Stress, Jihoon always believed, was never created by a certain events themselves, it was born from the reactions one carried toward them.
Life could throw a storm in your path, but whether you chose to stand in the downpour, build a shelter and look at the rainy day, or simply walk away, can determined how heavy that storm became.
Yet in moments like this, standing across from Jim Gianopulos in the quiet of the hotel room, Jihoon found that philosophy harder to hold on to.
Jim's words had flown past his ears like fragments of warning bells.
He had caught them, understood their weight, but they left his heart feeling heavy, as though stones had been placed upon it.
The complications surrounding Cannes this year were not just about cinema.
They carried undertones of politics, ideology, and power currents that Jihoon had little desire to swim in.
"Jim," Jihoon asked carefully, his voice steady but laced with unease, "do you know why this is happening?"
Jim sighed, a sound heavy enough to carry its own message. "It's a long story, but is better you don't know," he said, shaking his head.
"It's not a matter we can intervene in. Lee.. we're just filmmakers. That's where our focus should stay. Let the rest play out on its own."
But that answer did little to ease Jihoon's mind. His brows furrowed, and silence stretched in the room.
Jim's attempt at reassurance only confirmed Jihoon's suspicion: things were more complicated than anyone wanted to admit.
The outcome of this festival, Jihoon realized, was heading in a direction he had half expected—toward the use of filmmakers like him, and even Jiangwen, as pawns in a game much larger than cinema.
If the tug-of-war between nations demanded sacrifices, who better to discard than artists?
They were influential enough to be useful, yet expendable enough to be silenced.
So Jihoon asked the question he truly wanted answered, his words carefully phrased but sharpened with intent. "Jim… is this going to affect the film? Or us?"
It was a simple sentence, but Jim knew exactly what he meant.
Jihoon wasn't only asking aboutthe film 'Buried' or Fox and JH; he was asking whether he himself—his name, his career, his reputation—would be dragged into this ideological battlefield.
Jim's response was hesitant. He shook his head once, then nodded slightly, leaving Jihoon momentarily confused.
But before Jihoon could press, Jim clarified.
"I'm not sure," Jim admitted. "According to my contacts, the fight has nothing to do with us directly."
"What's happening here goes beyond the film industry."
"It stretches across every media platform—television, publishing, news outlets. Even the internet. They're not just fighting for box office returns. They're fighting for cultural dominance, for who gets to set the narrative. We…"
Jim paused, searching for the right words, "we're just caught in the crossfire, a kind of replication of that struggle."
Jihoon's frown deepened. He understood.
All of it echoed what he had seen in his other life, years later: lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
He remembered how nations tried to rein in platforms that operated independently of political oversight. Governments could not afford to let uncontrolled voices carry influence across borders.
Back in those days, lawsuits had been the leash—forcing tech companies to comply, or at least to yield.
But in this moment, in 2008, social media had not yet become the giant it would grow into.
The battleground was different.
Film and traditional media still held the world's attention.
Cinema wasn't just art; it was propaganda, persuasion, and the most elegant form of storytelling that could sway millions.
Jihoon thought of how simple it was to disguise ideology in a script.
A film about freedom could easily be framed as an ode to the "essence of American values."
A story about communism, portrayed as old and rigid, could quietly erode sympathy for China's worldview.
Behind the red carpets and golden statuettes, films were carrying banners—sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt—into the theater of global politics.
And the leaders at the top of the global hierarchy, Jihoon knew, never liked rivals climbing the ladder.
If this tug-of-war was about media influence, then yes, cinema was the flag bearer of the moment.
He rubbed his temples, the veins in his hand tense. Then he asked the question that had been gnawing at him since the conversation began. "Do you think… we should pull out of Cannes this year?"
The words hung in the air, heavy with consequence.
Jim didn't answer immediately. He seemed lost in contemplation himself, pacing slightly, weighing possibilities.
He was a businessman as much as a producer, and Jihoon could sense the calculations unfolding behind Jim steady gaze.
Becaue to jim, on one hand, pulling out would make sense.
If the festival became a battlefield of ideologies, why risk Jihoon's rising star?
