Jason Yu was not a fan of horror films before he wrote and directed the compellingly eerie Sleep, a film Bong Joon-ho described as the “smartest debut film he’s ever seen.” In Sleep Jung Yu-mi plays Jin-hyeok, a woman happily married to Hyun-soo, played by Lee Sun-kyun. During her pregnancy Hyun-soo develops a sleepwalking problem that rightly terrifies Jin-hyeok. Is Hyun-soo channeling some unresolved conflict or are there supernatural forces at play?
“The story and the subject matter kind of dictated itself into becoming a horror film,” said Yu. “Before that, to be absolutely honest, I wasn’t the greatest fan of horror films just because of how traumatized I would get when watching them. I remember back in school, my friends would drag me to a horror film because I wouldn’t want to go, and then I would watch it and be haunted by it for days on end. I didn’t want to relive that feeling when I was an adult. So, I think I stayed away from the genre for a while. But when I realized that Sleep would become a horror film, I did have a lot of catching up to do. There was a period where I only devoured horror films, and then I realized how much I was missing out on because it’s such a great genre. It’s safe to say it’s one of my favorite genres now and one of the only genres of film that I actively search for and try to watch in cinemas.”
Yu has described Sleep as being about marriage, the trust it takes for individuals to enter into such an emotionally intimate partnership. When he wrote the film Yu was preparing to marry his longtime girlfriend, so his thoughts about marriage seeped into the film.
Jason Yu attends the ‘Sleep’ premiere during the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. (Photo by … [+]
“Usually in the films about marriage that I watch, the central conflict derives from each other,” said Yu. “Usually they have a big fight or somebody makes an irredeemable mistake or they simply fall out of love. I guess because at that time I was at the cusp of marriage and I had a more romantic view about it, I wanted to show a couple who really loved each other, trusted each other, who were best friends, and maybe throw them an obstacle that’s nobody’s fault and show how they could overcome this problem as a married unit.”
Given Hyun-soo’s erratic unconscious behavior, Jin-hyeok has every reason to worry he might inadvertently hurt her, their unborn baby or himself. Yet, Jin-hyeok continues to trust Hyun-soo and together they seek ways to cope with the problem. For Yu, the story relies on Jin-hyeok’s trust in her husband.
“Otherwise it wouldn’t have worked as a story because if she didn’t have that trust, the story probably would’ve ended in chapter one, where she said, enough, and just headed out of the house,” said Yu. “Because of this almost stubbornness, I think the story propels itself forward. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I think the audience can decipher themselves. But there is an almost grotesque-like romance to it, how she views her relationship with her husband and just everyday life.”
Trusting Hyun-soo is easier given that he’s played by the late Lee Sun-kyun, an actor whose calm, friendly manner evokes confidence. Although Yu dreamt of casting these celebrated actors as his characters, he was sure they wouldn’t be interested in a debut film. His producer sent them scripts anyway.
“I thought the natural step would be for him to go find similar actors that we could cast within our budget and within our situation,” said Yu. “But he thought about it and said, great actors gravitate towards interesting scripts and I think the script may have a shot. He said, it doesn’t cost money to give it to them, so let’s just hand it over and pray that they read it. That’s exactly what we did and luckily for me, it didn’t really take long for them to call back.”
He was very, very grateful they did. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to make it without them.”
Working with both actors was a revelation, as they had different approaches to acting. “Their acting styles were completely opposite, which was very interesting to me,” said Yu. “For example, Lee Sun-kyun, who played the husband character, was an over-preparer. He wanted to know the backstory of the character. He wanted to know my references for the character, how he spoke, how he acted, what sort of clothes he wore, and he wanted to embody this character before he came to set. So when we did come to set and when he did act, I didn’t really have to direct much because he was already the character. When we did eventually have to talk, it was about how we interpreted the characters. Usually he would say something about what he thought the character was. I would say my opinion. In the end, he was usually right. I guess that’s just him being a veteran and being such a great actor.”
Lee is best known for popular TV dramas such as Coffee Prince, Pasta, My Mister and the Academy Award-winning film Parasite. Jung Yu-mi appeared in the TV dramas The School Nurse Files and Discovery of Love and the film adaptation of Kim Ji-young: Born 1982.
“On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Jung Yu-mi, who plays Jin-hyuk, was not like that at all,” said Yu. “She was completely free. She didn’t really care for those sort of backstories at all.”
What she wanted was a list of one to 10 things Yu needed from her in any scene.
“I thought that was quite far-fetched at first, but for each scene I would say, this scene is about this, I think you are 70% angry at him, 30% sorry. So I would give her all these almost artificial numbers of what I thought she would be going through, but it was like some sort of supercomputer genius in her would just interpret that and give me an even greater performance than I could imagine. So I had the great luck of watching these two geniuses work their craft.”
Sleep debuted in Korea in Sept. 2023. Lee Sun-kyun died in December of 2023. The tragedy shocked his many fans, including Yu.
“I do feel like I owe my career to Lee Sun-kyun,” said Yu. “Because if he didn’t pick the script up and if he didn’t choose to participate in this film, I would not have been able to make it. Even on set, he was very kind enough to give me tips and all these great lessons on directing and how he performed his craft. I have no doubt that I have become a much better director thanks to him, and so for that I’m forever grateful. I do remember after his death, we still had a lot of international festival invitations for Sleep, and I was quite worried whether I would be able to watch the film after his death. But when I saw it with the theater crowd, the audience, it just made me realize how great his acting was and how nonsensical my worrying was because he was really great in Sleep, I thought. I was very proud to show his acting to the international audience. Since then, I no longer worry about those things. Whenever I do get the chance to screen, I always love to join the audience and watch his great acting together.”
Yu worked closely with Kim Tae-su, the film’s cinematographer, to create the dream-like—or more accurately nightmarish–feel of the apartment in which the supernatural story plays out.
“He’s a veteran,” said Yu. “He made a lot of great Korean films, and I felt very lucky to have him on board for my project.”
They began by drawing the storyboards together shot by shot and quickly dispensed with the idea that a horror film had to be stylish and have flashy camera moves.
“When we really discussed what the movie was about and the environment that we were going to shoot it in being one location, inside this bland Korean box of a house, we realized what we really had to do was almost treat it like a theater piece where the camera accentuates the psychology of each character and the relationship.”
Capturing a shift in an emotion or a change in their relationship had to be the first priority.
“So we really tried to make every beat count with the shots and make every shot matter.”
Every shot delivered in Sleep effectively conveys the emotional conundrum the characters face, the terrifying reality that they may not be able to trust each other or perhaps even trust reality.
Yu is currently working on two new projects he’s excited about. One is another horror film in a similar vein to Sleep but on a larger scale. The other genre might surprise Sleep viewers. It’s a romcom.
“Although I created a horror film,” said Yu. “My favorite genre as a film audience or a spectator would be romantic comedy.”
Sleep will be available in U.S. theaters and on VOD as of Sept. 27.
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