Yu Hae-jin Breaks Down in Tears Over Fan Reactions to His Baeksang Win

Yu Hae-jin sat down to talk about his upcoming film and ended up crying. It wasn't something he planned: reading through the YouTube comments on his Baeksang Arts Awards acceptance clip, soju in hand, he found himself moved in a way he hadn't anticipated, and when he tried to explain it in an interview ahead of the September 23 release of Assassin(s), the tears came again.

"It's not that I was happy about winning the award," he said, composing himself with a self-deprecating laugh. "I was happy and grateful that so many people were glad I won. Everyone I've run into since told me they cried watching it. I got this feeling that the audience and I had walked through time together. They know the whole journey, from way back to now, so maybe they understood it wasn't easy."

He deflected the emotion in the way long-time fans will recognize: with a joke. "Something's wrong with me," he said, waving a hand. "Must be hormones. It's really something."

A career built one step at a time

The Baeksang Grand Prize for Film this past May was, by general consensus, long overdue. Yu Hae-jin, 56, started his screen career in 1999 with an uncredited role in Spy Lee Chul-jin billed only as "Shoulder Man #2." From that entry point he spent nearly three decades quietly expanding his range, moving from bit parts to supporting roles to leading man, and eventually to something that sounds almost improbable: Korea's highest-grossing active film actor. He has appeared in close to 70 films, a number that tells you as much about his work ethic as his talent does.

One comment under the Baeksang clip captured what many felt: "I don't think I've ever been this happy about someone winning a prize. It feels like watching the result of one person climbing, step by step, their whole life. Sincere congratulations." He read every comment. He had a drink for each one.

"I've been getting a lot of praise lately and, honestly, it's a little embarrassing," he said. "But I do want to tell myself: good job. I want to give myself a gift. At the same time, I know I have to be more careful now. More people are watching. I need to act better." He added that the thought of his next project came to him immediately after Assassin(s)'s press screening. "It won't be easy either," he said. "I have to give it everything."

What Assassin(s) is about

Directed by Heo Jin-ho, Assassin(s) fictionalizes the assassination of First Lady Yuk Young-soo, who was fatally shot during a Liberation Day ceremony on August 15, 1974, a defining and still painful moment in modern Korean history. Yu plays Cheol-gu, a detective in the information division of the Jungbu Police Station who was on-site providing security when she was killed. Facing dismissal along with his colleagues in the aftermath, Cheol-gu notices that the official investigation report contradicts what he witnessed firsthand, and begins digging for the truth to clear his name.

It's the kind of material that carries its own weight before a single scene is shot, and Yu acknowledged the pressure of that. "There was real burden in being part of a film about one of the biggest events in our modern history," he said. But what drew him in was the structure of the story itself. "The relationships between characters are very dense, and they interlock like a cube being solved. That's what makes it compelling."

The Chuseok rivalry that isn't quite a rivalry

Yu is no stranger to holiday box-office seasons. His film The Man Living with a King dominated the Seollal holiday earlier this year, and Assassin(s) opens on the first day of the Chuseok holiday window, going head-to-head with Tazza: Song of the Devil, the fourth installment in the long-running Tazza gambling franchise.

The matchup is not without irony. It was the original Tazza (2006) that first made audiences take notice of Yu Hae-jin in a serious way, his comedic timing in that film becoming the kind of performance people still bring up two decades later. Asked about competing against a film carrying that name, he didn't take the expected angle. "It doesn't feel like a stranger's film to me," he said. "There's something about the word Tazza that I find strangely endearing. So honestly, rather than hoping only our film does well, I hope both do well together."

After 30 years, that generosity seems less like a diplomatic answer and more like who he actually is.