Why expose him to crossfire?
Jihoon was a money tree—Fox's prized asset, a talent they could not afford to lose or tarnish with scandal.
From that perspective, retreat was the logical move.
Yet, on the other hand, Jim had gathered whispers from his network, contacts who seemed better informed about the situation than most.
According to what he'd heard, 'Buried'—despite its claustrophobic critique of war and intervention—was not the target of political ire.
To Jim's surprise, military veterans had not condemned the film.
If anything, some even appreciated how it shed light on truths civilians rarely saw.
It wasn't an attack on America's core values like independence or freedom.
It wasn't crafted to undermine national identity.
Another film, 'Che', had taken that role instead.
Its themes had drawn the spotlight of controversy, clashing directly with American ideals.
That was the film under scrutiny, the one being weaponized in this struggle.
Jihoon and 'Buried' were, for the moment, out of the line of fire.
Finally, Jim exhaled and gave his answer. "No," he said firmly. "We don't need to pull out. I can't be certain of every detail, but from what I've gathered, we're not on the list of targets."
"So we keep moving forward. We carry on with business as usual."
Jihoon listened, but the weight on his chest didn't lift.
He understood Jim's reasoning.
'Buried' wasn't a political pamphlet.
It was a thriller—a coffin, a man, a phone, a desperate countdown.
Its horror was existential, not ideological. It didn't dismantle America's self-image.
But Jihoon also knew that the line between art and politics was porous.
A film didn't need to be intended as a weapon to be used as one.
Narratives were malleable, and if a government wanted to bend one into propaganda, they could.
That thought left him uneasy.
Still, Jim's logic held: neither the red faction nor the blue faction seemed interested in 'Buried' as a tool.
For now, Jihoon could breathe.
But the storm clouds in his mind refused to clear.
Jim noticed the tension in Jihoon's face, the way his shoulders seemed to carry invisible weight.
He walked over, placed a steady hand on Jihoon's shoulder, and spoke in a calm, fatherly tone.
"Don't hustle yourself over this. Like I said, we're not relevant in this fight."
"And even if we were, there's nothing we could do to change it. Focus on the work you can control—the ceremony, the film, the audience. Let the rest sort itself out."
The words carried both reassurance and pragmatism.
Jihoon let out a quiet breath.
He didn't fully believe the storm would pass them by, but he understood the wisdom in Jim's advice.
Worrying wouldn't alter the tide.
Jim straightened his jacket as he made his way toward the door, his movements deliberate and unhurried.
Jihoon rose as well, following him out, the soft shuffle of their footsteps breaking the quiet hum of the hotel room. The hallway light spilled in for just a moment as Jim stepped past the threshold.
With a courteous nod, Jihoon sent him off. The door closed behind his mentor, and suddenly, the silence was complete again.
Jihoon lingered by the door for a beat, his hand resting lightly against the knob.
Then, almost instinctively, he let out a quiet, wry laugh—a sound meant more for himself than anyone else.
The irony was bitter but undeniable. In both this life and the one before, he had always told himself the same thing: stay away from political films.
Stay away from the kind of films that could be twisted, dissected, and weaponized. He had made that promise like someone repeating a mantra. And yet, here he was, brushing right up against the edge of that very boundary.
It reminded him of a child staring at a red button, told firmly, "Don't press it." The warning only deepened the temptation.
Pressing it wasn't about rebellion—it was about curiosity, about testing limits, about finding out what lay on the other side of the line everyone else was too afraid to cross.
No one could have predicted that 'Buried', an anti-war thriller dressed in the skin of a survival story, would stir such complicated ripples.
It wasn't even propaganda; it wasn't a manifesto.
At its core, it was about fear, about humanity in the face of hopeless odds. Yet somehow, even that had been enough to touch nerves in places Jihoon had never intended.
And so, here he was: standing in the middle of a gilded hotel suite, caught between triumph and dread. Only time would reveal the damage it might bring. Perhaps at the award ceremony, he would finally understand the true weight of the repercussions.
Even then, Jihoon wasn't sure whether he had chosen his reaction, or if the reaction had already been chosen for him.