The Iron Chef: A Conversation with Ougie Pak

What is a “real” film? I ask myself this question a few times during my conversation with South Korea–born, bicoastal filmmaker Ougie Pak as he tells me, with more than a hint of self-deprecation, that he has not made one, but hopes to fix that soon. To Pak, a real film is one where you “need financing, or casting famous people and all that,” and yet he’s managed to make three accomplished films—two midlength and one feature—without any of those things. Though he good-naturedly rankles at the Letterboxd users who tell him they wish his films were longer (“If you want to give me more money, I’ll make it longer!”), he proudly touts the scrappy ingenuity it took to make them—the sadly sweet coming-of-age tale Sunrise/Sunset (2019), the Greek-tragedy-inspired backstage drama Clytaemnestra (2021), and the nightlife-tinged tainted romance Red Card (2023)—with next to nothing.

Speaking with Pak it’s clear he’s a natural storyteller—the saga of how he made each film is almost as fascinating as the films themselves—and has an irrepressible passion for his craft, which was first forged in the rich tradition of stealing shots in the cavities of New York City, and grown through a practice of taking even the most unusual or challenging opportunities and turning them into singular, deeply felt art. On the occasion of his films coming to the Criterion Channel, he reflects on how he got to this point in his career: “Some people are just motherfuckers. It’s not about how big they are, how strong they are, there’s this next-level thing they have. They are unstoppable forces of nature. That’s not even to say that I’m a motherfucker, but I try to be, because otherwise I would have quit a long time ago.”

How did you get your start in filmmaking?: I got started late because I was an English major in college and never knew you could even do film. My parents didn’t go to college, so they were like, “You go to college and get a job.” I dreamed of being a writer, but I didn’t know what that meant, really. It wasn’t until I was in New York City in my twenties that I took a screenwriting class that led to an office job at a company called Antidote Films. People there were like, “You can make a short film. Take a class at SVA,” so I did that one semester. They guide you into making a five-minute film, and that’s what I submitted to the Tribeca Film Festival and got in.

That same short also went to the Busan Film Festival in Korea, and because of that I got a fellowship to the national film school in Korea called KAFA [Korean Academy of Film Arts]. I got a scholarship because KOFIC, the Korean Film Council, was doing these globalization programs, so I got a full ride to go as an exchange student. That was so formative, because at the time I was also getting into Korean cinema. I learned everything from the Koreans. Korean filmmakers are literally my gods.

As you’re making these Iron Chef films, were there any filmmakers also working with microbudgets that you looked to for inspiration?: In the New York City school, there’s early Sean Baker and the Safdie brothers. I like Werner Herzog’s thing, “You have to learn how to pick locks and hop fences.” I went to City College, so we knew how I could get in anywhere and—within an hour, before we get kicked out of Barnes & Noble—get the shot. We know how to go in with wireless mics and be fearless. You almost feel like you’re pulling a heist sometimes.

Let’s talk about Clytaemnestra. How did you end up in Greece with this troupe of theater actors?: When Sunrise/Sunset premiered at BAMcinemaFest in summer 2019, my actor friend who plays the theater director [Jongman Kim] was like, “Congrats! As soon as you’re done in New York you’ve got to come to Greece, because we’re doing this acting workshop, and if you come we can make a movie. We’ll make anything you want, but you gotta come up with the story.” Well, that sounds interesting, right? “It’s whatever you want, but Ougie, don’t you think we should make a feature?” Dude, a feature? You want me to go to Greece, a country I’ve never been to before, with people I’ve never met, and shoot a feature in three weeks? I can’t even write a feature in three weeks. What you’re saying is impossible. But he knows how to mess with me. He put that seed in my head and then I started thinking, maybe we can make a feature.

I landed in Greece and I had no idea what to make. I was stuck, and then one night I walked by a random alley and saw this poster for Oedipus Rex. My first love, back in high school, was Greek tragedy, which I know pretty well from studying English in college. I called Jongman that night, and he knew from my voice we had something. Of course, I didn’t have a script yet, but the actors landed a couple of days later and I just started shooting. Every morning, the DP and I would break down the story, making a detailed scene list of what we need to get through with everyone because they’re all going back to Korea in two weeks. There’s about seventy percent of the film that we needed to get in that time, about two to three scenes a day. It was one of the craziest, but most creatively satisfying, things I’ve ever done in my life.

