Yakusho Koji visits Korea for the first time in 15 years

“If the movie ‘Perfect Days’ was made by director Bong Joon-ho, the protagonist would be Song Kang-ho.”

On Sunday, at CineCube Gwanghwamun in Seoul, Japan’s top actor, Yakusho Koji, made this joke, and Song Kang-ho and an audience of 300 laughed out loud. Koji played Hirayama, a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo's Shibuya, and made a joke that his name is Song Kang-ho, fascinating the audience.

This was the promotional event for Perfect Days, which was released on July 3. The movie was highly praised as an excellent art film and sold 46,000 tickets at the box office. Yakusho Koji visited Korea for the first time in 15 years since he participated in the 2009 Busan International Film Festival with Yakusho Koji's “Toad’s Oil.”

“We met as fellow winners of the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival—myself for ‘Broker’ in 2022 and Mr. Yakusho for ‘Perfect Days’ last year,” Song said. “The final scene in ‘Perfect Days,’ where we can't be sure whether Hirayama is laughing or crying, felt like the final scene of my movie ‘Memories of Murder’ (2003).”

“I remember shooting the final scene with the song 'Feeling Good' by American jazz singer Nina Simone (1933-2003) playing,” Yakusho said.


이호재 hoho@donga.com