It’s been six long years since the last film from South Korean master Park Chan-wook, The Handmaiden, but he’s now poised to return this year with the mystery drama Decision to Leave. First, however, we have a new project from him in the form of a 20-minute short film entitled Life is But a Dream, commissioned by Apple and shot on the iPhone 13 Pro.
Led by Yoo Hai-jin, Kim Ok-vin (who starred in Park’s Thirst), and Park Jeong-min, and shot by Kim Woo-hyung (The Little Drummer Girl) with an original soundtrack by Jang Young-gyu (Train to Busan, The Good the Bad the Weird), the visually playful project follows an undertaker who needs woods to build a coffin for the savior of his village and digs up an abandoned grave. But while doing so, he accidentally awakens the ghost of an ancient swordsman. Now the ghost tries to take back his coffin.
“It’s not easy to dive deeper into genre experiments in a full-length feature film because it costs a lot of money and there is a lot of pressure. When making short films, I have creative freedom,” Park said (via Korea Times). “In 2011, my brother (Park Chan-kyong) and I made a 33-minutes long film ‘Night Fishing’ on an iPhone 4. I have great memories about working on a short film, and they motivate me to keep making more short films.”
Watch below, along with a look behind-the-scenes.