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Omniscient Reader: The Prophet has been gaining attention online for its exciting storyline, where a fictional world becomes reality. While most viewers had positive reactions to the movie, some fans criticized one major change — BLACKPINK’s Jisoo, who plays the character Lee Ji Hye, was shown using a gun instead of her iconic knife from the original webtoon. On June 17, director Kim Byung Woo explained why this change was made, during a production briefing reported by Maeil Business Newspaper.
Why Jisoo’s character was changed in the movie
At the movie’s production event, the director joined the main cast, including Ahn Hyo Seop, Lee Min Ho, Chae Soo Bin, Shin Seung Ho, and Nana. Although Jisoo couldn’t attend, possibly due to her music commitments, her character was still a big part of the conversation.
Director Kim spoke openly about the backlash. He said it was difficult to include all the original webtoon characters in a movie that lasts only two hours. Lee Ji Hye’s appearance in the movie doesn’t match the same point in the story as the webtoon. Still, he wanted to give her an important moment to shine, even though she wasn’t one of the main fighters in this part of the plot.
He added, “I made this decision after thinking deeply about how to make her character stand out in the most dramatic way.” He knew fans of the webtoon might prefer the original knife, but he hoped they would understand the reason once they watched the movie.
The choice to give Lee Ji Hye a gun instead of a knife was not random. It was done to help balance the many characters in a short movie runtime and to give each of them a unique and strong presence. The director believed the change would highlight Lee Ji Hye in a powerful way, especially at a key moment in the story.
In short, while the movie did make changes from the webtoon, they were made thoughtfully — with the goal of making the characters shine in a limited amount of time.