My very first short film. Where I cut my teeth. I took some writing classes with a professor who had worked in the industry for years and with some well-known directors. Thank god I took that class, because her approach was simple and practical—it gave me a place to start. I wasn’t aiming to write something huge. I wrote a Korean-American gangster short that I thought would just be cool to see on screen. No budget, no crew—just something contained that I could shoot in my apartment’s game room over a couple of nights. I based the characters loosely on people I grew up with, and the story just started to take shape.

One of my favorite crime films is Heat, with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. If you’ve seen it, you probably remember the diner scene where they sit across from each other for the first time. That was a big inspiration for me. Two people. One location. Sounds simple, but it’s not. I cast two great actors, Hayden Won (Boss Park) and Kang Kim (Boss James), and that decision alone shaped so much of what came next. I didn’t know it at the time, but making this short would change the course of my life.

Did I know what I was doing? Not really. I had a basic foundation from school, but in truth, I was winging it. The script was too long, my planning wasn’t great, and I didn’t always have the right people in place. But none of that mattered as much as just trying. I didn’t have expectations—I just wanted to see it through.

There were plenty of ups and downs, but that project taught me more than any class ever could. Mainly: surround yourself with the right people. Trust is earned, and collaboration is everything. The film itself was rough and that’s okay, it’s a never ending pursuit. What I gained—the friendships, the lessons, the growth—that’s what really mattered. That process shaped everything I’ve done since.

This one holds a special spot in my journey as a film maker, Not for the reasons you might expect but on a real personal level that really showed me that everything does happen for a reason. And that it can happen in the most unexpected ways. I’ve never told this story to anyone besides a few people close to me. I lost my best friend James Kang in 2006 under some shady circumstances. After that, I pretty much kept people at a distance, maybe that was my way of coping or just not wanting to get too close. Anyway, I wrote the main character with him in mind. I didn't tell this to Kang Kim our lead who plays that character until we were done with the shoot. I only brought it up because he asked if I had based it on anyone. I told him and showed him a picture of James, he was immediately taken back by it because he knew James through other channels, heard about what happened to him and life went on. Then years later we meet to do this random short film together and probably would have never met otherwise. Life will always be crazier than anything you can write up…