Last year, at the end of the summer, we visited the set of a Korean reality show produced by “Pd-nim” Oh Sangseok of the Jbtc channel, with the picturesque name of Before It's Too Late, Study Abroad (Shala Shala in Cambridge) , in which five famous actors from the small and big screen spent two weeks in Cambridge attending a course to improve their English. Definitely a wise move, considering how often it happens that interpreters from South Korea are invited to participate in Hollywood films and series . The experience was interesting and unusual: it is not often that you can peek behind the scenes of Asian shows, and no Western journalist has probably ever been invited to participate on the set of a reality show from this country. However, speaking of “invitations” is not correct. The filming of the show was right around the time of the last edition of the Venice Film Festival and one of the actors of the program, Jang Hyuk , had also been invited to the film festival because his latest work, the interactive film In the Realm of Ripley, was participating in one of the collateral sections. Hyuk, however, was too busy filming Before It's Too Late , and the Venice show turned out to be a missed opportunity. The writer, on the other hand, was in England during the days of filming in Cambridge. It was the end of August, the last days of recording the show, and the prospect of stopping by to say hello to Jang, who the writer had interviewed the year before in Korea, turned out to be an interesting and somewhat exotic experience. As mentioned, the protagonists of the reality show are five Korean actors who are very famous in their homeland: Sung Dong-il from My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (in which his striking resemblance to his Hong Kong colleague, the legendary Chow Yun-fat from A Better Tomorrow ); Kim Kwang-kyu from Judge from Hell , also a talented melodic singer; Uhm Ki-joon , the famous villain of the soap Penthouse; Shin Seung-hwan , seen in Big Mouth and Vincenzo ,
and Jang Hyuk , superstar of popular K-dramas such as The Slave Hunters and My Country and action films such as The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves To Die , as well as a martial arts expert who recently founded his own agency. During a chat (see the video above) he revealed to us that, despite having started studying English after a stay in America while he was a guest at the NY Film Fest, the trauma of dealing with the local British accents (not always very understandable) shocked him. The latter coordinated the participation of the writer in the final filming of Shala Shala. While the technical aspect of a Korean reality show is similar to ours, what changes is the approach, especially in the phase of choosing the people to involve. Koreans tend to favor acquaintances and friendships and, after a Korean agency based in Germany selected the school that would welcome the students, Bell Cambridge , the international classmates who would share the lessons with the stars of the show were selected using the method of knowledge levels. Among them stand out a beautiful South American soap actress and two Italian boys : Andrea Morandi, whose mother is Korean (it was through her, the translator, that the contact was made) and his girlfriend Isabella Peri. The Korean interpreter and contact on site, Peow Jin-won, a university student in England, was also contacted using this method.
The first Italian boy, Andrea, was placed in a class with Uhm, Shin and Jang, who obtained the highest English grades in the entrance tests, while the second, Isabella, was part of the group with the least knowledge of the language that included Sung and Kim. Housed in a splendid detached housenear the school (if you are planning a stay in Cambridge, follow the link ), the quintet arrived there only after a few hitches due to language barriers: during the trip from the airport to Cambridge, reaching King's Cross station to change trains proved to be an arduous task for the five actors, lost among tube changes and turnstiles. Once in Cambridge, our boys did what all Koreans do, even in the countries with the best cuisine in the world (ok, maybe not England, but it happens in Italy too): they stocked up on Korean food, kimchi and ramyon and much more. Over the next two weeks, between classes, Jang & co. behaved just like any other students, going to pubs and visiting monuments, finding time to socialize with classmates and neighbors. They made friends with the latter, shared backyard barbecues and Sunday picnics in the park. Like us high school students when we did international studies abroad, they ended up cooking for half the class. That sense of familiarity that surrounded the filming – starting with the actors, chosen also because they have been friends for a long time, having worked on the same productions – remains the most striking aspect. The Koreans' way of conceiving work is fascinating to say the least: for them, the relationship with their colleagues does not end after they clock in (they often go drinking and grilling right after, whether they're working on a set or in an office). In the specific case of the members of the entertainment world, it's as if, despite being at the height of their international popularity, they clung to the reassuring intimacy and complicity of small productions (even when they do things on a big scale).