The Ugly, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, is directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the director best known for his live action zombie film Train to Busan, its sequel Peninsula, and the animated prequel Seoul Station. Yeon also created the South Korean superhero film Psychokinesis and co-wrote the sci-fi TV drama Parasyte: The Grey, in which parasites turn humans into monsters. The monsters in his latest film, The Ugly, are all human.
The film begins with a documentary crew interviewing Park Yeong-gu (Kwon Hae-hyo), a blind stamp carver, who explains that even the visually impaired can perceive beauty. His son, Dong-hwan (Park Jeong-min) has grown up with a father, now considered a national treasure for his life’s work of pursuing a traditional craft. Dong-hwan’s mother disappeared when he was a baby, so his devoted father is the only parent he’s ever known. While making the documentary, the body of Dong-hwan’s mother is discovered, prompting several interviews investigating her death. Yeon based the script on stories his mother told him when he was younger, things that happened when she was young. The Ugly is so much more than a whodunit.
‘I structured the story so that the son Dong-hwan is listening to the older generation’s stories and the format is that it’s five different interviews,” said Yeon. “Until the middle of the movie you’re trying to find out who did it. But the focus shifts after that and we really delve into the depths of human nature and at the end you see what kind of choices we make as a generation. I think those are the questions that I wanted the audience to think about.”
There is a lot to consider. What’s beauty? What’s ugliness? What crimes can you justify in your quest to survive or even create. There aren’t many sympathetic characters in The Ugly and yet it’s the kind of film that stays with you. Yeon started the narrative as a script, while making his animated film The Fake, but turned it into a graphic novel (2018) before it became a script again.
“Turning it into a graphic novel was probably during the production of Psychokinesis,” said Yeon. “When I first made that into a graphic novel, I guess I had a desire to turn it into a visual form someday.”
The meticulously executed thriller was self-financed, costing around 200 million won or around $145,000, with a tight filming schedule of three weeks. Yeon wanted to retain control of the story.
“To be honest, I think I wasn’t really confident about pitching this idea in the film to the investors,” said Yeon. “Certain elements in the film that I really liked and I really wanted to portray, in order to really fully portray those elements of the script the original script had to remain original. I did have a talk with some investors a few times, but they did suggest changing the narratives in a different way. I thought in that way the emotions of the script won’t be fully conveyed. So, I decided to create the film myself in order to protect the original story.”
It’s a good thing he did, because The Ugly is a distinctive tale of moral ambiguity. While it documents the uglier sides of human nature, Yeon’s cinematic achievement is a beautiful thing to behold.
“At first when I started this as a low budget film, I’d never actually filmed a live action low budget film,” said Yeon. “So, the quality was unknown and unexpected. I thought of maybe using a cell phone, but there’s some scenes, the scenes of the past, that I thought I could turn into sort of an enactment drama. Even if the quality might not match the standard, I really wanted to turn this original work into a film and decided to not be afraid of this challenge. Once I started with all these amazing actors and staff that came together, I quickly stopped worrying about that aspect.”
Veteran actor Kwon Hae-hyo (Under The Queen’s Umbrella, Glitch, D.P.) plays the visually impaired father in the present day, but Park Jeong-min (Newtopia, The 8 Show, Hellbound) plays both the son and the father when he was a younger man.
“At first I actually only suggested the role of Dong-hwan, the son, to Park and he said yes,” said Yeon. ”Then 10 to 20 minutes later he texted me saying, did you decide on the actor for the younger self of the father? I said, no. He had this hunch that maybe he wanted to take the role. As soon as I heard that I thought it might be a good idea because that generation is a very important part of the material here. Also, the resemblance of the father and the son is very important. So for him to play a dual role, I thought it would be very effective.”
The rest of the cast includes Shin Hyun-been (Cinderella at 2AM) as Jung Young-hee, Im Sung-jae (Law and the City) as a seemingly nice factory owner and Han Ji-hyun (No Gain, No Love) as the reporter whose curiosity propels the film’s plot.
Spoilers ahead: As the story progresses and the interviews deliver new information, Dong-hwan learns more about the mother he never knew. Viewers don’t get to see his mother’s face in the film’s many flashbacks and that would pose a challenge for any filmmaker. How do you create a relatable character without showing her face?
“Until the very end, the important concept that I wanted the audience to really understand was the peculiar mentality of the character Yeong-gu,” said Yeon.
Not being able to see her, Yeung-gu can’t really understand her. Viewers needed to know what that felt like, what he might imagine. So, the character is seen only from behind or with hair covering her face.
“I wanted the character to not reveal her face fully on screen,” said Yeon. “But I also didn’t want that to look very unnatural on screen. I wanted it to look as if you were just with her in the same space. She’s not intentionally covering her face. That could actually interrupt the viewing. So I wanted it to look natural so that the audience could actually immerse themselves in the character of Yeong-gu and they could actually understand his mentality.”
The Ugly is an intimate story that reflects larger societal questions about the need to succeed at all costs.
“In the 1970s in Korea, we were very focused on rapid development and making a good result, on achievement and success,” said Yeon. “I think that actually continues in modern society as well. I was probably obsessed with achieving something as well. I wanted to really delve into that aspect of the story.”
As a filmmaker Yeon is drawn to monsters, zombies or monstrous humans.
“I think that this peculiar psychology that I see in myself and through others,” he said. “That’s something that I always think about and I think that’s also very fascinating.”
The Ugly debuted at TIFF and has already been sold to 157 countries. In North America it will be distributed by Well Go USA.
This story was originally published on forbes.com.