International Festival Premiere | In Competition
South Korea, 2024, 111’, Korean
Directed by: Kim Han-kyul
Screenplay: Jo Yu-jin
Cinematography (color): Kim Seong-an
Editing: Nam Na-young
Production Design: Kim Hyun-ok
Music: Choi Dong-hoon
Producers: Kim Myung-jin, Kim Jae-joong, Yeom Eun-ah
Cast: Jo Jung-suk (Han Jung-woo), Lee Ju-myoung (Yun Seul-gi), Han Sun-hwa (Jung-woo’s sister Jung-mi), Shin Seung-ho (Hyun-seok), Oh Min-ae (Jung-woo’s mother)
Date of First Release in Territory: July 31st, 2024
When star pilot Han Jung-woo (Jo Jung-suk) gets involved in a scandal that ruins his reputation, he has no choice but to borrow his sister’s identity and disguise himself as a woman to continue flying. "Exit" (2019) star Jo Jung-suk leads this comedy-driven remake of the 2012 Swedish film "Cockpit", which was a local box office hit last summer.
Han Jung-woo is a highly skilled airplane pilot who has become so famous that his face appears on billboards. As the film opens we see him on TV, telling the story of his life. He is living the dream, and that fame has, in truth, gone a bit to his head. One night he is out at a company dinner, and after a few too many drinks, he lets his mouth run a bit too much. Unbeknownst to him, someone records what he says, and uploads the clip to the internet. And all at once, like a plane that has lost its navigation, his career crashes and burns.
Some time later, Jung-woo is broke, unemployed and depressed, having been turned down by every other airline in the industry. His wife wants a divorce, and so he passes his days at the home of his younger sister, who runs a beauty-themed YouTube channel. He is desperate to get back in the air, and his aviation skills are as strong as ever, but he can’t get hired with his now-infamous name and face. Then all of a sudden, he is struck with a somewhat mad idea. What if he were to dress up as a woman, and apply for jobs under his sister’s name?
Such is the premise of Pilot, a remake of a 2012 Swedish film called Cockpit, with obvious echoes of Sydney Pollack’s 1982 classic Tootsie. At first glance, one might question whether a cross-dressing comedy such as this one could really appeal to the sensibilities of today’s audiences. But the best thing that the producers of Pilot did was to hire Kim Han-kyul as director. Kim’s 2019 debut film Crazy Romance (which screened at FEFF) was an unusually hard-hitting and brutally honest look at contemporary relationships. Here, she is presented with the challenging task of making a film that feels smart and contemporary, that avoids clumsy or disrespectful cliches, and is actually funny. She carries off this balancing act impressively well, and ultimately the film amassed 4.7 million admissions to become the most commercially successful Korean film of the summer.
The character of Jung-woo is played by Jo Jung-suk (Exit), who throughout his career has always excelled at portraying characters with a mix of strengths and weaknesses, who come across as appealingly human and relatable. In Pilot, his character swings from one extreme to the other and back again, but throughout it all, he is always easy to connect with emotionally. Another major role in the film is taken by the talented new actress Lee Ju-myoung. She plays Seul-gi, a pilot at the start of her career who finds camaraderie and friendship with Jung-woo – without realizing he is actually a man. She functions in many ways as the moral compass of the film, particularly when events inevitably start to spin out of control.
As the economics of producing big-budget blockbusters becomes ever more difficult to justify in the post-pandemic Korean film industry, producers are looking for alternative ways to appeal to local audiences. High-concept comedies with appealing stars seem to be a comparatively sensible bet in today’s market, so the success of Pilot may herald more of such films in the future.
Kim Han-kyul
Kim Han-kyul is a graduate of the film department at Konkuk University. Her short film A Perfect Sight (2009) won the Best Short Film award at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and her next short Chatter won the Best Comedy prize at the 10th Mise-en-scenes Genre Film Festival. She made her feature debut with Crazy Romance (2019), a hard-edged comedy that grossed close to 3 million admissions. Pilot is her second feature.
FILMOGRAPHY
2019 – Crazy Romance
2024 – Pilot