Director Joo Changmin of the film ”Land of Happiness”: ”Editing was completed before the release of 'Spring in Seoul'. It was not affected.”

Director Joo Changmin revealed that when making the film "Happy Country," he was not conscious of or influenced by the film "Spring in Seoul," which deals with the same era.
Actor Cho Jung Seok,
You Chae Myung and director Joo Changmin attended the event to discuss the film. "Happy Country" is a story about a young man named Park who was involved in the assassination of the president on the orders of his superiors on October 26, 1979.
The film tells the story of Goo Tae-ju (played by the late Lee Seong Kyu (INFINITE)) and his lawyer Jeong In-hoo (played by Cho Jung Seok), who becomes involved in South Korea's worst political trial as his defense lawyer.
Last year, the film "Spring in Seoul" (director: Kim Sung Su), based on the true story of the military coup that took place on December 12, 1979, was released and became a huge hit, grossing 10 million yen.
The "Happy Country" was also born in the same year, but it was a time when a person was engulfed in a period of intense barbarism between the incident on October 26, 1979 and the military coup on December 12.
The difference was made by focusing on the gaze and the heart of the object. Director Joo Changmin said, "I had already finished editing 'Spring in Seoul' before it was released, so it didn't have any influence on me.
Regarding the intention behind the planning and direction of "Happy Country," he said, "Rather than the big incident, I was curious about the hidden stories and the stories of the victims.
"I think I chose this story because I wanted to do it because I was drawn to it," he emphasized. The character Park Tae-ju, played by the late Lee Seong Kyu (INFINITE), was modeled after the real-life Colonel Park Hoon.
Director Joo said, "The story didn't start with the character Park Hoon, but rather, he was the character that naturally came to me while I was searching for a story that unfolded between 10.26 and 12.12.
I thought it would be good to make use of that character. Most of the other characters, including the other lawyers and Jung In-hoo, are fictional characters, so I just replaced them with real people.
"I think it's not right to treat it like a documentary," he said. When asked why he chose Colonel Park as his motif, he said, "I wanted to make it clear that he committed a crime and was punished.
What is more important than his popularity is that he was a good person. If we look at his evaluation apart from his ideology of left or right, we can see that he was a true soldier and a good and earnest person at home.
I thought it was good to use such a person as a motif. If he had been someone with questionable past actions, I might have hesitated to take him up, but he was a man who had left and right affiliations.
"He was a wonderful and respectable person." The film "Happy Country" will be released on the 14th.