Netflix’s ‘The Blue Road’ Director Han Jun-hee on Why Playing It Safe Is the Real Risk

When Han Jun-hee binge-watched “House of Cards,” the series struck him as a game changer. It left him with one ambition: to make a story no one had told before, but that many people would watch. Delivering a masterclass at Netflix’s Creative Asia program during the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the director of “Coin […] At Netflix’s Creative Asia masterclass in Busan, the ‘D.P.’ director explained how genre makes niche stories work and why bold choices matter. When Han Jun-hee binge-watched “House of Cards,” the series struck him as a game changer. It left him with one ambition: to make a story no one had told before, but that many people would watch.

Delivering a masterclass at Netflix’s Creative Asia program during the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the director of “Coin Locker Girl” and military drama “D.P.” spoke in conversation with Kim Kijae, a longtime creative executive at Netflix Korea. The session came ahead of the Nov. 20 Netflix release of his Korea-Japan thriller “The Blue Road.” “I think you need to make bold choices so that the story is interesting,” Han told the audience. “In Korea we call those gambles ‘go or stop.’ If you only make extremely safe choices, those