ACF 1469: FAILAN at MoMI

Failan

Directed by Song Hae-sung

South Korea, 2001, 116 minutes

Starring: Choi Min-sik, Cecilia Cheung and Jeong Dae-Hoon

When: Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Where: The Museum of the Moving Image

35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, NYC

Travel directions here

Film free with museum admission at MoMI

The Korea Society's retrospective of three works starring Choi Min-shik, one of Korea’s most recognizable contemporary actors, begins tomorrow with this screening of Failan. In it Choi plays the perfect outsider in Song Hae-sung’s tale of a down-and-out gangster who finally finds love.

Choi Min-shik had numerous television roles, but his big break came in 1999 when he played a cold-blooded North Korean soldier in Swiri (Dir. Kang Je-gyu) and suddenly gained a reputation as one of Korea’s finest actors. His acting dominates the silver screen, but his characters have more than charisma. In Failan, he played a thug, married to a Chinese woman out of convenience, but who sheds tears of regret when his “fake” wife dies. In Strokes of Fire, which won the Best Director Prize at the 55th Cannes Film Festival, he played the famous nineteenth-century Korean painter Jang Seung-up. In 2004, Choi returned to Cannes when director Park Chan-woo’s bloody revenge epic, Old Boy, won the Grand Prix-award. Choi's impassioned and robust acting can seize an audience's heart, and he is now known to film buffs worldwide.

This Choi Min-shik tribute will be presented at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image, home to New York City’s finest, state-of-the-art screen. Films are free with museum admission. This tribute is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Failan info at The Korea Society's website here.

Failan info at MoMI's website here.