A recent true story is the inspiration for My Father, whose premise at first glance threatens to be yet another occasion to wallow in syrupy melodrama. Daniel Henney (cue the screaming teenage schoolgirls), a Korean-American star who first made his name in the Korean television series My Name Is Kim Sam-soon, is James, an adoptee in America who travels to Korea (as an army soldier, for reasons that are a little fuzzy) to search for his birth parents. He appears on a television program with other orphans searching for their parents. He soon finds out his mother is dead and that his father (Kim Yong-chul) is on death row for murder. The rest of the film depicts his discovery of his father’s and his own past, the deceased mother an elusive ghost only seen in flashbacks and eventually a photo. James goes through the usual identity struggles and connects with his Korean heritage by discovering his Korean name (Gong Eun-chul), learning Korean to communicate with his father, and befriending a fellow Korean soldier (Kim In-kwon). The premise is unpromising, and the film has a few flaws, the most serious being, unfortunately, the limited acting ability of its star. Henney has an easygoing, affable persona that has considerable appeal, but when he is called upon to perform very emotional scenes, this still remains a bit beyond his ability. Also, the depictions of the ugly American GIs are crudely over the top, and a cheap attempt to give James an easy foil. However, the acting deficit on Henney’s part is more than made up for by Kim Young-chul’s turn as the condemned father. Kim provides a compelling gravitas and sense of tragedy and quite effectively conveys the shifting nature of his character, as we find out that he is not all he seems to be. Hwang’s script deftly avoids the myriad pitfalls inherent in this material with a smart script that takes unexpected turns, as the full situation is gradually and surprisingly revealed, overall making this a strong film. The film’s end credits feature documentary footage of the actual adoptee whose story inspired the film (a device, incidentally, also employed in Forever the Moment). (Aug. 23, 29)
Spare (Lee Seung-han)
This is a down-and-dirty, and, as per its title, spare action flick inspired by Hong Kong gangster films, as is the similarly minded City of Violence, Ryu Seung-wan’s last film. The opening is quite promising, featuring an elegant gliding shot through a set of corridors and Japanese-style sliding doors, set to an ominous soundtrack of booming drums. The film mostly follows Gwang-tae (Lim Joon-il) who owes a lot of money to loan shark Myung-soo (Kim Su-hyeon). Gwang-tae is sought after by Sato (Mitsuki Koga), a yakuza who offers to pay him an astronomical sum to be a kidney donor for his ailing boss, since Gwang-tae has the rare blood type necessary for a successful transplant. Gwang-tae eagerly agrees, since this will cancel his debt. However, his friend Gil-do (Jeong-woo), promising to be a middleman to deliver the money to Myung-soo, instead steals the money and uses it to fuel his raging gambling addiction. This provides the occasion, or should I say excuse, for the exciting “100 percent real action” the film’s promotional material promises, making pains to point out the film’s lack of CGI effects. Those expecting something similar to Ryu’s City of Violence will be sorely disappointed, although both films share two actors (Lim Joon-il and Jung Woo) and a cinematographer (Kim Yeong-chol). Unlike Ryu’s film, which enlivened its standard scenario with impressively staged and brilliantly choreographed fight sequences, Lee’s film has surprisingly few fight scenes, and the ones it does have are ineptly edited and staged, most notably a seemingly endless scene in which Gwang-tae and Sato fight a rival gang in a parking garage, which is awkwardly cross-cut with action elsewhere. The film strenuously attempts to distract us from the woefully underdeveloped story with gimmicky visual tricks and an odd device of snarky off-screen audience members which completely falls flat. The cruddy digital video with which the film is shot adds to the cheap, throwaway feel. (Aug. 24, 25)
Going by the Book (Ra Hee-chan)
