While a new generation of Asian-American directors have been making their mark in the worlds of film and television (Celine Song with Past Lives and Lee Sung Jin with Beef immediately spring to mind), Asian-Canadian talent is also on the rise behind the camera. Filmmakers Anthony Shim (Riceboy Sleeps), Zarrar Kahn (In Flames), and Durga Chew-Bose (Bonjour Tristesse) have each made a critical impact in the last few years, signalling a new and exciting moment for homegrown talent that should not be overlooked.
Now to add to that growing list is Jerome Yoo, an actor-turned-director with a handful of well-received short films already under his belt. His dream-like debut feature Mongrels, which premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year, follows an immigrant family of three in 1990s rural Alberta: widower Sonny (Jae-Hyun Kim), his teenage son Hajoon (Da-Nu Nam), and younger daughter Hana (Sein Jin). Sonny takes on a job hunting wild dogs in Canada while his kids must learn to find their place in a new world, all the while the entire family wrestles with profound loss.
Already, Mongrels has garnered two Canadian Screen Awards nominations and quietly earned the support of an international community of filmmakers and critics. Inspired by his past experiences growing up in British Columbia, Yoo’s film takes on a surreal, nostalgic quality while switching among the perspectives of a small Korean family as each member struggles with grief and alienation in the Canadian prairies.
Ahead of the Toronto premiere of Mongrels on May 31, Yoo spent time chatting to The Asian Cut over Zoom to discuss how he became a filmmaker, the nation-wide collaboration behind his debut feature, and the film’s reception by Korean audiences.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
The Asian Cut: I’ll start off with asking about your journey towards becoming a filmmaker. When did you know that this was the path for you?
Jerome Yoo: It was all an accident, to be honest. I took theatre for fun as an extracurricular during my college years at the University of British Columbia as I was studying the sciences, and I really fell in love with it. It felt like this safe space where I could really explore emotions. Growing up, that wasn’t really something that I was allowed. It’s not that there wasn’t permission, but, in the most typical way, my parents raised me to be strong, so any vulnerability wouldn’t be allowed. I thought that was quite interesting how being in a theatre space allowed me to be more in touch with myself, my emotions, my body. It felt very healing, so I really enjoyed that.
As I was doing some plays, I got found by an agent and that led me to auditions and a whole transition into film and TV from the theatre. On the side, when I had time in between auditions, I would start writing scripts a little bit, short stories especially.
I was meeting some really interesting directors and storytellers within the Vancouver Asian community, and I felt compelled to write a bit. There was this grant giver at the time, or they still exist today, as STORYHIVE, which is run by Telus. They gave out to the arts, and there was a short film edition. I got the grant for the script that I had written, but nobody around me wanted to direct it. I felt like I couldn’t because I never went to film school, and everything I knew was just about the craft of acting. I begged the close director friends that I had around me to direct it, and no one would because they couldn’t quite find their voice in it.
I ended up directing it, thinking that it would be the only film that I would ever direct. That obviously wasn’t true because I kept on going. Now I’ve really fully transitioned my focus into directing more so than acting.
TAC: Can you speak about the journey that this film Mongrels took to get from your head to the screen?
JY: At the end of 2019, I had just directed my second short film — actually, a third over the summer — and I was thinking about what my first feature film would look like. Telefilm Canada has a grant for first-time feature filmmakers called “Talent to Watch,” where they select first-time feature film director and producer duos all across Canada.
At first I didn’t really take it so seriously that I would be seriously submitting for this grant because I thought that I was just starting out on my filmmaking journey, and I was not experienced enough to really handle a feature film. Me and my good friend Lawrence Lam, who is another local film director — we’d been wanting to push ourselves to write our first feature scripts, so we used this program and deadline as a way to motivate ourselves to apply — both thinking that we’re probably not going to get it because we were looking at the past recipients of this program, and not only does Western Canada, like B.C., get fewer grants than the East and Toronto, but there wasn’t much diversity in looking at the recipients.
I knew that, because of how tight the deadline was, that the story had to be something very personal and from the heart because then I could write about it as quickly as possible from a place that is as honest as possible. I wanted to write about what I knew best — sort of a tribute to my family’s time in Canada. Of course, there’s layers to Mongrels, the story was not all true.
We got the grant, and I was really surprised. I received the grant on my birthday in 2020, during the middle of the pandemic, so it’s clear as day in my memory of just the exact day that I got it. I was kayaking. It was one of those things where I couldn’t believe it, but also, at the time, I was like, “Oh, I got it, so that means my friend must have not got it.” Because, again, it was the thing of thinking that only one of us might get it. But we both ended up getting it. Lawrence is also in post-production [currently] for his first feature film, The Chinatown Diner.
Because of the pandemic and the low budget, we couldn’t shoot until summer of 2022. Post-production took another year and a half after that because of us running out of budget and some other processes — we asked for a lot of favours during post-production, which meant that we got sidelined by a lot of our collaborative partners. We weren’t the priority in their schedule and our project would be worked on whenever they had time. But we had some really incredible collaborators, like Elemental Post, who did the colour and sound. They’re doing much bigger movies now. Marz out of Toronto is the visual effects company that worked on Mongrels that supported us. We had a lot of support from the community and other creative collaborators all across Canada. We managed to roll through the process, and now we’re on the festival circuit.
