In the largest screening hall among Tokyo's major theaters, the ending credits were rolling. Hundreds of reporters seated in the audience stared intently at the huge screen as the film title and cast names scrolled upward in white letters.
"..."
"..."
Their faces looked dazed, as though they had just been struck hard in the back of the head. Everywhere, there were expressions filled with confusion and disbelief. The details of what each person felt were slightly different, but they all shared one thing in common: the movie they had just watched had hit them like an overwhelming cultural shock.
The film they had just seen was The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice.
Of course, this was not the official premiere. It was the press screening before release.
Today marked the very first press screening for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice. In addition to hundreds of reporters, various media figures and film critics had been invited to watch it. There were many different kinds of screenings, including general previews, VIP screenings, and test screenings, but among them, a press screening carried particular weight.
It was directly tied to publicity and marketing.
Articles were prohibited immediately after the screening ended, but once the embargo lifted at the designated time, a flood of pieces related to the film would pour out. Before the movie was released, those articles would be the first thing the public encountered when they searched for information.
In other words, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the screening decided the film's first impression.
Spoilers about the film's direct plot points or ending were forbidden in those articles, but personal impressions and brief summaries were allowed. For that reason, film production companies placed enormous importance on press screenings, and they often held them multiple times.
The production team for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice was no exception.
But The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice had expanded the scale of the event to more than twice the usual size. That had been part of Director Kyotaro's and the production company's plan from the start, and the wide screening hall had drawn far more people than usual. The number of screenings had also increased several times over.
Anyway, among those watching the ending credits on the screen was a man seated at the far right of the front row, his hair streaked here and there with gray.
"Hmm."
That man was Director Kyotaro, the master filmmaker behind The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice. Seated beside him were Japan's top actress Kosaku Mana and five or six of the main actors who had appeared in the film. They were there to attend the stage greeting that would follow the first screening.
Naturally, only Director Kyotaro and the actors maintained calm expressions.
A few of the actors looked slightly flushed.
'Just as expected. Seeing it on a huge screen makes the tension several times stronger. It feels completely different from when we saw it at the preview screening.'
Overall, they were composed. That was only natural, since they had already gone through the test screening process.
On the other hand—
'...My God. What did I just watch?'
The host, seated in the same row as Director Kyotaro and the cast of The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice, still clutching a microphone, could not take his eyes off the screen. His mouth was slightly open, and his face was just as full of shock as the hundreds of reporters sitting behind him. In truth, this host had read the original novel The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice several times.
That made what he had just seen in the movie even harder to process.
'I expected some adaptation and revision, but I never thought they would change it to this extent. Even the ending. It's completely different from the original.'
The ending of the film had taken a full 180-degree turn away from the source material.
'This ending… is this really okay? Once it opens, everything's going to explode, isn't it?'
By the time the ending credits for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice had reached about halfway, the lights in the large, dark theater came up. Then, in place of the ending credits, new text began to appear on the screen. Naturally, it was in Japanese.
[The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice / Stage Greeting]
It was time for Director Kyotaro and the waiting Japanese actors to step forward before the audience. But before they could appear, the still-dazed host stood first in front of the screen.
"Then! Let us welcome the lead actors of The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice to the stage."
It was right at that moment.
"What, what, what? Why did the movie end like that?"
The murmur swelling through the hundreds of reporters and media figures filling the audience suddenly grew louder.
"Did it really just end like that? With Kang Woojin's face like that??"
"In this ending, Kang Woojin is clearly the central figure, but it's drastically different from the original."
"Director Kyotaro has lost his mind. If he releases the film like this, the hardcore fans of the original will never let him off the hook."
The minds that had frozen in shock were slowly beginning to work again.
"Is he denying causality, or is he saying it's meaningless? On top of that, he completely rewrote Kiyoshi's backstory."
"Was Kiyoshi's characterization changed because Kang Woojin was cast?"
"Did Akari really approve this? No way. The ending is way too extreme."
"This is basically trampling all over the unspoken rules of Japan's current content industry."
