Kang Ha-neul Says He 'Just Put a Spoon on It' as Star-Studded Korean Anime Agami Heads to Theaters

At a press conference held at CGV Yongsan iPark Mall in Seoul on the 26th, Kang Ha-neul had the room laughing when he reflected on his experience voicing a character in Agami. "Of everything I've worked on, this might be the one I put the least effort into," he said. "The director and the animation team built everything, I really felt like I just put a spoon on it."

The self-deprecating remark was a nod to the enormous production effort behind Korea's upcoming animated feature, which opens on September 9. Agami is based on novelist Ku Byeong-mo's long-running bestseller about a boy named Gon who develops gills after falling into a lake when his father attempts a suicide pact. The story has maintained a devoted readership since publication, and the film marks its first major screen adaptation.

A cast assembled by voice alone

Director Ahn Jae-hoon, whose previous work includes animated adaptations of Korean literary classics Mudang-do (2021), Sonagi (2017), and When Buckwheat Flowers Bloom (2012), handpicked each actor by listening only to their voices on television before approaching them for the roles. The result is a cast that reads like a prestige drama lineup: Jung Hae-in as the boy Gon, Lee Cheong-ah as Haeyu (a character Gon rescues), Yoo Jae-myung as the elderly man who saves Gon, musical actress Kim Sun-young as Kang-ha's mother Yi-nyeong, and Kang Ha-neul as Kang-ha, the childhood friend who first discovers Gon.

Kang-ha's relationship with Gon is one of the novel's most discussed elements. The character grows up alongside Gon but treats him carelessly, while harboring emotions that go well beyond simple pity. Kang Ha-neul was careful not to foreclose any reading. "Kang-ha goes through real growth through his relationship with Gon, his entire worldview changes," he said. "There's been a lot of talk about what that relationship means, but I don't think it's my place to represent any one interpretation. I didn't perform from a single point of view. The space between interpretations is part of what animation can offer."

He also spoke about the experience of voice acting itself, describing a shift in perspective that live-action work doesn't produce. "You end up watching the drama from a third-person point of view," he said. "I kept thinking about whether my voice was harmonizing properly with the character's face and the backgrounds around them."

From Korea to France

One of the film's most striking creative decisions is its setting. Ahn Jae-hoon moved the story from Korea, where Ku Byeong-mo's novel is set, to France. His reasoning was precise: the specific beauty of the original Korean prose couldn't be translated directly into visual form without the story tilting toward bleakness. "I kept asking myself what could replace the beauty of Ku Byeong-mo's Korean language," he said. "If I kept the original setting, the weight would fall on the misery. By moving the location, I wanted to give the film its own visual beauty while letting the audience stay fully focused on the story itself."

The animation reflects that intention. Scenes depicting the scales on Gon's back and the moment a character becomes entranced by their beauty are rendered with the kind of detail that signals years rather than months of production work. Yoo Jae-myung, who voiced the old man who rescues Gon, touched on exactly that timeline. "To do justice to voice-only acting, I had to let go of more than I expected," he said. "The people who made this animation don't talk about production in months, they talk in years. So many people worked so hard to make something good."

Yoo Jae-myung said the genre itself drew him in: "It's a story about wounds, and I thought animation, as a format, would be richer in sensibility and aesthetically more open."

'The film that saves one person's life'

Kim Sun-young, who voices Kang-ha's mother, was direct about her hopes for the film's cultural impact. "I want Agami to become a defining work for K-animation," she said. "If it becomes something that represents Korea, it would be an honor just to have been part of it."

Ahn Jae-hoon framed the film's ambition in quieter terms. "This isn't a work that saves the world," he said. "But it can be a work that saves one person's own life. I hope that sitting in the theater becomes a moment where someone finds a new way to organize their own existence."

Agami opens in Korean theaters on September 9.