TAC: A very Canadian film then. With help from all across Canada. How was it directing your first feature? Were there certain challenges that you faced?
JY: I think reflecting back, it’s just about preparation. For short films, you usually get two or three days. If you have a long short film, maybe you shoot for a week, but you never really shoot more than that. As a feature length, I think it was just the sheer amount of pages in the script that you have to prepare for, not just yourself, but with the entire team. As the saying goes, a lot of on-set problems can be solved in pre-production if you have the foresight and the preparation to deal with it.
The sheer amount of work — going from 10 to 15 pages to 90 to 100 pages — I think is something that I reflect back as the biggest undertaking as a director transitioning into feature films from short films. I’ve always wanted to have more days as a short film maker. It always felt like every day was so much fun, so many exciting things happening. But then you take the three days and then you stretch it into a 20-day shoot, or a four-week shoot, and the exhaustion starts to get to you. It really is about endurance and stamina. Going through my first feature film, these are the things that were big lessons to me. From a directing standpoint, it’s really just about the preparation that you have to take, as well as taking into account your health and stamina, to make sure that you’re able to make the best decisions. Not for yourself, but for the team — to be able to take care of everybody. You have to be in the best condition possible so that you put out the best energy that you can.
TAC: While I was doing research, I noticed it was brought up that filmmakers are advised not to work with kids and animals, and yet you have both in your film. How was it managing all the added challenges to your first feature?
JY: Firstly, I was very naïve to not be thinking about the potential issues it could cause on set or just how difficult it might be for production to handle so many highly sensitive moving parts such as child actors or animals. I really have to applaud Sein Jin, who’s our child actor who plays the role of Hana. I thought that she was more professional and patient than many of the actors that I’ve worked with in the past, despite it being her first time acting. That really helped me focus on the other things that were necessary. I really got lucky there with her just being as mature as she was for her age and being really patient with me.
As for the dogs, we put a lot of time set-prepping them so that we could get the most of the behaviour and actions we needed from them on the day. As we shot, animal trainers and wranglers were preparing in their training facilities, essentially. I believe it was about three days of training. They sent us videos of the progress that was happening, and they were starting to feel quite confident about what we could execute.
But of course, when we actually get to set with 14 dogs on the biggest dog day, and it’s an open forest, a new environment, and there’s squirrels, there’s new sounds, there’s nature happening all around, then they’ll get distracted and not listen to anything that you want them to do. You need to plan for a lot of time with animals because they’re unpredictable, and you need a lot more patience. Somehow, we were able to make it through and have a complete film come out of it.
TAC: I noticed the changing aspect ratio and wanted to ask how you decided on the different aspect ratios?
JY: It was settled from the very beginning, as soon as I started scriptwriting. It fascinated me, this idea that I was gonna convey three different characters and three different perspectives. To cater to these unique trials, tribulations, and experiences, I thought it felt very fitting that I try to express a point of view and a “look” of their perceptions of the world through the three different aspect ratios.
The first aspect ratio, which reflects the father, it’s very suffocating. It’s very abrasive, you know? The second is a lot more stable, it’s a lot more open, but still, Hajoon, the son, he grew up in Korea before he made his way over. So he still has his father’s influence. So then I think the widescreen was very fitting for him. And then for Hannah she has the most open aspect ratio, because for her the world is still limitless and she still perceives it with a very naïve and innocent lens.
TAC: Without giving away any spoilers, what were some of the film references that you made to other works that we can look out for?
JY: I think for the structure, the biggest influence for me was Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. I was also very inspired by Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows as well as Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank and American Honey. I’m a big fan of Andrea Arnold, for being able to portray such raw characters in her films. Almost like portrait work. And then there’s folk tales that I was inspired by, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
TAC: That’s interesting! You’ve already received a lot of recognition internationally for this film. Is there anything that you’ve noticed about how the film is received by audiences in different countries?
JY: I think the one reaction that stood out to me more recently, or maybe I should say the most memorable, was the screening in Korea at the Jeonju International Film Festival. I think I was quite anxious about how the Korean audience would receive the film because most of the film is in the Korean language. As a Korean that grew up abroad, I think there’s a deep yearning inside of me that wants to be accepted. Because my Korean is also not fluent, I took a lot of time and a lot of care into making sure that the dialogue sounds and reads very authentically because I am reflecting a Korean family that just immigrated. I wanted to keep it as grounded and authentic as possible. Language is a big part of that because I myself as a Korean person, when I watch other films and see a lack of care given to the language, especially if they’re supposed to be a newly arrived immigrant and their Korean is just off, it takes me out of that world. It feels disingenuous to me.
It was quite amazing, actually, because I think the Korean audience responded to the film in an even bigger way than the Western audience did. They had maybe the strongest reaction so far in being able to relate to the emotions of the character rather than, shall I say, the story. I think these emotions sitting in these characters really resonated with them. That was quite a profound experience for me.
TAC: What are you excited to do next? Is there a story that you already have in mind to pursue or a genre that you’d like to try out?
JY: The horror genre is always very interesting to me, but I’m always drawn to folktales. I find mythologies from around the world are what kept me reading as a kid when everything else could not keep my attention. I’d like to follow that thread into my next projects. I’m currently working on adapting a graphic novel into a screenplay. It’s very much based in the Pacific Northwest, and there’s some intersection with the surreal as well as the mystical as well. So that’s the next project that I’m focused on.