"If the general public ends up seeing The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice… this is going to be a disaster."
Not one of the hundreds of reporters could hide their shock and alarm. At the same time, they replayed scenes from The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice in their minds. Iyota Kiyoshi, in other words Kang Woojin, and his meticulously planned murders. The brutally realistic portrayal of Japan. And that absurd ending, closing on Woojin's face.
The hundreds of reporters were shifting from simple excitement into something closer to frenzy.
Meanwhile, Director Kyotaro and the Japanese actors stood in a line before the screen. The increasingly noisy reporters all raised their cameras at once and began snapping away at the cast of The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice. Flashes exploded like lightning.
-Pababababak!
It was not the sound of positive attention. It was closer to the sound of gathering ammunition for the massive controversy, backlash, disaster, or war—whatever name one wanted to give it—that was about to descend across Japan. Amid the feverish reporters, the film critics sitting quietly were noticing something else entirely in The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice.
'As for the ending… yes, I expected this sort of interpretation might come out in Japan. I just never expected Director Kyotaro Tanoguchi to be the one to make it. And with Akari's approval, no less. But Kang Woojin… what on earth was that performance? It felt as if Kiyoshi himself had walked into the shoot.'
It was because of Kang Woojin. More specifically, because of his acting.
"Of course there was already plenty of interest in him, but to be honest, in terms of performance, he was the only one I could see."
'The ending is definitely going to cause tremendous controversy in Japan. The original The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice has an enormous fanbase, and they're going to find this ending absurd. But in my opinion… this might actually be one of the best endings of the year. Especially Woojin's eyes. Those were chilling.'
These were critics who had watched nearly every film Japan had produced. Unlike the reporters, their evaluations were not negative.
'The directing, the sound, the acting—there wasn't a single weak point. If anything, the film overflowed with intensity. The piano sequence with Kiyoshi in particular, and the scene that suggested his fractured personality, were especially striking.'
'From a different point of view, I think an extraordinary work has been born here.'
Even so, the excited reporters kept firing off flash after flash, and as if they could not hold back any longer, they began hurling questions toward Director Kyotaro and the actors.
"#)(%#()%(!!!"
"%(%)(#%)(#%!!!"
Everything was jumbled together, making it impossible to make out clearly. All of the hundreds of reporters were recalling the production presentation for The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice, especially Kang Woojin's explosive remarks there.
'I'm confident that it will easily surpass twenty million viewers.'
'I think this film will be the first one to have a massive effect on Japan's film industry. A lot will change.'
Eventually, one nearby reporter's question finally reached Director Kyotaro, who was standing before the screen.
"Director!! Are you really planning to release the film like this?! If you do this, it's going to cause enormous controversy!!"
Having taken the microphone from the host, who had only just thawed from his own shock, Director Kyotaro gave a leisurely smile.
"I don't mind. Reporters, when you write your pieces later, put every emotion you're feeling right now into them."
──────────
Later.
The exact same thing happened at another press screening two hours afterward.
The hundreds of reporters at that venue were equally stirred up.
Meanwhile, in France…
It was the morning of the 29th. But Nice Airport, not far from Cannes, was already packed from early morning onward. The airport lobby was so crowded that there was barely room to set one's feet. Countless people from all over the world were hurrying back and forth.
The reason was simple.
The world-famous Cannes Film Festival was opening tomorrow. A great many global stars had already arrived, along with more than four thousand invited journalists and tens of thousands of official guests. But even that was only the tip of the iceberg. The number of tourists who had come from around the world to witness Cannes was approaching the hundreds of thousands. Tourists had already begun arriving the previous week, but Nice Airport was still in complete chaos.
Naturally, their destination was Cannes in southern France.
Cannes, about an hour away from Nice by car, seemed completely drenched in festival atmosphere on the eve of the film festival's opening. From five-star hotels to modest lodgings, every place to stay in Cannes had long since been fully booked. Despite being a relatively small city, the streets were overflowing with people, giant billboards promoting the festival stood everywhere, banners fluttered from streetlights, and guide pamphlets for the festival were scattered all over the roadsides.
