Kwon Hae-hyo in 'The Ugly' Wow Point Filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho is known for directing some of South Korea's biggest commercial hits of screens large and small, such as the zombie blockbuster Train to Busan (a $140 million box-office smash), or breakthrough Netflix series like Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey. But the director's most recent feature, The Ugly, was made for a mere $160,000. A miraculous feat of independent filmmaking amid Korea's increasingly hyper-commercialized entertainment sector, the period thriller nonetheless has all of the gloss and production prowess of a midbudget studio feature. Yeon fully self-financed the film, which he also wrote, through his production outfit Wow Point, ensuring total creative control. He paid his small but distinguished cast - including stars and industry veterans Park Jeong-min (Uprising), Kwon Hae-hyo (Peninsula) and Shin Hyun-been (Revelations) - a modest day rate, while promising them a share of backend profits. Similar arrangements were made with the skeleton crew and award-winning department heads. Leading local studio Plus M Entertainment later boarded as distributor and international sales agent. Financial details remain undisclosed, but international presales moved briskly at film markets over the past year, suggesting Yeon and his collaborators have likely already made a tidy return. Related Stories Movies TIFF Flashback: Newbie Keanu Reeves Was 'The Prince' of Toronto Lifestyle 'Tilda Swinton - Ongoing': Amsterdam Eye Exhibition Gets Colorful Teaser (Exclusive) The Ugly will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9, followed by commercial releases in South Korea on Sept. 11 and the U.S. on Sept. 26. Korean media outlets have hailed The Ugly's production approach as a potential creative solution to the skyrocketing actor fees and production costs that have plagued the local film industry in recent years, as swelling K-content slates at Netflix and Disney+ continue to drive up the cost of talent. Yeon has similarly urged fellow Korean creatives to experiment with financing and production structures. A haunting thriller that weaves mystery with social critique, The Ugly follows Im Dong-hwan, a man who learns that the remains of his mother, Jung Young-hee - who vanished 40 years earlier - have been unearthed in a forest. Teaming with a TV journalist, he investigates her past as a garment factory worker in 1970s Seoul, only to find that her former colleagues recall her merely as an especially "ugly" woman they would rather forget. Dong-hwan also begins to suspect that his father, Yeong-gyu - a blind man who overcame his disability to raise him and become a master artisan - may be guarding secrets of his own. What begins as a family mystery gradually opens onto broader questions of social resentment, morality and the enduring trauma of history. Ahead of this year's Busan International Film Festival - where Plus M will be selling The Ugly at the Asian Contents & Film Market, and Showbox will be selling Yeon's upcoming zombie thriller Colony - The Hollywood Reporter connected with Yeon via Zoom in Seoul to discuss the layered meanings of The Ugly and the bold microbudget experiment that brought it to life.(Warning: Spoilers for The Ugly follow.) I understand The Ugly is a project you've been working on and thinking about for a very long time. How did it begin? I wrote the script around the time when I did The Fake (2013). I wanted to tell a story about generational differences. My father's generation in Korea was focused so heavily on achievement and economic development. My generation came after that and everything was changed for us. The main character [in The Ugly], Im Yeong-gyoo, overcomes obstacles in a very dramatic way, and he's almost a symbol for Korea's modern development. As a counterpoint, I created the character Jung Young-hee to explore who and what was erased during this period of miraculous growth. The camera avoids showing Young-hee's face throughout the entire film until the very last shot, where you reveal a photo of her. But the face we see isn't the actress TKTK who plays her. How did you come up with that image you use to represent her? I found it almost heartbreaking in its frank ordinariness. I wanted a face that could be anybody's but also nobody's, representing that entire generation of Korean society. The final reveal is almost documentary-like, and I wanted it to extend the film's world into our reality. Everyone will be naturally curious about just how "ugly" she is, but the experience of ugliness is a very subjective thing. Most importantly, she is a deeply just character, and her relentless sense of justice makes those around her very uncomfortable. I wanted to pose the question: Is it really her face that's ugly, or the corruption of those who scorn her? To me, she symbolizes a kind of "discomforting justice." Shin Hyun-been as Jung Young-hee, the murdered and mistreated moral center of 'The U