‘Howling” might look like a thriller. But, according to director Yoo Ha, the film is fundamentally something quite different. “It’s a ‘re-wrapping’ of the thriller genre as a mechanism to interest the audience, but inside, it’s a family drama, a human drama with introspection on the family.”
Poet-turned-director Yoo is best known for “macho” films like “Once Upon a Time in High School” (2004) and “A Dirty Carnival” (2006). In “Howling,” however, the director goes the Ridley Scott rout with a strong, hard-nosed female lead—played by actress Lee Na-young—struggling to make her way in a man’s world as she tracks down a killer more beast than man.
A family tale?
Yoo’s first film in four years, “Howling” is based on the novel The Hunter by Japanese writer Asa Nonami. As the title suggests, there’s a dog—or more specifically, a wolfdog—involved, but ultimately, this is a film about family. And not an entirely positive one. Explains Yoo, “In the novel there appears a wolfdog, a hybrid between a dog and a wolf. It’s used as an instrument of revenge. There’s a former police officer, and his underage daughter gets caught up in prostitution. So he trains the wolfdog—because the dog is mixed with wolf blood, won’t its capabilities be heightened?—and sends it to kill the gang who used his daughter.” Indeed, the wolfdog virtually becomes a part of the family, and in this, there’s a message. “What I got was that the dog, with which he didn’t share blood, was more a family member than those family members with whom he shared ties. We talk about blood ties, but there’s something of family selfishness, and I thought we needed to form ‘real families,’ where we go beyond sharing blood to sharing our hearts,” he says. “In Korea now, too, we have a lot of multicultural families, and we even have a word now for pets that become part of the family. So I thought we might have to expand the idea of family beyond the exclusivity of blood to sharing our hearts. This film takes that idea.”
This is in marked contrast to most “family films,” notes Yoo. “This is a film that cuts through to and reflects on the dark shadow of the family. I wanted to do this through the symbol of the wolfdog.”
"Woof"
Yoo Ha / Ryu Seunghoo
Getting a wolfdog: no easy task
For directors, working with children and animals can be difficult, doubly so with a beast like the wolfdog, which is not easily trained. In Korea, the task was compounded by the difficulties of simply acquiring the animal in question. Recounts Yoo, “The hardest thing was acquiring a wolfdog. Just raising one in Korea is illegal. They’re not an officially recognized breed, and you can’t train them. I understand there are some being trafficked illegally, but not many. To shoot a film, you ultimately need a dog that’s been trained, but you can’t train these ones.” The 1991 film “White Fang,” starring Ethan Hawke, did star a real, live wolfdog, a Malamute-wolf mix named Jed. Sadly, it was no longer available. “I wanted to use that dog, so I contacted them. But the dog had died—the lifespan of a dog is about 15 years,” says Yoo.
By chance, Yoo eventually did find a wolfdog, a shepherd—Malamute mix with some wolf mixed in two generations back. Directing it proved a challenge. “For me, it seems directing animals is more difficult than directing children… And this wasn’t a dalmatian, but a dog with a strong wild-side that was difficult to even train, so there was a risky side to shooting the film.”
A strong female lead
In featuring a woman as the principle lead, Yoo was taking a major risk. “I understand—and it’s the same overseas—that there aren’t many films with female leads that do well with investors or promotion,” he says. “There are just a few actresses who can draw audiences like Angelina Jolie. It’s the same in Korea… When you have no choice but to feature male leads, making a film with a female lead is risky.”
Ultimately, though, the film Yoo had in mind needed a heroine. “I’d shot a lot of macho films, so I wanted to make a film with a female lead, depicting the joy and sadness of a female lead in a macho community led by men.”
The selection of Lee Na-young reflected Lee’s particular enigmatic charm. Explains Yoo, “This film in itself is a realistic film, too, but there’s a dog in it, and the dog engages in mysterious behavior, so the fantasy quality of it is quite strong… Lee Na-young’s face, more than having a very realistic feel, has a sort of ‘fairy tale’ look to it, too. I cast her as an actress in whom realism and fantasy coexist.”
Lee Na-young and Song Gang-ho in the official film poster
Outsiders
In addition to challenging our traditional concepts of family, “Howling” deals with a subject Yoo has explored in previous films—the outsider. Both the protagonist—the detective played by Lee—and the wolfdog are, fundamentally, outsiders. Says Yoo, “A wolfdog is an outsider. It can’t live as a wolf in the wild, and can’t live as a pet. It’s a solitary, lonely being. And the female lead played by Lee Na-young entered the violent crime division because she wanted to be a detective, but because it’s a patriarchal group, she hasn’t been recognized, and because of her job, she’s got divorced. She can’t really mix either with women or with the other detectives. She’s an outsider.”
Accordingly, a dynamic develops. “These two outsiders slowly develop an understanding of each another,” says Yoo, adding, “Well, maybe not ‘each other’—I don’t know if the dog understands the detective.”
Interest in the marginalized
What should international audiences take from his films, including “Howling”? “There are people who are ostracized, who are hurt; aren’t there such minorities in every society, the non-mainstream?”, he says. “Creativity is showing interest in such people… In this space called Seoul, there are people who live well, but there are also the ostracized, the wounded, and those who have been sacrificed within the Korean system. And those hurt by violence. My films are their stories.”
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