Going by the Book, scripted by director, screenwriter and playwright Jang Jin (Guns and Talks, Someone Special, Murder, Take One), is a sly, sharply observed comedy that exhibits the patented humor of Jang’s other films. Jung Jae-young, a frequent star of Jang Jin’s own films, plays Do-man, a traffic cop in the small town of Sampo who is a strict stickler for procedure, a character trait that fuels the film’s humor. Do-man used to be a detective, but ran afoul of certain higher-ups, and was consequently demoted to traffic cop, a duty which he performs with the same enthusiastic gusto and heightened sense of justice as he did in his previous position. A new police chief (Son Byung-ho) comes to town, and Do-man greets him by giving him a traffic ticket for making an illegal left turn. Sampo has recently been plagued by a spate of bank robberies, and the chief decides to respond to this by staging a simulation of a bank robbery for training purposes, and he drafts Do-man to play the robber. Hilariously, this turns out to be a grave error on the chief’s part, as Do-man plays his role to the hilt, giving the exercise much more realism than anyone involved bargained for. This farcical premise is injected with rather barbed satire directed toward authority figures, police procedure, and rapacious media. Jung delivers a funny, remarkably nuanced performance, conveying intriguing shadings to his character, all throughout maintaining a deadpan Buster Keaton-like persona. The excellent supporting cast, especially Lee Young-eun as the young female bank-teller, also impresses here. The style of Going By the Book is practically indistinguishable from that of screenwriter Jang Jin’s own films, and very little of the director’s own personality comes through here, making Ra little more than an interpreter of Jang’s vision. Ra has said as much in interviews, confirming the obvious fact that notwithstanding the actual director who has signed his name, Jang Jin is in fact the true auteur of this film. (Aug. 23, 25, 30)
The 2008 New York Korean Film Festival, screening from August 22 to August 31 at Cinema Village and BAM Cinematek, is a mixed bag, much like Korean cinema in general these days. These are tough times, both creatively and financially. According to a recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter, the lowest point this year came this past May, when Korean films accounted for just 7.8% of the box office, the lowest since records began being kept in 2000. This is far from the heights of the so-called “Korean wave” just a few short years ago. Things are turning around, thanks to two recent hits: Kang Woo-suk’s Public Enemy Returns, the third installment featuring Sol Kyung-gu in the lead role; and The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, Kim Jee-woon’s mega-budgeted “kimchi Western” which is on track to perhaps be this year’s biggest hit. Whether the industry can build on these successes to become truly profitable once again is anyone’s guess. To be continued, as they say. However, there are still some interesting films being made, and a few gems here and there, as is borne out by this year’s films, the most impressive so far being the Jung Brothers' historical Gothic tale Epitaph, which I reviewed here when it screened earlier this year at New Directors/New Films. Below are reviews of some of this year's selections.
Once Upon a Time (Jeong Yong-gi)
Once Upon a Time, like Epitaph, is set during the Japanese occupation of Korea, in this case, the very late stages of this period, just before Japan’s surrender and Korea’s concomitant liberation. However, Jeong utilizes a strikingly different strategy in representing this historical time, trading the somber, moody scariness of Epitaph for lively, lighthearted adventure and derring-do that takes more than a few cues from the Indiana Jones films. Much like that 1940’s adventure serial-inspired series, Once Upon a Time revolves around a treasure coveted by the film’s characters, in this case “The Light of the East,” a large diamond that was a legendary relic of the Silla Dynasty, doggedly sought after by a Japanese general (Kim Eung-soo) who wishes to bring it back to Japan as a colonial prize. The general’s quest is complicated by Bong-gu (Park Yong-woo), also known as Kanemura, a conman and master thief who trades in stolen jewels and other treasures on the black market. Bong-gu schemes to steal this diamond, as it will be his biggest game as a treasure hunter. However, a mysterious masked serial thief, known as “Haedanghwa,” gets there before him and swipes the diamond. A major player in this caper is Choon-ja (Lee Bo-young), also known as Haruko, a sexy nightclub singer who is not all she seems. Throw in a pair of hapless resistance fighters and you have the ingredients for breezy, fairly uncomplicated entertainment. However, some elements unique to the historical period of the film carry deeper resonances. For example, there is the suppression of Korean culture by the Japanese, represented here by the Korean taegukgi flag furtively hidden from the authorities and the taking of Japanese names by major characters, which was historically forced on the populace (even though it is treated much more lightly here). The sign outside the nightclub where much of the film is set reads “Koreans and Dogs Not Allowed.” Also, a scene late in the film shows Japanese soldiers gunning down civilians indiscriminately in the street. The film doesn’t dwell on these details too much, concentrating more on action, humor, and the flirtation between Bong-gu and Choon-ja. Once Upon a Time is diverting, unpretentious entertainment with the curiously strong flavor of Hollywood films of the same period, down to the ending which has distinct echoes of The Maltese Falcon. “The stuff that dreams are made of,” indeed. (Aug. 28, 29)
