Sometimes the best part of a trip is the part that wasn't planned.
On November 13, a press screening and press conference for the film Layover Hotel was held at CGV Yongsan I'Park Mall in Seoul, attended by director Choi Chang Hwan and actors Jung Yeon Ju, Ahn So Hee, Park Jung Yeon, Park So Jin and Ahn Dong Gu. The film follows six people on a flight to London who end up spending an unplanned night in Kitakyushu, Japan, during an unexpected layover.
Park So Jin & Ahn Dong Gu | Photo: OSEN
Following his previous film Six Rooms, the director returns with another travel story. "At first I thought of Hokkaido and also considered Osaka," he said. "Then, while looking for a place we could ship equipment to by boat from Korea, we went to Kitakyushu at the production team's suggestion. It was a city where old charm and new sides coexist, and I liked its quiet yet somehow rough atmosphere." The six characters appear as three pairs, and after much discussion over the order of the episodes, he decided to end the film on love. Though it is a dialogue-heavy film, he said he didn't split shots by line, instead watching the flow between the actors for long stretches so audiences could feel their warmth.
Choi revealed that Ahn So Hee, Park So Jin and Jung Yeon Ju were the first actors he thought of, and that he kept their photos on a whiteboard before deciding their roles. He also laughed that he first turned down Ahn Dong Gu because "he seemed too handsome," only to learn that the actor he had liked as a manager in a drama was Ahn Dong Gu himself.
Ahn So Hee and Park Jung Yeon play Su Yeon and Mun Young, friends with opposite travel styles. "I'm also a J, but when I travel I consciously act like a P," said Ahn So Hee, who added that she spent a day off during the tight shoot visiting a bar alone after a late night shoot and "felt like a real traveler in Kitakyushu." Park So Jin described her character Min Hee as someone who loves people and hopes for warmth but builds walls after repeated disappointments. Ahn Dong Gu, who plays a man showing interest in his boss, said he used his character's birthday and poetry writing for "invisible flirting."
"Sometimes one small act of kindness changes the way you see the world," Park So Jin said of what she hopes audiences take away. Ahn So Hee added, "I hope audiences feel like they went on a short trip, as if they had a midsummer night's dream, or rather a mid-autumn night's dream." Layover Hotel opens in theaters on November 25.
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