BTS Fan So-hee Sells Father's North Korean Medal in Son Myeong-a's 'Trophy'

The film 'Trophy', releasing in Japan on the 10th, begins with the story of 14-year-old So-hee (played by Hang-na), a third-generation Zainichi Korean who puts her father's North Korean medal up for sale on a secondhand marketplace because she wants to go to a BTS concert. This is the feature debut of director Son Myeong-a, a third-generation Korean resident in Japan, and it follows the conflicts of a teenage girl wavering between the K-pop craze, Chosun schools, and the image of North Korea.

BTS fan So-hee puts up her father's North Korean medal

So-hee is a student in the dance club at a Chosun school. She spends her daily life with friends and practices dancing to the song 'Sprout' ahead of a competition. The practice process for 'Sprout', a competition song containing the lyrics "Seed, grow quickly / Like the wind, spread your roots into the earth," forms one axis of the film.

Conflict grows as it is revealed that So-hee is a fan of BTS. As she grows closer to her Japanese friends, the theme of the dance performances, which emphasize the ideology of the North Korean regime, gradually becomes uncomfortable for her. The film realistically depicts North Korean-related items being traded against the backdrop of Japan's active secondhand trading culture, and the production team stated that this idea received the greatest response during the Bunbuku planning and development meetings.

Director Son Myeong-a's memories of Chosun school

'Trophy' is a work in which Director Son, who belongs to the independent production company 'Bunbuku,' associated with director Hirokazu Kore-eda, infused her own actual growing-up story into the screenplay. She grew up in Tsuruhashi, the largest Koreatown in Osaka. It is a place with a night market that served as the setting for the Apple TV+ drama 'Pachinko', and because there were many Korean residents in the neighborhood, wearing chima jeogori was a natural environment.

Director Son cited "resentment toward Chosun school and my parents" as the motivation for writing the scenario. Her mother was also a Chosun school teacher, much like the protagonist So-hee's father, Sang-ju (played by Arata Iura). Her mother always clung to work late into the night, saying, "Our school is important, our school is going through a difficult time," and Director Son confessed that she felt suffocated by a community that prioritized the school over the family, leading her to enter a Japanese university as if escaping. She also said that while writing the scenario, she wondered, "What exactly is this 'our school' that is more precious than family?"

Director Son also recalled the days when she wore black skirts with white jeogori school uniforms and enjoyed singing songs by the most popular singer at the time, BoA. Having worked as an assistant to director Miwa Nishikawa in the film 'Under the Open Sky' eight years ago, she prepared this story after hearing advice from Director Nishikawa to "make a work out of the bomb inside you."

30th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival World Premiere

The film also deals with the gap between the Hallyu boom within Japan and the image of North Korea. Director Son said, "I wanted to show why BTS is portrayed so coolly, while Chosun dance, which is the dance of the same people, is used as archival footage for North Korean missile news and gives a dangerous impression."

She intended to capture the reality in the film where the same culture is perceived differently depending on political views. The difference in perspectives regarding Chosun dance is also a core element of the work. Director Son explained that during her Chosun school days, many members of the dance club were beautiful and were objects of admiration, but when she searched online as an adult, there were conflicting views such as, "It is pitiful that young children are being brainwashed." She said these differences became the key to making the film.

'Trophy' was revealed as a world premiere at the 30th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Chi-sun, an actress of Korean descent who actually attended a Chosun school, appeared as a Chosun school dance teacher, adding sincerity to the work. Director Son had several arguments with her mother regarding the content during the scenario development, and after seeing the completed film, her mother smiled and said, "It's better than I thought."