May 18 (Kim Ji-hoon)
Another evocation of Korean history, this time of a more recent period, is provided by May 18, a major hit in Korea last summer. The titular date occurred in 1980, in a tragic incident in which thousands of students and other civilians in Kwangju were massacred by General Chun Doo-hwan’s forces, as the military carried out a virtual civil war against its own populace. The film drops us directly into this situation, with no explanation or background given about the student movement that grew as a result of the brief window of democracy provided by the assassination of President Park Chung-hee the previous year, as well as Chun’s quest to graduate from the head of the military to the country’s new ruler. For Korean audiences familiar with this history, such explanation is unnecessary. For foreign audiences, this will be confusing – a brief trip to a bookstore or library’s Korean history section, or, at the very least, a quick Wikipedia search is recommended before viewing. The historical macrocosm serves as a backdrop to the rather crudely sentimental story of cab driver Min-woo (Kim Sang-kyung, from Turning Gate and Memories of Murder), working to put his younger brother Jin-woo (Lee Yoon-ki, The King and the Clown) through law school. Min-woo tries to set his brother up with Shin-ae (Lee Yo-won, Take Care of My Cat, When Romance Meets Destiny), a pretty nurse at the local hospital, although Min-woo is obviously the one in love with her, always arranging to meet with her under the cover of concern for his studious brother’s lack of a social life. Shin-ae’s father Heung-su (Ahn Sung-ki), a former Special Forces commander, gets wind of the military’s plans to brutally crush the antigovernment protests, and tries to use his influence to stop them, but to no avail. The military occupation soon arrives, a nuclear bomb dropped upon the lives of the film’s characters, as the soldiers beat and shoot people indiscriminately, and the media parrots the government propaganda depicting the entire populace of Kwangju as communist rebels. The first half of the film alternates between crude humor and the budding romance between Min-woo and Shin-ae. After the bloody, brutal suppression by the military, and the civilians’ resistance, led by Heung-su, the film unnecessarily attempts to wring even more tears and emotion from the situation by relentlessly underlining the violent impact of these events on the film’s characters. As significant as the film is, being the first major feature to directly take on the subject of the Kwangju massacre, restraint, subtlety, and nuance are apparently words that don’t exist in the vocabularies of director Kim or screenwriter Na Hyeon, at least as far as this film is concerned. The only thing that prevents May 18 from completely drowning in its soap opera theatrics, which are extreme even by Korean standards, are the appealing performances by its cast, which partially temper the sentimentality. There is a great film yet to be made about this event, but sadly, this isn’t it. For a truly great film that touches on this tragedy, I refer you to Lee Chang-dong’s 1999 masterwork Peppermint Candy. (Aug. 24, 27, 31)
Forever the Moment (Yim Soon-rye)
May 18 screenwriter Na Hyeon also penned the script for this film, also based on a true story. Director Yim Soon-rye's previous films Three Friends and Waikiki Brothers were excellent, sensitively directed character studies that established Yim as one of Korea’s best directors. She is also one of the very few working woman directors in Korea. In sharp contrast to the overwrought schmaltz of May 18, Forever the Moment is infinitely more successful in rendering recent events with sentiment that is truly earned. The film tells the story of the Korean women’s handball team who competed at the 2004 Athens Olympics. It goes far beyond the typical sports-film clichés with beautifully written characters given life by the wonderful quartet of actresses featured here – Moon So-ri (Oasis, A Good Lawyer’s Wife, Family Ties), Kim Jeong-eun (Marrying the Mafia, Blossom Again), Cho Eun-ji (The