Two Funny Guys: Park and Cha, Face to Face

Actors Park Joong-hoon (38) and Cha Tae-hyun (28).

They are the two “incorrigible” leads in the upcoming movie “Two Guys,” set to open nationwide on July 9. Despite the ten-year difference in age, the two actors are bonded together under the inescapable “shadow” of comedy.

Park has been the most celebrated talent in this genre for the past decade, while Cha has been loved not just for inspiring laughs, but also for his image as a devoted and pure-hearted lover.

“Don’t bother looking very far—I’m you in 10 years,” Park quips to his younger colleague.

The joke has some cause. We met with the two comedic talents--who say that they find their own futures or pasts reflected in each other--on June 28.

--Two Guys

The film “Two Guys” (directed by Park Heon-soo) began inside Park Joong-hoon’s head.

Park: This movie is strictly a “planned” project. It began with the notion that it might be worthwhile if Cha Tae-hyun and I, who are both supposedly “born to make people laugh,” were cast in a movie together.

Cha: About a year ago, Park asked me to do a film with him, and I just said yes. At the time, all that was set were the fact that I’d be starring alongside him and a general storyline.

The film is a comic action flick involving a loan shark (Park Joong-hoon) known as the “angel of death” to delinquent debtors, and a “slippery eel” of a debtor (Cha Tae-hyun) with a god-given gift for ducking payments. The two nemeses come across a bag containing top secret information on advanced semi-conductors, and find themselves working together as unlikely partners in a high-stakes money game.

--Hallelujah

There’s a reason why Cha Tae-hyun bought Park’s pitch for a movie that didn’t even have a screenplay. The tie between the two actors dates back to the 1997 film “Hallelujah,” in which Park played a swindler posing as a pastor, and Cha made his acting debut in a small supporting role. The rapport cemented through those early days, and Cha’s faith in a senior actor who threw himself bodily into pioneering the comedy genre, laid the foundation for this reunion after seven years.

Park: Over the last five years, I worked mainly on projects that were distinctly idiosyncratic. Before I knew it, “Park Joon-hoon” was being regarded by the younger generation of fans as an actor who used to be easy and familiar, but who was now rather “heavy.” I wanted to change my image by working with Cha.

Cha: In “Hallelujah,“ I played the son of a church elder. The character was so insignificant that I don’t even recall his name any more. I remember wondering back then if I’d ever be starring side by side in a film with Park. And now we’re playing the “two guys” in “Two Guys”! (Laughs.)

--Comedy

Both Park and Cha have more to say than anyone when it comes to comedy.

Park: A laugh is basically a favorable impression. When you’re dating a woman, the game is won if you make her laugh. A comedy has to win the audience’s favor within 5 minutes of the opening credits. That’s what makes it so tough.

Cha: Comedy is much harder than melodrama. Our movie isn’t one of those “cringe-inducing” comedies that make you laugh for two hours, then wring in a bit of sappy emotion in the final act. It’s straightforwardly funny from beginning to end.

Park, who has been through all manner of ups and downs in the comedy genre, imparts some advice:

“Acting and popularity are like stacking matches. It’s pretty easy in the beginning, but eventually, there’ll come a moment when it becomes extremely hard to add even one more match to the stack.”

--Faces

Is there a quality that defines an actor “born for comedy”?

Cha: Park has a good face. It can carry rough, slapstick comedy or even be convincing as a villain. Although, I wonder if he can pull off melodrama with that face...

Park: You don’t know what you’re talking about. Up until the early nineties, I was a representative melodramatic lead. The world has had to improve significantly since those days, in order for someone with Cha Tae-hyun’s face to be able to star in a melodrama. In any case, Cha’s face fuses ordinariness with extraordinariness. His features and general impression are relatively commonplace, but when he laughs, even his cells laugh with him. It’s an enviable face—the audience doesn’t see any dishonesty in it. But from a more technical standpoint, both faces carry too much fat. (Laughs.)

Park and Cha are probably two of the few “descendents of Charlie Chaplin” that have survived Korea’s cinematic climate. I want to give them the words of Chaplin himself, who said, “I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.”

Gab-Sik Kim dunanworld@donga.com