard, the tight thermal underwear, the belly sticking out. I thought, isn't that just what men my age actually look like?" he said.

"Ha-eung is a predictable man. He thinks his reason for existing is to work hard and support his family," Jung said. "The situations and conditions fathers face may differ, but he looks a lot like the people right next to us."

Jung also spoke warmly about the project itself. He said he usually feels distanced from his own work. "Sometimes I see the holes in my acting. Sometimes I wonder, is that really me?" he said. This one was different.

"During the shoot, and when I watched the film twice, it never felt uncomfortable. I felt a clear emotional connection with the character," he said. "I told my friends, this is a story you're all going to like."

Part of what made it easier to take on an unfamiliar format was his long working relationship with Lee. Jung has appeared in several of the director's films, including "Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield" (Hwangsanbeol) and "The King and the Clown" (Wangui Namja). When Lee offered him the role, Jung was already shooting another project. He wanted to be in it badly enough to the point of wanting to ask for permission to do both at the same time.

"Working with director Lee is fun. The more time passes, the more I think, this man is a genius," Jung said. "This was his first short drama too. He's a director who's always trying something new. So I'm curious what he'll do next, what he'll take on."

Because the film is about family, many scenes take place inside a lived-in home. The team shot in an actual empty house. Since short dramas are made on tight budgets, Jung said the reality was rough. "Honestly, the bathroom didn't even have running water, and there were no proper cooking facilities," he said. "We didn't have a food stylist either, so the production team was making the food in the next room on a portable butane stove."

"It was because the budget was small. But it didn't cause any problems in telling the story. If anything, it felt more like real home cooking. I've been on plenty of built sets, and this had a completely different feel," he said.

"Father's Home Cooking" will screen in theaters in its original vertical format. Jung said the project was not designed as a vertical film after the fact. It was short-form from the start.

"It wasn't a case of, let's make this vertical. It was always short-form," he said. "That it made it out of the phone screen and into theaters is a small miracle. It's amazing that it now has this identity as a vertical film."

He added, "I'd introduce it this way: this is a story worth your time, one you'd normally watch in a very limited space, and we've brought it into a much larger, open one. Just being able to meet audiences in theaters with this project, I'm grateful for that."