Romance Joe had been assistant director on starring top female actress Woo Joo-hyun. Soon after she commits suicide, he quits filmmaking and heads down to a small village in the countryside with the intention to take his own life. Just as he is about to commit suicide, Romance Joe meets a call girl/waitress from the local coffee shop and recalls memories of his first love through this encounter. A famous director named LEE comes down to the village to work on a new screenplay. He calls the waitress over to kill some time and hears the unique story and conclusion of Romance Joe’s love story. LEE is determined to adapt Romance Joe’s tale into a film, but things just keep unraveling in a strange direction.

I suddenly realized one day that so many of us, including myself, are saying and hearing about countless things in this life. Some of these conversations are definitely neccessary, but we tend to spend our time talking about pointless, meaningless things most of the time. We badmouth others for our personal satisfaction and create rumors based on false assumptions, which sometimes leads to the tragic suicide of a wounded soul. Like so, the world is filled with an endless variety of stories. There are even some that must create stories in order to make a living. So then why are we, as people, so dependent upon stories? What would happen if stories did not exist? These were the contemplations upon which I began the screenplay for < Romance Joe >.

The 16th Busan International Film Festival(2011)/Citizen Reviewers' Award Yellow Pin Tree