Cho Yi-hyun, Kim Jae-won Lead 'Final Interview' Ahead of November Debut

Korean mystery film "Final Interview" will open in theaters on Nov. 4, with a festival premiere at the Busan International Film Festival the month before. The film's production presentation was held on Monday at Lotte Cinema Konkuk University in Seoul's Jayang neighborhood, drawing five of its six lead actors along with director Kim Jung-hoon.

"Final Interview" follows six job candidates who survive a 5,000-to-1 selection process and land in a single interview room. Now close after multiple rounds together, the six enter a group discussion that will result in just one hire. During the session, mysterious envelopes appear, each holding one candidate's private secret. From there, the room falls apart.

Attending the event were Cho Yi-hyun, Kim Jae-won, Shin Seung-ho, Kang Yoo-seok and Bae Gang Hee. Co-star Kwak Dong-yeon, currently completing his mandatory military service, was absent.

Director Kim Jung-hoon said the biggest appeal of the film is watching the characters shift in real time. "As the movie moves along, the faces you saw at the start start to look different," he said. "I want people to focus on that change." He added that he told the cast, "No matter how small the emotion or expression is, do it with real feeling. The camera will catch it."

Because almost the entire film unfolds inside one interview room, Kim said he was careful about casting actors close in age. "I thought it was important that they all looked like friends, but that each character's personality and image still came through clearly," he said. He expected the young cast to bond fast, but "at the start they were actually a little awkward with each other, maybe because everyone was watching for that. Once we started shooting, they got really close. Being stuck in one place all day tends to do that."

Cho Yi-hyun plays Moon Hye-in, a candidate who assesses each situation calmly. She said the character's strength is "not getting shaken, even in a crisis." Director Kim Jung-hoon called Moon the hardest character to read and the most layered of the six.

Cho Yi-hyun thanked her castmates at the event. "Kim Jae-won is younger than me, but he looked after me like an older brother," she said. "The other actors took care of me too, so I actually felt like the youngest one on set."

Kim Jae-won plays Han Jin-woo, an idealist who tries to keep the mood light. Looking back on the shoot, he said, "Every actor had a lot of questions about their character, and the director gave detailed direction every single time." He then drew a laugh from the room: "We talked a lot about acting, but we also always talked about what was for lunch. You have to eat to work."

Shin Seung-ho plays Baek Seung-bin, a doer whose secret is the first to be exposed. He said being first came with pressure. "The candidates' envelopes get opened one by one, and Seung-bin's was first, so I felt I had to open the whole thing well," he said. "Before that envelope opens, the room is warm and fun and easy. After it opens, the mood flips completely. I put a lot of effort into showing that shift."

Kang Yoo-seok plays Lee Hee-chan, who stays composed under pressure. Even when the group has to choose one person to hire, Lee proposes a voting method everyone can accept. Later, in the hunt for whoever planted the envelopes, one of his choices sets off a new round of conflict.

Kang Yoo-seok said he was nervous going in. "It was the first time in my life I was the oldest one on set, so at first I was scared," he said. "I felt like I had to set a good example and give them something to learn from, so I shot with that kind of tension." He also said the tight setting helped, "Because we were all shooting in one space, even for tiny insert shots, the other actors helped out and worked in sync with me. That felt good."

Bae Gang Hee plays Cha Ju-won, the sharpest and most decisive of the six. She reads people quickly and sizes up the room with a cold eye.

"Reading the script, I wasn't just following a case," Bae Gang Hee said. "The characters' feelings and their relationships kept flipping, so I really wanted to know what came next." She added, "Shooting in one space can feel closed in, but the cast kept joking around to lift the energy, and I was grateful for that."

Kwak Dong-yeon plays Jeon Yo-han, a strategist whose real thinking stays hidden. Rather than build ties with the others, he acts solely on his own reading of the situation. Director Kim Jung-hoon praised the actor. "He's full of ideas, and his acting rhythm and timing are unusual in a way that keeps you watching until the end," he said. "He has real pull and real depth."

"Final Interview" opens in Korean theaters on Nov. 4. Before that, the film will screen in the Panorama section of the 31st Busan International Film Festival, which begins Oct. 6.