′Mogadishu′s Director Ryoo Seung-wan ＂It′s been a challenge from the beginning＂

▲ This photo, provided by Lotte Entertainment (a South Korean film production and distribution company), shows the actors and the director of the movie "Escape from Mogadishu".

▲ This photo, provided by Lotte Entertainment (a South Korean film production and distribution company), shows a scene from the movie "Escape from Mogadishu".

SEOUL, July 23 (Yonhap) -- "Escape from Mogadishu" (Mogadishu), a movie that is expected to become this summer's best hit, has unveiled its overwhelming immersion and scale.

The director, Ryoo Seung-wan, said "It has been a challenge from the beginning" at a conference just after the premiere of the film on the 22nd.

Based on a true story, the movie depicts a miraculous escaping of South and North Korean diplomats trapped in Somali due to the civil war in the capital Mogadishu.

The film was produced in Morocco, 100% in local locations, for 4 months illustrating blockbuster actions including scenes of protesting crowds, gunfights, and car chasing as well as a heart touching story about the relationship between South and North Korea.

Director Ryoo, who is well known for his impressive action movies such as "Veteran" (2015), "The Berlin File" (2013), is said to have poured a lot efforts in reproducing the time, 1990s and delivering the characters under harsh condition, the civil war.

The director said that he had focused on "how much thrilling should the fear, desperation and urgency of the isolated characters be" and also said, "When making large-scale movies, while concentrating on the backgrounds, it is easy to miss the important parts about the characters. So I constantly wondered how to make these people under such situation stand out."

"The background (of the movie) is not much far in time, so I tried to reproduce as much facts as I can," and "It was not easy to shoot outdoors for 4 months and we had a hard time thinking about how we can efficiently and without any injury finish the filming", added Ryoo.

In the film, subtitles were added to the North Korean lines. About this, Ryoo explained that it was a reflection of a feedback from "The Berlin File" that the lines of the North Korean characters were hard to catch.

"Personally, I got the impression that today's generations do not have the chance of hearing North Korean through media and that they tend to regard the North as a separate country. In the movie, I tried to picture North Korea as it is nowadays not the way of the previous or a country to be united with."

During the conference, the director and the actors showed gratitude on being able to make a theater-release of the film despite the 4th wave of the pandemic.

Ryoo said, "The actors insisted that the film be released on the theater, and I myself was the most desperate about it. As I watched the film, I was more sure about it." and "A lot of time and work had been put into this movie, which makes it more worthy for the audience to experience it in the theaters."

"Escape from Mogadishu" is open to the public on the 28th.

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'Mogadishu's Director Ryoo Seung-wan "It's been a challenge from the beginning"