Even among the crowd gathered from every corner of the world, Koreans were easy to spot.
"Here, here! Take my picture over here!"
"Wow, there are so many people."
"Hurry up! There are still so many places we have to go."
Since it was the day before the opening of Cannes, there was so much to see that time seemed to vanish just by watching the crowds. Of all those sights, the most eye-catching were the movie posters displayed all over the city. They were the posters for the twenty films invited to this year's Cannes Competition section.
Those posters appeared on monitors, hung from building walls, were printed in pamphlets, and were even plastered along the sides of buses.
There were especially large numbers of cameras gathered around those posters.
From journalists across the world to broadcast crews, everyone was busy filming them. There was no better way to convey the mood and atmosphere of Cannes than through the invited films themselves. Naturally, all attention was focused on the Competition section, since the Palme d'Or, Best Director, Best Actor, and the other major prizes would all be awarded there.
Promoting those posters was therefore essential.
It was quite a sight to see all the overseas broadcast crews clustered around the Competition-section posters, and among them, naturally, was a Korean team.
At that moment, one crew was filming in an open spot.
"Here? Will this do?"
"It's good. Perfect!"
"Let's start with rehearsal."
"Great!"
A female reporter holding a handheld microphone was standing in front of the camera. Several staff members were around her. On the camera itself was a tag marked with the logo of MBS, one of Korea's public broadcasters. Anyone could tell at a glance that they were the MBS news team. They had positioned themselves in front of a massive banner poster attached to a building.
Soon, making sure the huge poster behind her was fully visible, the female reporter stood in front of the camera and began her report.
"We are currently here in Cannes, France. Even with the opening of the Cannes Film Festival not until tomorrow, the city is already packed with people. Can you see the large poster behind me? That is the poster for Director Ahn Gabok's film Leech."
The poster showed the full figure of Park Haseong against a dark background. He was looking at a family portrait that included Chairman Yoon Jeongbae and the rest of the chaebol family. Park Haseong was smiling as he looked at the photo, but the reflection of him in the picture frame was disturbingly expressionless. The poster itself hinted at Ripley syndrome, though anyone who had not seen the film would never have guessed it.
Still, one thing was obvious.
"The giant poster with Kang Woojin's face on it absolutely commands attention."
That meant Kang Woojin's face stood out boldly at Cannes, amid a festival crowded with global stars and hundreds of thousands of tourists.
"Leech is the only Korean film selected for this year's Cannes Competition section, and expectations are already running high. Even right now, overseas journalists and broadcast teams are filming around the Leech poster."
In other words, the war had already begun.
──────────
Late morning on the 30th.
A large barrier had been installed in front of the arrival-gate entrance, and more than three hundred people were packed tightly together on either side of it. The interesting thing was that they seemed to represent all sorts of ethnicities, as though people from many different countries had been mixed together.
And that was exactly what it was.
The crowd of more than three hundred consisted of reporters sent from all over the world. Among them were dozens of Korean journalists. Whether seated or standing atop small ladders, all of them held cameras as large as cannons.
And there was a very clear reason for it.
Over the past few days, global stars had appeared right there at that very arrival gate. Famous public figures, actors, sports stars, and the list went on without end.
Then, in that moment—
-Sliding open.
As the doors to the arrivals hall slid apart, the hundreds of reporters from various countries immediately began furiously pressing their shutters.
-Pababababap!
Soon, a black-haired Korean actor stepped out before them. He was dressed comfortably in a zip-up hoodie, but his expression was perfectly calm. Even in front of the sea of reporters, there was not the slightest trace of surprise on his face.
"..."
He simply raised a hand in an indifferent gesture.
-Pababababap!
A barrage of flashes poured over him.
Only minutes later, articles with the exact same content started pouring out through various Korean media outlets. Each one featured a large photo of a particular actor.
[[Cannes Film Festival+] The composed Kang Woojin arrives at Nice Airport in the late morning / Photo]]