"Wild Sing" Gang Dong-won: "Hip-hop was younger than me"

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[Financial News] Actor Gang Dong-won, 45, has transformed into a hip-hop warrior in his 40s.
The film "Wild Sing," set to open on the 3rd of next month and directed by Sohn Jae-gon, is a comedy about Triangle, a mixed-gender trio that once swept the music scene but was suddenly disbanded, as they struggle for a comeback opportunity 20 years later. Gang Dong-won, who plays Hyun-woo, Triangle's leader and dancing machine, said in a roundtable interview on the 19th that he had known nothing about hip-hop and had only just learned that Tupac was a person's name.
He added, "I found out that hip-hop started in the 1980s," and said, "I was surprised to realize it was younger than me, and breakdancing was even younger."
When his signature swagger and gestures did not come naturally, he even took on method acting, something he does not usually pursue.
He said he first bought the clothes and wore them himself. "I couldn't understand why they walked around so cockily," he explained. "But once I put the clothes on and walked in them, I realized that the walk itself was the 'beat.'"
Gang Dong-won practiced his walk for 30 minutes a day and step routines for an hour, then spent four hours a day working on choreography and techniques. While practicing the windmill move, which involves spreading the legs wide like a pinwheel and spinning in a circle, he injured his ribs. He also tried Headspin, which rotates the entire body around the head as the pivot, adding a moving highlight to the film.
Triangle is modeled after singers from Korea's music scene in the 1990s and 2000s.
"I wanted to pay homage to the styles of senior singers I admired in high school," Gang Dong-won said. "It is a comedy, but for the first album stage, my top priority was to make it genuinely cool so that even the singers from that era would not feel embarrassed watching it." For the second album, he added more comedy by using exaggerated wigs and the distinctive way people spoke back then, with phrases like 'that was that.'
The results of his intense training become more visible in the latter half of the film.
"As I gained more experience filming stage scenes, I eventually developed what people call stage groove," Gang Dong-won recalled. "Once I learned how to lead the audience and got comfortable with the camera, my dance lines looked quite graceful." He added, "If it were up to me, I would even want to cut out the polished stage dance scene I filmed at the end, when I was in my 40s, and show that alone to audiences."
What has the reaction been like? Gang Dong-won drew laughter by relaying a friend's response in the Gyeongsang dialect. He said, "They asked, 'What is this? Are you short on money these days?'" and laughed, saying he was satisfied because it meant he had pulled off a bold transformation.
It also brought in a new fandom. "At a recent film promotion event, I saw a young fan I had never met before," he said. "It felt fresh and fun because they seemed to have come as a fan of Triangle, not as a fan of actor Gang Dong-won."
jashin@fnnews.com Shin Jin-a Reporter