LEE Chang-dong's BURNING coming to digital on January 29th, Blu-ray Combo and DVD on March 5th

Well Go USA

Presents

Burning / Beoning

Directed by Lee Chang-dong

Starring Steven Yeun

South Korea, 2018, 148 minutes

One of the year’s most acclaimed films and South Korea’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2019 Academy Awards®, Burning debuts on digital January 29 and on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD March 5 from Well Go USA Entertainment. (Burning was the first Korean film to make it to the Foreign Language Film shortlist, although it sadly did not make the final cut of five contenders.)

Based on the short story "Barn Burning" by Haruki Murakami, Burning is a psychological tale of all-consuming jealousy that tells the story of three individuals and a mystery that shows no one is truly as they seem. The film is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive score of 95% and an average score of 8.7 from over 100 outlets. A special bonus is the behind-the-scenes featurette “About the Characters” where viewers will take a deep dive into the characters in Burning and the actors who portray them.

The film stars Steven Yeun (Okja, “The Walking Dead”), Ah-in Yoo (“Six Flying Dragons”) and Jong-seo Jun, making her big screen debut.

Synopsis:
Burning is the searing examination of an alienated young man, Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo), a frustrated introvert whose already difficult life is complicated by the appearance of two people into his orbit: first, Haemi (newcomer Jong-seo Jun), a spirited woman who offers romantic possibilities, and Ben (Steven Yeun, “The Walking Dead,” Sorry To Bother You), a wealthy and sophisticated young man who returns with her from a recent trip. When Jongsu learns of Ben’s mysterious hobby and Haemi suddenly disappears, his confusion and obsessions begin to mount, culminating in a stunning finale.

Addendum, January 31, 2019 - Burning, like each of LEE's previous films, has received several award wins and nominations. It received the Best Foreign Language Film Award from the French Union of Film Critics earlier this month. Info here.

Happy 61st Birthday wishes to director/producer LEE Chang-dong!

LEE Chang-dong and myself at Asia Society NY a few years ago

Director, screenwriter, and producer LEE Chang-dong was born on July 4, 1954. He was a successful novelist before turning to screenwriting. His first contribution in that regard was to Park Kwang-su's To the Starry Island (1993). Green Fish (1997) marked his debut as a director. It's a very solid work about a young man who joins a gang of mobsters after he is released from the army.

His other films are Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), and Poetry (2010). He has won numerous awards at various film festivals, as have those he has directed, including MOON So-ri (Oasis) and JEON Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine).

Since making Poetry, LEE has been concentrating on nurturing younger talent as a producer. He produced Joon-Hwan Jang's Hwayi: A Monster Boy (2013) and July Jung's film debut A Girl at My Door (2014), which stars BAE Doona and was a huge hit at Cannes.

I have had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing him twice, first by email, then in person. I also saw him in person on two other occasions.

As I've written on more than one occasion, I regard LEE as one of the great directors in world cinema. In my opinion, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry will hold their own in comparisons with the best works of the greatest international driectors: Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, etc.

So, Happy Birthday wishes to you, director LEE. May you have many more.

Happy Birthday wishes to Korean director LEE Chang-dong

LEE Chang-dong and myself at Asia Society NY a few years ago

Director, screenwriter, and producer LEE Chang-dong was born on July 4, 1954. He was a successful novelist before turning to screenwriting. His first contribution in that regard was to Park Kwang-su's To the Starry Island (1993). Green Fish (1997) marked his debut as a director. It's a very solid work about a young man who joins a gang of mobsters after he is released from the army.

His other films are Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), and Poetry (2010). He has won numerous awards at various film festivals, as have those he has directed, MOON So-ri (Oasis) and JEON Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine).

I have had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing him twice, first by email, then in person. I also saw him in person on two other occasions.

As I've written on more than one occasion, I regard LEE as one of the great directors in world cinema. In my opinion, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry will hold their own in comparisons with the best works of the greatest international driectors: Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, etc.

So, Happy Birthday wishes to you, director LEE. May you have many more, and may film lovers be blessed with more of your films.

ACF 1952: Happy Birthday wishes to Korean director LEE Chang-dong

LEE Chang-dong and myself at Asia Society NY a few years ago

Director, screenwriter, and sometimes producer LEE Chang-dong was born on July 4, 1954. He was a successful novelist before turning to screenwriting. His first contribution in that regard was to Park Kwang-su's To the Starry Island (1993). Green Fish (1997) marked his debut as a director. It's a very solid work about a young man who joins a gang of mobsters after he is released from the army.

His othre films are Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), and Poetry (2010). He has won numerous awards at various film festivals, as have those he has directed, MOON So-ri (Oasis) and JEON Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine).

I have had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing him twice, first by email, then in person. I also saw him in person on two other occasions.

As I've written on more than one occasion, I regard LEE as one of the great directors in world cinema. In my opinion, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry will hold their own in comparisons with the best works of the greatest international driectors: Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, etc.

So, Happy Birthday wishes to you, director LEE. May you have many more, and may film lovers be blessed with more of your films.

ACF 1530; Happy Birthday, LEE Chang-Dong

Director LEE Chang-dong and me at Asia Society, NY in 2008

Writer and director LEE Chang-dong was born on July 4th, 1954 in Daegu, South Korea. Previously a high-school teacher and acclaimed novelist, his entered the film industry with screenplays to two films by Park Kwang-su: To the Starry Island (1993) and A Single Spark (1995).