President’s Last Bang, Driving with My Wife’s Lover), and Kim Ji-young (Innocent Steps, Old Miss Diary). As in her previous films, Yim focuses closely on the vicissitudes of her characters, in this case privileging this over the mechanics and process of the sport that is the presumed subject. At the outset, Mi-sook (Moon So-ri), despite having been part of a team that won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, has come upon financially rough times. Her husband is basically absent from the family, cheated by a former business partner and on the run from loan sharks, leaving Mi-sook to raise her son alone, and forcing her to take a rather humiliating job at a supermarket, barking out the produce specials of the day. Her former teammate Hye-kyung (Kim Jeung-eun) has had a far more successful career coaching in Japan. She is brought back to Korea by the team owner, who drafts her to coach a team that can win gold again at the Olympics. She persuades the reluctant Mi-sook, unwilling to return to a sport which has done very little for her financially, to return to the team. However, Hye-kyung has a rough time getting the team into shape, mostly due to internal conflict between the older star players and the jealous younger upstarts. Her perceived lack of satisfactory progress prompts the owners to replace her with Seung-pil (Eom Tae-woong), a hard-assed male coach who seeks to whip the team into shape using methods learned from European coaches, with strict training regimens and diet supervision. Seung-pil also happens to be Hye-kyung’s ex-boyfriend; she initially quits, but decides to swallow her pride and rejoin as a player. Still, she frequently clashes with Seung-pil over what in her opinion is a needlessly harsh coaching style.
Despite these challenges, the team eventually reaches the Olympics, leading to the final showdown with the Danish team. Even though the outcome of the match is already well-known to Korean audiences (I won’t give it away to those unfamiliar with this story), the latter scenes still retain a sense of tension and suspense. But the sports are mostly a backdrop to the vivid portraits of these women’s difficulties and conflicts with themselves and others, for example fellow player Jeong-ran (Kim Ji-young), a tough woman who runs a restaurant with her husband Jin-gook (Jeong Seok-young), yet who has a more vulnerable side, unable to conceive due to her misuse of pills to manipulate her menstrual cycle so it would not interfere with her training. Much comic relief is provided by team goalie Soo-hee (Cho Eun-ji), who is perennially on the search for a boyfriend, occasioning a nice little scene where she exacts revenge on a blind date (popular star Ha Jeong-woo, in a cameo) who ditches her and whom she overhears insulting her over the phone. With a bracing realism and a refreshing lack of emotional manipulation, Forever the Moment puts these women front and center, allowing the small, moving moments to resonate throughout the piece. Moon So-ri is great as usual, but the real revelation here is Kim Jeong-eun’s performance. This popular TV and film comedienne has recently moved into more dramatic roles, and here she builds on her previous work in Blossom Again to deliver an impressively nuanced and complex role. The film’s Korean title translates as “The Best Moment of Our Lives,” but despite the rather sappy title (slightly better that the nonsensical English one), it is a truly rousing and inspiring film. Millions of Koreans obviously agreed, making this a major hit when it was released this January. (Aug. 24, 27)
This documentary follows a year in the life of a Korean school in Hokkaido, Japan, one of 60 such schools in Japan that educate the third and fourth-generation ethnic Koreans born and raised in Japan. The schools were created after Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonization at the end of World War II. These schools have mainly been supported by North Korea since the country’s division after the Korean War. These schools are more than simply educational institutions: they are a source of national pride, a way for the students to discover their identity as Koreans, and also an escape from the discrimination they experience as Koreans in Japan. Because of the North Korean support, there is much talk of unification between the two Koreas, and a ritual for the 12th grade students is a trip to the “fatherland” of North Korea. This occasions an epiphany for the director while making this film. Since Kim is a South Korean citizen, he is not allowed to accompany the students on their trip to North Korea. “I understood for the first time in my life that my country is divided in two,” he remarks in a voiceover.
