Chapter 668. Adjusting (3)
Zhang Xiang yelled at the top of his lungs. “That is wrong! Wrong! You, you... You amoeba-like bastard!”
The assistant director was next to freak out. “D-director! Please calm down!”
“How can I calm down! How! Goddamn it! At this rate, all of our film stock will start stinking to high heavens from all this sh*t we're shooting! And, and! Shouldn't we think about the poor cinematographer's feelings too?! When he has no choice but to shoot that crap over and over again!”
The assistant director turned his head to look at the cinematographer. The latter silently and ever-so-slightly nodded to express his agreement with Zhang Xiang. In other words, he, too... had enough of this rubbish!
Meanwhile, there was a group of people in this film set dazedly staring at the spectacle of the director freely throwing curses around. And those people were the trio of Han Eun-Sol, Kang Jin-Ho, and Choi Yeon-Ha.
“What's gotten into that slimy bastard?” Choi Yeon-Ha asked while blinking her eyes.
Han Eun-Sol frowned deeply. “But, uh, doesn't his performance suck all the time?”
“Not this badly, no.”
Choi Yeon-Ha always openly quipped that the only way for Liu Wei to improve his acting was to start over from the very beginning, like from his mother's womb!
Obviously, South Korea was home to a few idiots who couldn't act to save their lives but still managed to maintain their popularity thanks to their looks. However, they were still qualified to be called actors. In other words, they at least knew the basics of acting!
That didn't apply to Liu Wei at all. This guy simply did not deserve the label of an actor!
Choi Yeon-Ha scowled deeply. “Why couldn't that guy stick to singing and dancing on stage? Why did he have to start acting and make so many people's lives miserable?”
Han Eun-Sol slowly shook his head. “Apparently, he's shockingly tone-deaf, noona.”
“...He also can't sing?”
“Yup. I got pissed one day and started searching online to leave a couple of nasty comments behind, you see? And that's when I found out about his live gig catastrophe. It was apparently like Hell on Earth, noona.”
“How did a former singer who can't even sing get famous?”
“Plenty of people are like that, you know. It's just that Liu Wei happened to be a bit more exceptional than them.”
Choi Yeon-Ha tutted, obviously unimpressed. “Wow, exceptional, my foot. I guess he should always thank his parents for the rest of his life. What would he have become without his looks?”
“Our world is an unfair place, you know,” Han Eun-Sol pouted while staring at Liu Wei sweating buckets in the distance.
Looking at that man really drove home how unfair this world could be. Just how many people around the world aspired to become actors and worked hard to reach their goal? Some of them might only be after the glitz and glamor of the showbiz. There was no denying that. However, even more were pursuing this career path because they genuinely loved it and were prepared to dedicate their entire life to become an accomplished actor.
Go to Daehak-ro's acting schools, and you'd find countless actors glued to their mirrors while trying to perfect every hand gesture and every facial twitch.[1]
But here was Liu Wei, who didn't bother to improve his acting and lazily relied on his good looks to land the role of the male protagonist in this big-budget TV show. Just how many hard-working actors would have felt the sense of loss, this deprivation, from his mere existence!
Money wasn't the issue here. Countless actors would agree to work for free if they could get a meaty part in a top-tier TV or movie production. Of course, that shouldn't be allowed to happen, but it simply was a reflection of how desperate these people were.
'And that's why I keep saying our world is unfair.'
What could be worth its weight in gold to someone might come across as worse than discarded junk to someone else; did Liu Wei have any idea how many of his peers would kill just for a shot at landing the role he had 'stolen' away?
If Liu Wei had even a hint of self-awareness, he would've never been this terrible in front of a camera. In fact, he would have tried to cure his poor acting by registering with a drama school and receiving the guidance of a pro! That might not fix everything, but it would've been a start!
The mere fact that Liu Wei couldn't even bother to do something that minor was pissing Han Eun-Sol off to no end.
Choi Yeon-Ha narrowed her eyes. “By the way, why is that slimy bastard keep glancing in our direction?”
“...Noona, he does that all the time.”
“No. This time, it feels different, somehow...? You know how slimy he was while drooling over me. But now, he's... It's like he's a kid who messed up his exams and is scared of what his parents might say. It's not like I'm his proctor or something, so why...?”
“Hmm...” Han Eun-Sol sneakily glanced at Kang Jin-Ho. 'Liu Wei probably isn't looking at us, so...'
Liu Wei didn't have a reason to pay so much attention to Choi Yeon-Ha or Han Eun-Sol since they had been on the same film set for many months now. Which meant the only likely reason was Kang Jin-Ho.
'By the way, how did Mister Jin-Ho even track that idiot down?'
