Advertisement
How Netflix Korean movie Dream, starring IU and Park Seo-joon, adapts the true story of South Korea’s participation in the Homeless World Cup football games
- Dream director Lee Byeong-heon talks about how despite his movie’s star power, he didn’t want one particular character to stand out in the narrative
- The pandemic played a huge factor in production: tournament scenes planned to be filmed in Colombia, for example, had to be shot in Hungary
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
In the 2010 Homeless World Cup football games in Brazil, the South Korean team finished last out of 43 competing countries. A TV documentary about that team intrigued director Lee Byeong-heon so much he decided to make it the focus of his next feature film.
Advertisement
Dream, a follow-up to Lee’s surprise 2019 hit Extreme Job, adopts that film’s approach of mixing comedy with a real-life story. Although the film is based on the actual games, Lee and his co-screenwriter Mohammed Abdullah drew their characters from several sources, including interviews they conducted with the homeless.
“Stories about homeless people always feel typical,” Lee says to the Post at the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), where Dream received its international premiere on July 17.
“You see them in TV dramas, you hear [about] them from people around you, or in the media. Without context, telling these stories in a film could seem forced. Because this is a commercial film, I tried to focus on how to make it entertaining.”
Lee frames Dream through Hong-dae, played by Park Seo-joon, the popular actor of Itaewon Class and Midnight Runners who is set to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe with The Marvels later this year.
Advertisement
Advertisement