'The Judge Returns' director PD Lee Jae-jin candidly shared his thoughts on similarities with Taxi Driver.
Recently at the MBC headquarters in Sangam-dong, Mapo District, Seoul, a press conference was held for PD Lee Jae-jin, who directed the MBC gold-and-Saturday drama The Judge Returns.
Based on a web novel of the same name, The Judge Returns is a justice-fulfillment time‑jump drama about Judge Lee Han-young (played by Jisung), a corrupt judge who lived as a slave to a giant law firm and returned to 10 years ago to punish great evil through new choices.
When asked how he wanted to differentiate this from previous courtroom works and what message he wanted to give viewers through The Judge Returns, PD Lee Jae-jin said, "I didn't consider this work a courtroom piece," and added, "Although the protagonist is a judge, I approached it as fantasy. A person who has time‑jumped acts for justice, and their occupation happens to be a judge. Of course we consulted lawyers, prosecutors and judges, but if we strictly adhered to procedural accuracy, there would be elements we couldn't realize. We worked on this thinking of it more as a fantasy hero story about a judge who has time‑jumped than as a courtroom piece."
He said, "People think of and want heroes especially in hard times. I think that's what our protagonists and their colleagues provided. I considered a direction where the thrill of villains and their collaborators being punished would resonate with people. Because of that, we couldn't examine everything strictly from a legal standpoint. Some viewers may be disappointed if they expected that, but I think the directorial direction was closer to a fantasy hero story than a courtroom piece."
Responding to opinions that some scenes, such as punishing certain villains, resembled SBS's Taxi Driver, PD Lee Jae-jin said, "People say it's similar, but I didn't see the Taxi Driver scripts and I watched it after our filming was completely finished and it aired. Of course, Taxi Driver had seasons 1 and 2, so there may be similar parts, but we didn't produce this with that in mind," and explained, "Nonetheless, genre characteristics call for delivering catharsis and punishing evil. Watching scenes of burying someone or running them over with a car made me wonder, 'Is this okay?' but I couldn't conclude it was the same as Taxi Driver and accepted it as a genre trait. The writer and I didn't talk about 'isn't this the same as Taxi Driver.' We didn't even know it would be broadcast at that time."
In fact, The Judge Returns was scheduled to air last year but the scheduling was delayed. PD Lee Jae-jin said about this scheduling variable, "I honestly don't know if airing at the start of the year would have made it more successful. When I first prepared to take on this work, I was instructed that the first broadcast would be on Nov. 18 and to prepare accordingly. We were preparing for that, then I heard it might be pushed back, and actual filming was arranged to finish before broadcast regardless of the premiere date. So having more time for postproduction was an advantage in that we could pay more attention to craftsmanship."
However, he confessed candidly, "This was the first time as a producer that I had so much postproduction time, and watching edits many times I found myself saying, 'This is unsatisfactory, should we revise it?' and at times I lost my way. Watching too much isn't necessarily good. At some point I wondered, 'Am I fixing this properly?'" He added frankly, "I can't judge now whether it was better to air earlier or to air now. In any case, we worked over a long period, so I think some small details may be better." (Interview ② to follow.)
[Photo] MBC
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