Kim examines in great depth the lives of the students and the various circumstances that have brought them to this school. Korean schools have a very hard time in the larger Japanese society, since they are only considered vocational schools, and as such don’t count in the Japanese school system. These schools are also denied the tax benefits that Japanese schools get. Korean-school graduates wishing to go on to Japanese universities must take an extra exam in order to qualify for admission. Nevertheless, these schools afford many benefits for the students. They come to feel pride in their own identity, and they learn to not be ashamed of being Korean in a society that is often hostile to them. The final scenes, in which the graduating class tearfully bids farewell to their school, are very moving, and we feel their apprehension at having to leave this nurturing environment. (Aug. 26)
200 Pound Beauty (Kim Yong-hwa)
This very silly farce would make an interesting double-bill with Kim Ki-duk’s Time, since both films deal with the phenomenon of plastic surgery. Based on a manga by Yumiko Suzuki, the film’s farcical premise concerns Hanna (Kim A-joong), an overweight singer who provides the offstage voice for haughty non-singing pop star Ammy (Seo Yun). She spends her life hidden away from public view, using her voice to make a living; she moonlights on a phone-sex line. She is in love with Ammy’s stage director Sang-jun (Ju Jin-mo). After overhearing a humiliating conversation about herself between Ammy and Sang-jun, she decides to undergo liposuction and full-body plastic surgery, emerging as “natural beauty” Jenny, whose true identity is initially known only to her best friend. Now a conventional beauty, she returns to her old employer incognito to pursue her dream of being a singer. This film owes practically all its virtues to Kim A-joong’s wonderful comic performance. She previously made a great impression in her earlier film When Romance Meets Destiny, and carries this film with great charm and timing, even underneath layers of prosthetics and despite rather cheap jokes based on her size (she falls through a stage; doctors cannot lift her into an ambulance after she OD’s on diet pills). Her first day in her new body is beautifully acted, as she revels in finally being able to buy a dress she coveted in her heavier days, ecstatically twirling in the street to the quizzical stares of passersby. She makes this predictable premise believable, and is a continually riveting presence. The film tries to have its cake and eat it too (pardon the pun), seeming to decry the rigid standards of beauty that women feel compelled to conform to, but at the same time having its happy ending predicated on her physical change. Nevertheless, the film was deservedly a massive hit upon its release in Korea earlier this year, again entirely due to Kim’s flawless performance. (Aug. 24 and 27, Sept. 1)
Unstoppable Marriage (Kim Sung-woo)
This is a rather hackneyed Romeo-and-Juliet romantic farce about a young couple, Eun-ho (pop star Yoo Jin [Eugene]) and Ki-baek (Ha Seok-jin) who has obstacles placed in their path by their bickering potential in-laws: Ki-baek’s mother, a nouveau-riche landowner (veteran actress Kim Soo-mi), and Eun-ho’s father (Lim Chae-moo), a martial-arts instructor and former marine. Kim Soo-mi’s patented foul-mouthed shtick can work in the right circumstances (for example in the far superior comedy Mapado), but here she simply comes off as shrill and grating. Ki-baek’s mother has her sights set on land for a new golf course, but she is thwarted by Eun-ho’s father, who refuses to sell the last bit of property she needs for her course. The romantic comedy clichés come fast and furious: the couple hates each other at first, but after a few plot machinations and a pair of reflective montages, they realize that they’ve found their soul mates. The leads are very attractive and appealing, so the film isn’t quite as painfully banal as it could have been. Still, the mustiness and rather retrograde qualities of this scenario is quite palpable. (Aug. 24 and 29)
Paradise Murdered (Kim Han-min)
This atmospheric thriller is a ghost story crossed with an Agatha Christie locked-door murder mystery. The tiny island of Geukrakdo, or “Paradise Island,” which quickly turns out to be anything but, has its idyllic state ruptured by a series of brutal murders, which seems to dovetail with an old story about a woman who was locked up and starved to death, and whose ghost haunts the island. A young doctor Jae Woo-sung (Park Hae-il), and his assistant Gwi-nam (Park Sol-mi), investigate the murders. While it is a little slow going at first, the careful setting up of characters, as well as the rather shady secrets of the island, pay off in a big way. The denouement is genuinely surprising, and the film as a whole is a diverting, well-written work.
