Writer Kang Full expressed his satisfaction with the drama ‘The Lighting Store’.

On the afternoon of the 24th, at a cafe in Jongno-gu, Seoul, writer Kang Full of the Disney+ series ‘The Lighting Store’ met with Donga.com for an interview and talked about the work.

On this day, writer Kang Full first talked about the response to ‘The Lighting Store’, saying, “It‘s an unfamiliar genre. I think horror is suitable for movies. I felt that way even more as I wrote. The identity is revealed and unraveled. 8 episodes is not too many, but it’s not too few. The strategy was to have horror in the beginning and human drama in the end. I was worried if the viewers would follow along well. I thought the story would start in episode 5 after episode 4 ended. As a writer, I was constantly anxious. I wondered if there would be a reaction, and every time that happened, I told myself to trust and go for it. The response is better than I thought. As it went on, I thought it was a good decision because the viewers liked it more and more,” he said.

Regarding the time when he decided to dramatize ‘The Lighting Store’, writer Kang Full said, “After finishing ‘Moving’, I decided while filming that if I were to write a drama again, I would write it as ‘The Lighting Store’. However, ‘Moving’ hadn’t even been open until the casting for ‘The Lighting Store’. I vaguely wanted to do ‘The Lighting Store’, but ‘Moving’ was loved and that gave me strength.”



He added, “I wonder if I could have insisted on doing this if ‘Moving’ hadn’t been successful. It helped me a lot in terms of the overall structure. I was a rookie writer for ‘Moving’, but I was able to adapt a bit after writing 20 episodes. At first, I wrote heavily. I wrote like a storyboard, but I realized that I didn‘t have to do that the second time. But it was just as hard,” he said.

Kang Full also said about the differences between serializing webtoons and writing drama scripts, “There are definitely pros and cons. Webtoons are easy on the mind. You can do whatever you want because you can fail alone, but it’s physically hard. The deadlines are tight from writing to editing. Dramas are a bit easier on the body. But the burden is much greater. With comics, I just work with the assistants, but I take responsibility. But with dramas, there are a lot of people who are involved with the production team and here. The script is the starting point of the work, so if my judgment is wrong, I feel a lot of pressure. Another advantage that cannot be ignored is that dramas have great directors, actors, and staff, so the limits of imagination are released. He explained, “Although the burden is great, your imagination becomes free.”

Meanwhile, ‘The Lighting Store’, which was first released on the 4th, tells the story of customers with suspicious secrets visiting the ‘The Lighting Store’, the only place that lights up the end of a dark alley. Four episodes were released on the 4th, and two episodes were released every week for the next two weeks, presenting all eight episodes.

It is the fifth work in writer Kang Full’s ‘Mystery Psychological Slurp’ series and is based on the webtoon of the same name ‘The Lighting Store’, which has surpassed 150 million cumulative views.

Reporter Choi Yoon-na, Donga.com yyynnn@donga.com