How Korean actor Gang Dong-won prepared for his role in violent Netflix thriller Uprising

Korean star Gang Dong-won talks about practising his sword swing on the golf course, and how Netflix allows filmmakers more artistic freedom

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Gang Dong-won as rebellion leader Cheon-yeong in a still from Netflix period thriller Uprising. Photo: Lee Jae-hyuk/Netflix

Published: 7:15am, 10 Oct 2024

The 29th Busan International Film Festival opened last week with the world premiere of the period action epic Uprising, written by Park Chan-wook and Shin Chul, and starring Gang Dong-won.

Questions have been raised about why the festival chose a film produced by Netflix to open its cinematic showcase, especially at a time when box office numbers in South Korea have fallen sharply, but the Uprising star assures us that there were many advantages to collaborating with the streaming giant.

“Netflix gave us more freedom,” Gang explains in an exclusive interview with the Post at the festival.

“When you’re making a theatrical movie, you’ve got to really think about the numbers, so it would need to be a PG-13 type of movie. But we were able to make this without those restrictions. So we could cut off a lot of heads,” Gang laughs. “That was a big difference for me.”

Indeed, the blood-spattered drama, set in Joseon-dynasty Korea, features numerous scenes of decapitation, as well as limbs, fingers and noses being sliced off during its many violent sword-fighting sequences.

The film’s director, Kim Sang-man, also speaking to the Post, concedes that working with Netflix allowed the film to be “a little bit more gory” than a typical mainstream release, and was quick to praise the company for its “support and total creative freedom on set”.