New Movie

For the *The Roundup* series, it didn't really matter who the director or screenwriter was; the core figures of the franchise were creator and lead actor Ma Dong-seok, followed by stunt coordinator Heo Myung-haeng.

As for Artist Entertainment, Lee Jung-jae and Ma Dong-seok were friends, but Yoon Yun-hui's manager had managed to secure an in through Heo Myung-haeng instead.

"Aren't you a bit too handsome?"

Heo Myung-haeng belonged to that category of bulky men with layers of muscle packed over softness, yet he possessed a baby face. His very first words upon meeting Yoon Yun-hui were that Yun-hui was simply too handsome, making him feel somewhat out of place in a cast entirely composed of rough-and-tumble muscle men.

"Did you actually star in that movie?"

"Yes."

"Hard to tell. Though I can see you've worked out those muscles nicely."

Heo Myung-haeng nodded, which essentially counted as his approval of Yun-hui's acting skills—or rather, approval of Yun-hui's physique.

They say moderate workouts attract the opposite sex, while excessive workouts attract the same sex. Yun-hui only smiled quietly: Why did he always end up meeting such strange people whenever he got cast in a film?

Director Lee Jung-kun of *Not Out* was an artistic guy with shoulder-length hair; stunt coordinator Heo Myung-haeng of *The Roundup* series was a baby-faced, muscle-bound bruiser.

"Yun-hui, you've served in the military, right? Which unit? Don't tell me it was the military band."

"Uh."

Yun-hui hadn't expected that coming in for a film audition wouldn't involve acting tests, but rather an interrogation about his military service.

"The Navy's SDT."

"Not bad."

Heo Myung-haeng's estimation of Yun-hui went up a notch. This kid probably had some real skills.

SDT stood for the Special Duty Team, the military police.

Unlike ordinary military police on guard duty, the SDT was the action arm of the military police and nominally possessed counter-terrorism combat capabilities.

It sounded impressive, but since Yun-hui had been in the Navy, and the Navy's SDT had a particularly short history—only about eight years old at the time—it was relatively soft compared to the others.

Real operations were out of the question; they mostly went around borrowing training grounds and exercises from sister units. While their black uniforms looked extremely sharp, their weapons and equipment were slightly abstract.

They didn't have much else, but bullets were in endless supply.

During his service, Yun-hui's mind had gone numb. He had practically experienced every conventional training program of the sister units:

He had sniped, parachuted, dived, practiced VIP security, hostage rescue, close-quarters combat, and night operations...

It felt like he had learned everything, yet felt like he knew nothing.

Even though he was in the Navy, he couldn't enjoy the food rations of warships and submarines, eating pretty much the exact same things as the Army.

The only upside was that it wasn't as perverted as the special forces, sparing him those unbearable, inhumane tortures.

"My team is all here today. What do you say, want to spar a bit? One of our guys is a veteran from your Navy Basic Military Education Corps, and he's currently in charge of water stunt coordination for our team."

Heo Myung-haeng's team was exceptionally professional. He was a student of the peninsula's finest stunt coordinator, whose mentor's masterpiece was *Taegukgi*.

"Sure."

Yun-hui agreed readily. He was merely filling in temporarily for a supporting role that hardly anyone else wanted to take—the original actor had been arrested for drunk driving, which made this audition remarkably simple.

As long as he passed the physical and action test, the production crew wanted him to join the filming as soon as possible.

The plot of *The Roundup 2* was related to Vietnam, and location shooting was originally supposed to take place there. However, traveling abroad was inconvenient now, so the production team could only send a second unit for background plates and finish the rest using green screens, forcing the entire production schedule to drag out.

Yun-hui followed the stunt coordinator Heo Myung-haeng to the gym in the back of the studio, where Heo called over the crew member he had just mentioned.

When the guy heard that Yun-hui came from the Navy SDT, he immediately broke into a knowing smile.

"What year did you discharge?"

"2018."