This melodrama pushes all the familiar buttons, but is no less affecting for that. Sang-eun (Kang Hye-Jung), a 20 year old woman with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, lives with her loving and patient mother Hyun-sook (Bae Jong-ok). Her imagination filled with visions from the fairy tales she loves, she meets her prince, rookie cop Jong-bum (Jeong Kyeong-ho). Kang, looking startlingly different than in such previous films as Oldboy, Rules of Dating and Welcome to Dongmakgol, successfully embodies the mannerisms and demeanor of a very young girl, and she looks very much like an anime sprite here. The film also adopts a bright children’s book-style palette with fantastical touches. Hyun-sook contracts cancer, a situation that provides the tear-jerking moments of the film. Another complication occurs when Jong-bum sees Jang-eun’s disability card and realizes her condition (although before this happens, he implausibly mistakes her for a lawyer). The film is an effective manipulation machine, and although the scenario is very obvious in its methods of pulling the viewer’s emotional strings, it still hangs together, thanks largely to Kang’s spirited performance, and Bae Jong-ok’s affecting portrayal as the mother.
Between (Lee Chang-jae)
This documentary follows the lives and rituals of the mudang, female shamans who perform exorcisms and help people communicate with their deceased loved ones. Lee’s film focuses on the initiation of In-hee, a young woman who has the ability to communicate with these spirits, and out of obligation to these spirits, decides to become a mudang, which entails self-sacrifice and often physical and psychic damage. The film begins with a startling scene in which In-hee, crying and shaking with fear, receives a spirit while her mentor, Lee Hae-gyong, guides her through it. This is not a life of choice for most mudang, who are often ostracized from their families as a result. The film goes into great detail about the various shamanistic rituals. However, the film’s repetitive structure presents this fascinating material in a rather numbing way. There is also very little insight about the place of these rituals in society, and since we are always looking at this from the outside, it remains a mysterious, impenetrable process. Perhaps this is appropriate to the nature of shamanism, but an earlier documentary on the same subject, Park Ki-bok’s 2003 film Mudang (which screened at this festival in 2004), is much more successful in conveying the emotional nature of these rituals and is much more interesting visually. (Aug. 24 and 29)
Come, Come, Come Upward (Im Kwon-taek)
This film is part of a four-film Im Kwon-taek retrospective. Come, Come, Come Upward (1989) is a Buddhist parable in which Soon-nyeo (Kang Su-yeon, who also played an acclaimed performance in Im’s Surrogate Mother) enters a Buddhist temple to escape her troubled family life and pursue a path opened to her by a kindly priest she meets. She struggles to follow the teachings, but her life in the convent is complicated by a man she saves from suicide who insists on clinging to her for his personal salvation. Soon-nyeo’s superior then sends her out into the world, so that she can decide if she is truly ready to live an ascetic life. Soon-nyeo’s path to enlightenment is contrasted with that of another nun, Jin-sung (Jin Yong-ming), who diligently follows the written teachings and follows the rituals, but still finds herself blocked. She is sent out into the world also, but unlike Soon-nyeo, who throws herself into the hustle of the outside world, with all the sexual and emotional entanglements that entails, Jin-Sung decides to live mostly in isolation from the outside world, interacting with only a sister who accompanies her part of the way, and with two very different men. One is an activist who exhorts her to participate in the social struggles of the nation, and the other is a hermit monk who castrated himself to free himself from worldly desire. Im sets up the two women’s opposing experiences as a dialectical debate about the most effective way to apply Buddhist teachings to the messiness of everyday life. The film seems to be tipped in favor of Soon-nyeo’s position, if only because her story gets considerably more screen time. At the film’s conclusion, the two face each other and stake out their positions. Jin-sung dismisses Soon-nyeo’s actions as “pathetic delusion.” Soon-nyeo counters, “Without any delusion, how can you bring salvation to a deluded public?” We are left with these two irreconcilable paths: Jin-sung’s detachment from the world as a way to think clearly without influence from the world’s turmoil, and Soon-nyeo’s approach of full engagement with the world and the search for beauty within a painful universe. Im’s parable-like approach to storytelling and graceful visuals make this a rich film that resonates with each repeat viewing.
