Director Ka Sung-moon described the four years he spent working on his debut feature film, “Dream Palace,” as a time of breaking barriers in the indie film scene.

“For short, indie films, (I tend to work with) people who know me well, so communication is easy and the staff all understand who I am and what kind of life I have lived. But working on a long feature film required me to communicate with a variety of people and meant that I often had to persuade them (of my vision),” Ka told The Korea Herald in an interview on June 1.

“Dream Palace,” which premiered at the 2022 Busan International Film Festival and opened in local theaters on May 31, stars Kim Sun-young, Lee Yoon-ji and Choi Min-young.

“I had to write and film more carefully and I was nervous because it was an opportunity to work with well-known actors. I value all the actors that I’ve worked with (in the past), but it was more exhilarating than I expected to work with actors that I’ve only seen on screen,” Ka said.

“Dream Palace” is a drama that centers around the story of Hye-jung (Kim), a woman who is trying to get compensation after her husband is killed in a fire at work so that she and her son, Dong-wook (Choi), can start a new life.

Hye-jung moves into a newly-built apartment building, but soon finds out the place has some problems. The property managers aren’t prepared to fix anything for a single unit alone, and, with many units still unsold, it appears that Hye-jung’s problems will go unsolved for a while. Hye-jung decides to take matters into her own hands and tries to market the unsold units at discounted prices, even selling to fellow widow, Su-in (Lee Yoon-ji), whose husband also died in the factory fire.

The story is based on a real life event from 2010, where newly built apartment units in Incheon, Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, and Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, remained unsold. In these cases, the original residents tried to block new residents, who had bought their properties at a discounted price, from moving in.

Director Ka wanted to confront the story head-on in his film.

“I first learned about the incident from a documentary which showed the residents erecting barbed-wire fences and physically blocking new residents from entering the apartment complex. We all drink the same water, walk in the same spaces and go to the same school, but what made these people behave in this way? I always wanted to turn this question into a film,” Ka said.

In Ka’s “Dream Palace,” even the leader of an association of residents who is opposed to Hye-jung’s actions is not portrayed as evil.

“I could have made him a truly evil guy, but when you look at it, he also has reasons for doing what he does. I didn’t want to show that those residents are the worst people on Earth. They are also incomplete people. They all belong to one group who have to protest to get what they want, which is not much different from who we are,” Ka said.

Ka said it was actor Kim Sun-young who raised the film’s portrayal of human imperfection to another level.

“Unlike the victim characters ... in other movies who are often docile, naive, kind or even falsely persecuted, Kim’s portrayal of Hye-jung is different. She understood what I wanted to say, how it is difficult to define humans as good or bad. It’s more complicated than that,” said Ka.

The 35-year-old director said he was inspired by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda.

“They both talk about family. How the trivial, small story of a family can give an insight into how the society works. My film has been also inspired by director Koreeda, who offers a view of the world through a child’s perspective,” said Ka.

The following article is the fifth in a series that introduces Korea’s new and emerging actors and directors. -- Ed.