“Since we are for television, the viewers are more conservative,” said Kim. “We wanted to give it an edge of fantasy, make it less cruel.”

“When we first latched onto the concept, we were concerned about how, exactly, we should spray the blood,” he continued. “We focused on making it look pretty and not like a horror flick.”

“We did film sex scenes, but then we took them out because they didn’t work,” he said.

Quite frankly, however, even the toned-down version is far more hard-core than, say, KBS’ action-heavy period blockbuster, “The Slave Hunters.”

Computer graphics, or to be more accurate, the way that CGI has been used, seem to be playing a key role in giving “Yaksa” its allure.

“We wanted the concept of the action to be about power,” said Kim. “We wanted to do powerful action. We wanted the swords to cut through the bodies. You can’t do something like that on a major broadcasting network, but you can do it on cable.”

To achieve those effects, Kim revealed that they had to use swords that were only half their intended length, so that computer graphics could be used to create slicing and piercing effects later on.

“At first it was very awkward for us,” Kim said of using the half-swords.

“Yeah, we got this half sword, like, literally, half a sword,” Cho recalled when they started the four months of filming that ran from August to November last year. “We would use real swords for one take, then, we would have to do it again with half swords.”

He chuckled as he remembered what it was like.

“There were a lot of outtakes,” he said. “It was all so new to us, so when they called, ‘Cut!’ We would burst out laughing.”

“Yaksa” action director Baek Kyung-chan, who racked up critical experience working on “The Slave Hunters,” explained how time-consuming the process was.

“We had to film each choreographed sequence about three times,” Baek said.

Kim confirmed that, for episodes one to five alone, they used around 600 cuts worth of CGI, which, he also confirmed, is the approximate amount used on average for an entire film.

Still, Kim confirmed that production costs for “Yaksa,” which totaled a whopping 3 billion won ($2.7 million), were still cheaper than what it cost to make “Spartacus.”

Not only was “Yaksa” less expensive to make than “Spartacus,” it relied less on green-or-blue-screen technology than the C.G.I.-saturated hit.

“We filmed 80 percent of ours outside, on location, and did 20 to 30 percent on blue screen,” he said.

So, while “Yaksa” may not be peppered-to-bursting with green screen, it definitely has more than its fair share of “real” action.

According to action director Baek, Cho did almost all of his own stunts, a challenge that left him close to blinded at one point.

“Physically it was incredibly difficult,” Cho said, flexing his rough, large fists, which still looked battered and bruised despite the fact that approximately two months had passed since filming wrapped up.

“I felt like I got more of a thrill out of using my bare hands to fight than when I wielded a sword.”

According to Cho, at one point he and a fellow action actor actually started to duke it out while filming.

Afterwards Cho said his forearms were so bruised that he could barely prop them up.

“We tailored the action for Cho’s character, for instance, to make his fighting style heavy and rough,” explained Baek, who recalled the incident with a bit, it seems, of good-natured humor.

For Cho the action presented a new challenge. Though he had starred in four films and six TV dramas before he did “Yaksa,” he had never done an action or a period piece before.

“I think I watched ‘Spartacus’ three times to check out the action because you just can’t get that kind of action in Korean dramas,” the 33-year old said.

Looking like he got a kick out of the experience ― though he admitted to wanting to throw in the towel numerous times ― he hinted at the gore to come by saying, “This is just the beginning.”

“Lots of people die and I kill most of them. I kill them all. But the ultimate action to end all action comes in the final episode.”

By Jean Oh (oh_jean@heraldcorp.com)