That’s incredible. One of the things that is so compelling about Clytaemnestra is that, whether you’re working in theater or film, it very acutely captures a certain kind of mania that develops as you’re locked in a creative process with different personalities, including this very toxic director. What was it like trying to tell a story about intense backstage drama while you’re also scrambling to construct this film on the fly?: That toxic director is loosely inspired by a real guy in Korea. He’s one of the most infamous theater directors in Korea and got taken down by the Me Too movement. This guy was an absolute nightmare. And all the actors had suffered all kinds of trauma working in theater in Korea, so I was very inspired by all of that. But in making the film, everyone was 120% into it. There’s certain times when you feel like the movie gods are constantly gifting you with stuff. It’s like surfing a wave, when everyone’s behind you, you almost feel like there’s a magical force pushing you on. No matter how tiring it was, everyone was so onboard.

All your films are interested in challenging relationships between men and women. In Clytaemnestra, that results in an explosive confrontation between the lead actor and the director that exposes the manipulation and deep distrust that can exist between men and women in certain professional and sexual situations. What draws you to examine these difficult gender and power dynamics across your work?: You don’t know until after you make the film exactly why you made the film, often because they’re so personal. For me, everything starts with character. I might have a vague idea for a plot, but nothing can happen until I know who the human beings are on a very intimate level. I wasn’t like, “I’m going to make an examination of power structures of Me Too in Korean society,” it just happened to be the shape of that film. It’s funny, looking back on Sunrise/Sunset and Clytaemnestra especially, they’re completely about my life, even though they are about different people, because emotionally, there are things that we’ve experienced in life that come out without you even consciously thinking about it.

That’s really interesting. Where would you place yourself in Clytaemnestra? What about that film made you feel like it was your story too?: Koreans have this idea of han, which is maybe played out now because everyone's talked about it, but I just find these crazy parallels between ancient Greek tragedy and this idea that in your deepest suffering is where you find ultimate truth. It’s a very difficult thing to explain, and I had always recognized it in all my favorite art. Obviously I’m not Clytaemnestra, I’ve not experienced the things she has, but emotionally, you can connect to someone’s suffering.

After making Clytaemnestra, how did you meet Kev Tai and decide to collaborate with him on Red Card?: After Clytaemnestra I met some Korean American businessmen from LA and they knew I was really into crime films and gangster movies, so they say, “Ougie, if you want to come to Koreatown in LA, we will show you some crazy shit.” Okay! That’s when I first started spending major time in LA, in 2021. I shadowed them like a journalist for a while, which was absolutely insane because there’s a whole nightlife underworld. While I’m in one of these bars in Koreatown, this guy walks in—tall, good-looking guy—and he’s like, “Bro, are you Ougie? You’re that filmmaker from New York, right? Bro, I got stories, but I don’t know how to write.” That’s how I met Kev. During COVID he sent me this Google doc, like a hundred pages of his life. It was insanity. The truth is so much crazier than fiction. It was like reading a young Henry Hill, because he’s a young Asian American gang member, a foot soldier. It was my entry into this crazy world, a whole slice of Asian American history of the ’90s through 2000s that I feel has never been told. So we’re working on writing something else together, but these Korean businessmen wanted something sooner, so I asked Kev if he had any stories from his life from after the gang stuff. He says, “I don’t know, man, I was just trying to get out of that life. I got into real estate. But right before then I worked for my cousin’s hostess bar in Hacienda. They would fly in these girls from Taiwan and businessmen would drink with them, and then I fell in love with the top girl, bro, and she totally ruined my life. We call her a red card in Chinese.” That was the story.

Red Card was Kev Tai’s first film role, which you encouraged him to play. How do you go about working with people with different levels of acting experience?: I love it. If you’re directing well, it shouldn’t matter whether someone’s been an actor their entire life or this is literally their first day, because at a certain point it’s just reality. For example, Gomorrah, the movie by Matteo Garrone—he used real mafiosos. The guy who smokes cigarettes out of his neck? You can’t cast that guy, that can only be a real mob guy. With Red Card, I knew Kev had not had a lot of acting experience, but he’s the entire film. It was written by him, all the music is his because he was a rapper in a past life, he is the nucleus of the film. No matter what, I have to double down on who he is, his presence, his charm, even though he doesn’t have deep training and a lot of the other people were trained actors who’ve worked in theater since they were young. When you bring them together you have to calibrate, but I cast you because I like who you are. I don’t want you to try, just make sure you’re present, you’re listening, you’re really reacting. What else is there?

The Iron Chef: A Conversation with Ougie Pak

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