Radio Star. 2006. Directed by Lee Joon-ik. Written by Choi Seok-hwan. Cinematography by Na Seung-yong. Edited by Kim Jae-beom and Kim Sang-beom. Music by Bang Jun-seok. Released by Cinema Service.
Cast: Park Joong-hoon, Ahn Sung-ki, Choi Jeong-yoon, Han Yeo-woon, Lee Seong-woo, Hwang Hyeon-seong.
An entertaining tribute to the power of radio and music, Radio Star re-teams popular actors Park Joong-hoon and Ahn Sung-ki, this being the fourth film they have starred in together, after Chilsu and Mansu, Two Cops, and Nowhere to Hide. Park this time is Choi Gon, a washed-up former rock star managed by Min-soo (Ahn), reduced to singing in cafes and getting arrested due to his violent temper. After the latest of these episodes, Min-soo arranges the bail money for Gon’s release from jail, with one catch: he must work as a DJ at the local radio station in Yongwon, a sleepy backwater town. Gon sees this as the ultimate humiliation, but has no choice but to accept. He has a rough time with his first show, due to his unwillingness to participate, a relatively untested young producer (Choi Jeong-yoon), and an expletive-filled on-air phone call from the man Min-soo borrowed the bail money from. However, the show quickly gains popularity, and becomes a community center, a source of advice, and a bulletin board. The townspeople are wonderfully drawn, and are generously given their moments to shine. For example, there is the coffee-shop girl Sun-ok (Han Yeo-woon), who tearfully apologizes to her mother for running away from home; a flower-shop worker who enlists listeners’ help in wooing the bank teller he is smitten with; a group of older women squabbling over the rules to their card game. Throughout the film, the corporate world of Seoul is contrasted with the more down-home qualities of regional towns.
Radio Star is Lee Joon-ik’s follow-up to his historical drama The King and the Clown (also screening at this year’s festival), the top box-office hit of all time in Korea before Bong Joon-ho’s The Host bested it last year. His first contemporary story after his historical films, including his debut Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield, his new film nicely balances humor and more poignant moments. Ahn Sung-ki is especially fine as Choi Gon’s long-suffering manager, whose intense loyalty to his charge causes him to neglect his own family. Despite their dissimilar settings, Radio Star shares some interesting affinities with The King and the Clown. Both films concern performers and how their art impacts their personal lives. The court jesters of King and the Clown and the musicians of Radio Star are passionate about their art; in the latter film the aspiring rock band East River doggedly pursue their idol Choi Gon, petitioning him to help them get their big break. Also, both films are affecting portraits of male friendship, and the complex relationships, breakups and reunions of the male characters are given center stage. Radio Star confirms Lee’s considerable talents at making effortlessly entertaining films told with visual flair and vivid attention to character.
The Old Garden (Oraedoen Jungwon). 2006. Written and directed by Im Sang-soo, based on the novel by Hwang Seok-young. Produced by Park Jong and Kim Jung-ho. Cinematography by Kim Woo-hyung. Edited by Lee Eun-soo. Music by Kim Hong-jib. Production design by Song Jae-hee. Sound by Kim Suk-won and Kim Chang-sub. Visual effects by Jan Seong-ho. Released by Lotte Entertainment.
