"The Scarecrow" director Park Jun-woo mentioned another ending he had envisioned.
On the morning of the 27th, a joint interview with "The Scarecrow" director Park Jun-woo and writer Lee Ji-hyun was held at a café in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul.
"The Scarecrow" is a crime investigation thriller about a detective who was investigating the true perpetrator of a series of murders and unexpectedly forms a cooperative relationship with a man he loathes, and it is a work inspired by the Lee Chun-jae serial murder case. "The Scarecrow," which concluded the previous day, ended on a high note by setting a new personal best with nationwide ratings of 8.1% and 8.3% in the Seoul metropolitan area.
On that day, the production team of "The Scarecrow" candidly shared their thoughts when asked whether some viewers had hoped for a happy ending that differed from reality. Director Park Jun-woo said, "Because the work began with Yoon Seong-yeo and Kim Yong-bok, I never dared to think that way. The studio and channel that scheduled the show asked for something refreshing, but we did say, 'Shall we have him die in a traffic accident?' The actors also supported our choice."
Director Park said, "I asked for Tae-ju to be killed. He is a fictional character; shouldn't he be allowed to disappear? But the writer opposed it."
Writer Lee Ji-hyun said, "Tae-ju is the only character who tries to set things right at the end, and if we killed Tae-ju, I thought viewers would really be angry," adding, "Tae-ju loses his social status and the professional destiny he had achieved. But at the end he gains people. He interacts with Sun-young and Young-beom and survives, so I saw it as psychological compensation."
In earlier cast interviews about the finale, there had been talk that Tae-ju and Si-young were the same person. Director Park Jun-woo said, "I grappled with whether Tae-ju should be the one to bury the child's body or not. I wished the protagonist would become more corrupted and ruin this case, and when I revised the first draft to include that aspect of the protagonist, people in the industry disliked it."
He added, "So during a period when scheduling was difficult, we separated them and once reworked the protagonist to be more like a protagonist. After that, casting and scheduling became a bit easier."
Especially while explaining Kang Tae-ju, Director Park said, "Tae-ju makes a decisive mistake. If he wanted to correct the Seok-man case, he could have caught it. Park Hae-soo said something similar on set, but he said if he hadn't erred then, there would be no momentum to correct things in the present, so accept it. There was nothing to be done."
When asked about viewers who had expected a romance in the work, Director Park said, "There wasn't any at all, but in episode 11 they break up and don't they act like they liked each other? I suggested adding emotion as if they had liked each other, and on impulse Park Hae-soo hugged Kwak Sun-young."
Writer Lee Ji-hyun said, "In my first draft I had Ji-won marry Ji-won because I wanted Ji-won to be happy, but everyone asked if we couldn't not have Ji-won get married," and said, "'Did I write it wrong?' I thought. That would make older Tae-ju too bitter, so I rewrote it to have her unmarried. I thought it was open-ended, and if there hadn't been a series of violent serial murders, I imagined Tae-ju and Ji-won might both be single and just work all the time until their forties, then maybe the two of them could get married."
[Photo] Studio Anzhailen, KT Studio Genie
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