The director brings his keen eye for the macabre to Dr. Brain, which follows brain scientist Koh Sewon (Lee Sun-kyun) as he tries to solve several mysteries, including why his wife Jae-yi (Lee Yoo-young) is in a coma, by syncing his brain with the dead.
The brain-syncs give him the ability to see the memories of the recently deceased, as well as learn their skills, but his quest for answers comes with one consequence: He starts to have visions of the departed.
One person who features heavily in Sewon’s hallucinations is his wife Jae-yi, despite her only being in a coma, and at one point she is seen surrounded by a pool of blood and is drenched in it.
Lee Yoo-young spoke with Newsweek about what it was like to film the gory scenes, admitting she hadn’t expected to have to be submerged in a “marsh of blood.”
She reflected: “When I first read this script, I had no worries around how this [scene] was going to be shot, and when I went on set there was a huge pool of blood, like [a] marsh of blood, much bigger than I initially expected!
“The director wanted me to dive in completely submerge, and it’s not [a] kind of liquid, it’s more like jelly. It’s hard acting in water, but that jelly texture I think kind of escalated the horror within me.”
The actor went on to describe how she approached the scene, adding: “There was a scene where I kind of come out of that pool of blood, and I thought that in itself, all of the red, would be very strong and intense.
“So, I thought about how I wanted to express myself when I was coming out of that, and I felt that, because all of this is very intense, maybe my facial expression could be the complete opposite [of that], maybe it can be more kind of spiritless and dreamy.”
Embracing horror and using other genres in Dr. Brain
Director Kim also spoke with Newsweek about bringing horror themes into the six-part series, and he explained that he chose to do so because the show explored the “darkest parts of the mind.”
He explained: “Looking into other people’s brains meant you’re diving deep into the deepest, darkest [parts of] the mind of a human being, and since there were many suspicious, questionable deaths in this series you can see that a lot of tragic accidents come after one another.
“So that and the fact that a human brain is connected with the deepest, darkest secrets of a person inevitably gives off that horror vibe, in my opinion, and that’s why I wanted to highlight that horror element in the first episode in particular.
“However, what’s special about this series is that in each episode of the six-episode series, although I tried to maintain that mystery, thriller ambience, there’s a touch of different genres in each and every episode.
“For instance, [there is] suspense and crime, action, realism and so forth. So, since it’s a suspense thriller fundamentally, and since we’re trying to look into other people’s dark minds using their brains, there is that horror element, but I tried to highlight and add touches of different genres across the entire series.”
Kim added that he felt Dr. Brain is very much a “hybrid genre” because it includes so many elements from different film styles, saying: “I’m open to mixing different genres together and I think it went quite seamlessly.”
Dr. Brain concludes on Apple TV+ on Friday, December 10.