Who knew Kang Jin-Ho would find someone in hiding so quickly when even the actor's own talent agency couldn't? Han Eun-Sol thought Choi Yeon-Ha was weird for placing her absolute faith in Kang Jin-Ho for no logical reason. However, this turn of events left him feeling like the weird one instead!
“Gee whiz, that slimy bastard... How much worse can his performance even get?” Choi Yeon-Ha gritted her teeth while observing the filming, which had resumed again.
Han Eun-Sol frowned slightly. “Noona, let's just get out of here. Why are you stressing yourself watching this nonsense?”
“You dummy! After this scene is my monologue scene. I gotta think about the scene composition, you know! My take and that slimy bastard's take will be alternating in the edit, so I need to know what his takes look like to get in character more accurately, okay!”
“Huh? But you don't usually go this far, though?”
“I can't keep relying on my looks forever, Eun-Sol. In other words, I need to be more serious about my craft. Besides all that, take a look at that! With that idiot in such a sorry state, how can I not worry?!”
“...Well, you have a point there,” said Han Eun-Sol with a soft little groan. It felt like he could see all the weighty burden pressing down on Choi Yeon-Ha's shoulders. 'Still, why do we have to worry about stuff like this, too?'
Even if they were costars, Choi Yeon-Ha shouldn't really care about what other actors were doing unless they were in the scene together. However, Liu Wei's acting was so diabolically bad that others needing to act opposite him were being put under additional pressure.
Choi Yeon-Ha frowned deeply. “At this rate, the filming schedule will get extended again. We haven't even finished shooting a quarter of the scenes scheduled for today, you know...!”
“Yeah, you're right, noona.”
Han Eun-Sol and Choi Yeon-Ha groaned loudly in sync.
That was when Kang Jin-Ho suddenly began tilting his head. “Excuse me. I'm asking you this because I don't quite understand...”
“Mm? What is it, Mister Jin-Ho?”
“Is that man's acting really that terrible?”
“...!”
The eyes of Han Eun-Sol and Choi Yeon-Ha quaked powerfully at the same time.
Han Eun-Sol cautiously asked, “M-Mister Jin-Ho, can't you tell?”
“Well, no. I don't know much about acting, you see.”
Han Eun-Sol gulped his saliva in shock. It seemed that... Kang Jin-Ho must be prevented from ever standing in front of a camera. A prospective actor needed, at the very least, a discerning eye for what constituted a good performance, after all!
After clearing his throat, Han Eun-Sol tried to explain. “You can say Liu Wei's performance can't possibly be a product of a human being.”
“Mm? That doesn't sound good, though?”
“Yes, it definitely is not good,” Han Eun-Sol scowled deeply. “He always was bad at acting, but today, he... He seems weirdly worse for some reason. If this keeps up, the filming will get delayed, and that will also delay our own departure schedule too... It's frankly driving us nuts, Mister Jin-Ho. And we're nearing the climax of the story, too, so there will be lots of scenes with emotions on display from here on out...”
“Mm...!” Kang Jin-Ho nodded weightily as if he finally understood, then slowly got up.
Han Eun-Sol blinked his eyes. “Eh? Where are you going?”
“Give me a minute,” Kang Jin-Ho turned to the side and began walking away. That wasn't all he did, however. He silently beckoned at Liu Wei, too.
“Ng?”
Han Eun-Sol and Choi Yeon-Ha stared at this spectacle with somewhat stunned eyes.
***
“What the hell is that moron doing now?” Zhang Xiang groaned weakly. He no longer had any spare energy left to get angry at this stage.
Almost as soon as another 'Cut!' was yelled out, Liu Wei suddenly turned around and began running toward somewhere. And he looked rather harried for some reason.
Zhang Xiang initially thought Liu Wei had finally lost what little remained of his sanity under the pressure and wanted to run away. However, that wasn't it.
“...What kind of situation is this now?”
Liu Wei's destination turned out to be a remote corner of the film set. Although, calling that a corner was a misnomer since this was an outdoor set on top of a mountain. In any case, that spot was deserted and out of the way. And that was where...
'Huh? It's him again?'
Kang Jin-Ho was standing there with his arms crossed in front of his chest, silently waiting. His face was still hidden behind a baseball cap, a surgical mask, and a pair of sunglasses. Even though that get-up had made him even more noticeable!
Liu Wei rushed toward Kang Jin-Ho at his full speed, then stood at attention like a nervous soldier.
'What the hell are those two doing now?'
Zhang Xiang couldn't make the head nor tail of this spectacle. Liu Wei's attitude belonged to someone addressing their superior, didn't it? However, just who was he? Wasn't he a bastard who turned his nose up at the president of his own talent agency?
Zhang Xiang had never witnessed Liu Wei being humble before anyone. That punk maintained his slimy attitude in front of a director of Zhang Xiang's renown, so what more could be said about his arrogant streak?
