Heo Pyeong-gang

Heo Pyeong-gang (허평강) took an unusual route into Korean feature animation by spending years inside the Japanese anime system before debuting a Korean original of her own. Korean coverage around Pilgrims describes a career built across storyboarding, animation, and direction, with credits connected to titles such as Detective Conan, Haikyu!! To The Top, and Japan Sinks: 2020. That background matters because it means she arrived with real production muscle, not just festival promise.

What makes her debut feature interesting is the mix of technique and restraint. In interviews around Pilgrims, Heo framed the project less as an effects showcase than as a story about choosing an imperfect world where love still exists. That emphasis tracks with the finished film's quieter visual language and its refusal to imitate louder franchise animation just to feel commercial.

Pilgrims also puts Heo inside a bigger Korean-animation conversation. The film adapts Kim Cho-yeop and was produced by 21Studios, which makes it a useful test case for how Korean literary IP, domestic feature animation, and theatrical ambition can actually meet on screen.