"Oh ho, put on your protective gear first. Discharged in 2018, you shouldn't have forgotten everything, right? You SDT guys are notorious for having too much training."

"Ha, training is all we had left."

Yun-hui couldn't quite keep a straight face. He had been directly assigned to that unit; it wasn't horribly bitter, but it was purely, exhausting-ly tiring.

After strapping on his gear, Yun-hui exchanged a few blows with the martial arts director. Movie fights weren't actual street brawls; as long as the hits landed in the right spots visually, it was fine. The stunt director clearly held back, treating it almost like child's play.

"OK, stop. I don't think you need any training, you can jump right in. Say, you know how to use a baton, right?"

"Definitely, that's part of our standard SDT training."

Yun-hui answered with effortless ease. A rough voice rang out from beneath the boxing ring:

"Good, this role is yours."

"Senior Ma Dong-seok."

Before he knew it, Ma Dong-seok's prominent, bulky figure had appeared by the edge of the ring, accompanied by a bearded man.

"Senior Son Suk-ku."

Recognizing the two men, Yun-hui hopped down from the ring and approached the seniors.

"You're the rookie from Jung-jae's company, right? You performed well. Get yourself to the set as soon as you're free."

Ma Dong-seok held American citizenship and didn't have as many entanglements on the peninsula. He had agreed to let this rookie appear purely as a favor to a friend, even though the kid hadn't come through Lee Jung-jae's direct channel, but had gone through the stunt coordinator instead.

Still, since this kid had sought out the stunt coordinator, he naturally had to have some fighting chops. Ma had happened to be discussing matters with Son Suk-ku and casually watched Yun-hui's audition.

"Thank you, Senior."

"Don't thank me yet. Let me lay out the shooting schedule for you. Your screen time isn't much; we'll wrap it all up in September, and you'll just come back at the very end to shoot the finale."

Ma Dong-seok had a major headache. Such a good movie had its overseas filming plans abruptly canceled, turning the production into a fragmented mess.

According to the original plan, most of the movie would have finished shooting in Vietnam during the first half of the year, allowing for a release next year.

With this kind of delay, aside from himself as the main creator who could stay anchored to the crew, almost every other actor had overlapping schedules.

Especially Son Suk-ku, who played the villainous boss. He had come over today precisely to discuss this issue with Ma Dong-seok.

Son Suk-ku originally had another movie scheduled for the second half of this year, and now he had also taken on a new tvN drama, pushing his schedule all the way into next year.

The good news was that Son Suk-ku was only making a special guest appearance in that tvN drama with very little screen time, but Son's other film starring alongside Jeon Jong-seo would require a solid three months of filming.

Yun-hui's situation was a breeze by comparison. Since he looked competent enough and could rescue the production from a pinch, they might as well throw him right into the fire.

"Understood, I can report to the set right now."

"Hey, someone go print the contract."

Ma Dong-seok didn't beat around the bush. How agonizing must this whole ordeal be, just look at how haggard a big tough guy like him had become.

Of course he was agonizing.

*The Roundup* series was financed by Ma Dong-seok himself, with the sole co-producer being the film subsidiary of the JA Ilbo Group.

Every single moment wasted translated directly to his own money going down the drain.

Even if it was just for the sake of money, when Ma Dong-seok needed to make a decisive call, he did so without hesitation. He couldn't care less whether a rookie actor like Yoon Yun-hui had overlapping schedules elsewhere.

Yun-hui signed the contract briskly. After all, this was the opportunity his manager, Miss Kim, had managed to dig up after agonizing for days; he had to respect Miss Kim's hard work.

That proved specialization really mattered.

From an ignored indie film male lead to a supporting role in a successful action franchise, the career development path Miss Kim had mapped out for Yun-hui was exceptionally neat.

He really owed Miss Kim a token of gratitude.

Did Miss Kim have a younger sister in middle school?

Yun-hui pondered for a moment and decided he should buy a comprehensive set of extracurricular workbooks as a gift for her later.