But now... that Liu Wei was acting all subservient toward Kang Jin-Ho? That Liu Wei, with his massive ego?!
'Well, it's possible, though. If we're somewhere else and not here, that is...'
With so many eyes watching, would Liu Wei assume such an obedient pose to someone? Never!
Liu Wei was an idiot who saw himself as a huge superstar. Whether everyone agreed with him or not didn't matter to him. In his eyes, he was THE biggest star in the Greater China region. And he also believed the biggest star equaled high social status.
In other words... He thought he was a member of a goddamn nobility! So, for a deluded fool who viewed himself as a nobleman to bow his head subserviently at a Korean of an unknown origin? While in full view of the so-called commoners?
A herd of pigs would start flying at this rate!
'Huh. Just what is that man's real identity?'
Kang Jin-Ho finding Liu Wei when the talent agency couldn't was already surprising enough, yet he even managed to bring out such an obedient attitude from the wannabe actor? Maybe he was a wizard?
Just as Zhang Xiang's thoughts reached that far, he spotted Liu Wei hurriedly bowing deeply toward Kang Jin-Ho. He bowed like that multiple times, then turned around to dash away at full tilt once more. Where was his destination this time?
It was none other than Zhang Xiang!
“Huff, huff! Pant, wheeze!”
“...?”
Liu Wei ran with every ounce of energy to reach his destination, then wheezed and huffed away while holding his knees. Zhang Xiang could only stare at this development in sheer stupefaction. His brain could no longer process what was unfolding in his own film set.
Suddenly, Liu Wei looked up.
'...It's a bloody mess!'
Zhang Xiang grimaced. Liu Wei's makeup was ruined by all the excessive sweating. To resume filming, his makeup needed to be fixed again.
Before Zhang Xiang could issue that order, though, Liu Wei opened his mouth first to speak. “Director!”
“...Eh?”
If this face-to-face happened a few minutes ago, Zhang Xiang would have started yelling first. However, he couldn't do that right now. To do that, Liu Wei's face was too grave. In fact, it was as grave as a stage 4 cancer patient clinging desperately to his doctor's coat!
With a desperately-pleading face, Liu Wei grabbed and held on to Zhang Xiang's clothes. “D-director!”
“W-what is it?! Hey, tell me what you want and stop grabbing me!”
“Please, please help me! If, if you don't help me, I will die!”
“...You what now?”
“N-no, wait. It's, it's not dying, but, uh...” Liu Wei's terrified eyes sneakily glanced behind him. He saw Kang Jin-Ho in the distance, then stood up straight, his expression becoming stiff and robotic. “I didn't say anything. I didn't make any mistakes. I...”
“Hey. Calm down, will you?” Zhang Xiang frowned deeply.
Liu Wei animatedly nodded away.
'Just what do you need to do to break someone this much?'
Wasn't Liu Wei going around pissing everyone off with his oversized ego only a few days ago? So, how could someone like that transform into this... 'thing' in only three days?!
“What... can I help you with?” Zhang Xiang cautiously asked.
Desperation returned to Liu Wei's expression. It certainly was mystifying to see someone who used to be so egotistic and full of energy be this desperate.
“T-to perfectly act out this scene, what should I do?”
“...Say what?”
“W-what must I do to become a better actor, director?! What should I do!”
Zhang Xiang dazedly stared at Liu Wei's face. He remained speechless for the longest time before some words weakly leaked out of slack jaw. “What the hell? Have you finally gone crazy...?”
That was when Liu Wei suddenly pounced on Zhang Xiang and grabbed the director's collars. “How! How can I become a better actor! Teach me! Show me how to do it! Please! I, I need to prove my worth, okay?! I must prove that I'm an actor, okay?!?!”
“W-what the?! Hey! Calm down! What's the matter with you! Get a hold of yourself!”
“I need to act! Or I'll die! Uwaaaaah!”
The crew members hurriedly rushed in to yank the frantically flailing Liu Wei off Zhang Xiang. With that, the film set instantly devolved into pure pandemonium.
Choi Yeon-Ha dazedly stared at this spectacle before turning her head to look at Kang Jin-Ho returning to his seat. Once he had settled down, she cautiously asked him a question. “...What did you do?”
Kang Jin-Ho casually shrugged his shoulders. “I merely told him to improve his acting.”
“...!”
That was when Choi Yeon-Ha realized something.
'I need to watch what I say!'
She realized that every word coming out of her mouth could inadvertently become the declaration of the incoming Hell for other people!
1. Daehak-ro is an avenue in Seoul famous for artsy hangouts offering outdoor theatrical performances and concerts. Several popular bars and cafes can be found on this street. ?
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