Director Byun Young Joo is opening up about the late Lee Sun Kyun — and the loss that still weighs heavily.
On April 23rd, Byun appeared on YouTube channel “CineDrive” with director Pang Eun Jin, where she revisited working with Lee on the 2012 film Helpless.
Under tight time and budget constraints during a key Yongsan shoot, Byun recalled Lee stepping in to steady things. “He told me, ‘Give me 15 minutes. The emotions might shift, but I’ll make the blocking work,’” she said. “After the shoot wrapped, I was exhausted, and he called me and said, ‘Don’t sneak off like that. Come back.’”
“He made you feel like he was on your side,” Byun said. “There aren’t many actors like that. Losing him feels like losing a comrade.”
She added that Helpless held special meaning for its original author, Miyuki Miyabe, who considers the Korean adaptation her favorite — “and that’s also because of Lee Sun Kyun.”
Byun had hoped to reunite with him, preparing to offer a script based on Miyabe’s novel Reason. “I was about to give it to him, and then everything went wrong,” she said.
Later, a publisher reached out on Miyabe’s behalf, visited Lee’s grave with the Japanese DVD, and passed along a request: “Lee Sun Kyun may be gone, but we’d still like you to make ‘Reason’ into a film.”
Byun didn’t hide her anger over the investigation leading up to his death. “I still can’t forgive the prosecution and the police,” she said. Pang Eun Jin added, “This should never happen again.”
Lee Sun Kyun debuted in 1999 and broke through dramas like Behind the White Tower, Coffee Prince, and Pasta. He reached global fame with Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which won top prizes at Cannes and the Academy Awards.
He became the subject of a police investigation over alleged drug use in October 2023 and was found dead on December 27th in a car in Seoul. He had tested negative in both preliminary and detailed drug tests, and maintained he was unaware any substances involved were illegal.
>> Lee Sun Kyun Remembered: Two Years Later, a Headstone Inscription That Reads ‘I Love You’
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