Cast: Yeom Jung-ah, Ji Jin-hee, Kim Yu-ri, Yoon Hee-seok, Eun-seong, Yoon Yeo-jeong, Park Hye-sook.
The Old Garden, based on a novel by celebrated dissident writer Hwang Seok-young, recreates the turbulent period of the 1980’s, represented by the memories of Hyun-woo (Ji Jin-hee), who at the film’s outset has been released from jail after serving a 17-year jail sentence for anti-government activism. He gets out of prison to learn that his lover and the mother of his child, Yoon-hee (Yeom Jung-ah) has died from cancer. This occasions a trip to the place where they met, and also a trip through his memories of their relationship. Yoon-hee, an art teacher at a nearby school, is a disillusioned ex-activist. She nevertheless agrees to hide Hyun-woo, wanted by the government, at her house, because of her outrage at the recent massacre of activists at Kwangju. Quickly they begin a relationship, which is troubled due to Hyun-woo’s insistence on traveling to Seoul to check on his comrades, and Yoon-hee’s feeling that he puts his political convictions above his feelings for her. After Hyun-woo is caught by the police and begins his long jail sentence, Yoon-hee struggles to come to terms with both her anger at him and her still strong feelings for him. She now has a daughter by him, a fact which Yoon-hee hides from Hyun-woo for the rest of her life.
Im Sang-soo revisits a wound which is still fresh on Korean history, much as he did with his previous film, the darkly satirical The President’s Last Bang, which re-imagined the assassination of authoritarian leader Park Chung-hee. The Old Garden examines the era of Park’s successor Chun Doo-hwan, who proved to be just as intolerant of dissent and brutal toward activists, if not even more so, than Park. While the government’s extreme tactics and violence toward the citizenry are vividly captured in the scenes of protest, and of Hyun-woo’s prison torture, the activists themselves are not free from criticism. In an especially barbed scene, the activists’ pompous rhetoric and own authoritarian tendencies are held up for ridicule, with extreme close-ups of the debating mouths spouting empty political platitudes. The film casts a rather jaundiced eye on these idealists who often forced members to sacrifice themselves for the sake of media exposure, and who are now disillusioned and apathetic. The mood of the piece, exemplified by the truncated romance between Yoon-hee and Jung-woo, is one of exhaustion, disillusion, and regret for lost time.
While the film is beautifully shot, especially in its images of rain and snow, the film has considerable weaknesses, the most significant being the muted emotion and schematic quality of its scenario. Im’s previous films excelled in creating vivid, brilliantly drawn characters who felt like fully formed human beings, for example in A Good Lawyer’s Wife, his best film to date. The President’s Last Bang, although pitched in a quite different register than this new film, brought its historical figures to life as complex humans. His new film lacks these qualities, and each character seems rather shallow and unformed. The Old Garden strives for more dramatic heft than his other work, but the almost mechanical shuttling back and forth between the present and the past prevents us from fully sympathizing with the characters or feeling anything for their tragic fates. This flatness also carries over into the performances. Yeom Jung-ah’s character is the heart of this story, but there is a rather stiff and forbidding quality to her performance that puts us at a remove. Ji Jin-hee is less than convincing in his present-day scenes as the older Hyun-woo, who has survived years of torture and isolation. He looks basically the same, just with grayer hair. These actors have both acquitted themselves well in other films, so the fault must be placed on Im’s inadequately developed script. Also, the wicked sense of humor that existed alongside the more somber elements of his other films is oddly missing here. Im has made a worthy attempt to evoke this painful period of history, but he has failed at making it a compelling vision of this time and in fully conveying the tragedies that were common features of this period.
I am a writer on film based in NYC, whose work has appeared in Senses of Cinema, Offscreen, and other film journals. This blog is a forum for news and commentary on world cinema. Asian cinemas, especially Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Hong Kong cinema, are a major focus. However, this site will also frequently cover other notable happenings and trends across the globe. Also, this site will serve as a chronicle of my personal exploration of cinema.
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