Encouraged by his contemporaries, Lee made his directorial debut with Green Fish (1997), the story of a young man who enters the Korean criminal underworld. Peppermint Candy, told in a series of flashback segments, followed in 2000. With his third film, Oasis (2002), he firmly established himself on the world cinema stage. He took a hiatus from film beginning in 2003, serving as Minister of Culture in a newly elected liberal administration. He returned  with a vengeance in his next film, the harrowing Secret Sunshine (2007), and followed that with the touching Poetry (2010).

JEON Do-yeon and LEE Chang-dong

Director LEE has won numerous awards and been nominated for a number of others. These wins have come in such categories as best film, director, and screenplay. His actors, especially his actresses, have also reaped recognition from appearing in his films. MOON So-ri won several best actress awards for her role as Gong-ju, a young woman with cerebral palsy, in Oasis, as did JEON Do-yeon for her portrayal of a grief-stricken mother in Secret Sunshine.

Oasis was the first of director LEE's films that I saw, and I was haunted by it for days afterwards. It was such a powerful a story and had two amazing lead performances by Ms. Moon as Gong-ju and SOL Kyung-gu as Jong-du, a young man with significantly limited intellect. Since then I caught up with his two earlier films and have seen the two more recent ones as they came out.

I regard LEE as one of the absolute greats in world cinema. Having come to film somewhat later in life than is usual, he has not produced a vast body of work, but every film he has made has been either very good (Green Fish) or magnificent (at least Oasis and Secret Sunshine; Poetry, if not magnificent, is pretty close).

So Happy Birthday wishes to you, Director LEE! I so look forward to your next film.

[For my E-interview with LEE Chang-dong, which p;osted in May 2008, click here.]

ACF 1282: Reminder - KCS offering free screening of LEE Chang-dong's POETRY this Tuesday at 7:00 PM

Korean Cultural Service

presents

Korean Movie Night

 Poetry/ Shi

South Korea, 2010, 139 minutes

When: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 @ 7:00 PM

Doors open: 6:30 PM

Where: Tribeca Cinemas

54 Varick Street, on the corner of Canal Street, NYC

Near the A, C, E @ #1 Canal Street subway stops

Admission: FREE!!!

All seating is first-come, first served.

Winner - “Best Screenplay” - Cannes Film Festival

Winner - “Best Screenplay” - Asian Film Awards

“…quietly devastating…” - The New York Times

“…daring…haunting…a character study of remarkable subtlety…” - The Los Angeles Times

As someone who has the highest regard for Lee Chang-dong's films, I simply have to put up this reminder post about Tuesday's FREE screening of Poetry. Think of it as a marvelous, holiday season, end of year gift from the Korean Cultural Service. Think of it any way you want. But don't miss this film.

In it, Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Oasis, Peppermint Candy) delivers yet another big screen triumph. The movie also marks the return to the silver screen of acting legend, Yoon Jeong-Hee, who had been retired since 1994. In Lee’s film, she plays a 67 year-old grandmother, taking care of her loutish grandson and barely scraping by with a series of odd jobs.

As the movie begins, she has been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and so she enrolls in a poetry class in an effort to sharpen her mental faculties and delay the advance of her dementia. Simultaneously, a young girl who lives in her neighborhood commits suicide and slowly, in Lee’s expert hands, the strands of this narrative — a brute of a grandson, a tired old woman, poetry, suicide, senility — all come together to deliver yet another of Lee’s enormous, epic, subtle, sprawling portraits of the wo rld.

It’s a movie that should be compared to a novel for all of its elegance and depth, but that is also, truly, cinema: a story that could not be told any other way but in enormous, illuminated images.

For my review of Poetry, which ran on September 26, 2010, click here. The film, which was then screening at the New York Film Festival, earned the highest possible ACF Rating of 4 out of 4 stars. I've watched it again since then, and that rating holds now as it no doubt will in the future.

ACF 1269: Free screening of Lee Chang-dong's POETRY

Korean Cultural Service

presents

Korean Movie Night

Poetry/ Shi

South Korea, 2010, 139 minutes

When: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 @ 7:00 PM

Doors open: 6:30 PM

Where: Tribeca Cinemas

54 Varick Street, on the corner of Canal Street, NYC

Near the A, C, E @ #1 Canal Street subway stops

Admission: FREE!!!

All seating is first-come, first served.

Winner - “Best Screenplay” - Cannes Film Festival

Winner - “Best Screenplay” - Asian Film Awards

“…quietly devastating…” - The New York Times

“…daring…haunting…a character study of remarkable subtlety…” - The Los Angeles Times

Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Oasis, Peppermint Candy) delivers yet another big screen triumph with Poetry, a movie which also marks the return to the silver screen of acting legend, Yoon Jeong-Hee, who has been retired since 1994. In Lee’s film, she plays a 67 year-old grandmother, taking care of her loutish grandson and barely scraping by with a series of odd jobs.

As the movie begins, she has been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and so she enrolls in a poetry class in an effort to sharpen her mental faculties and delay the advance of her dementia. Simultaneously, a young girl who lives in her neighborhood commits suicide and slowly, in Lee’s expert hands, the strands of this narrative — a brute of a grandson, a tired old woman, poetry, suicide, senility — all come together to deliver yet another of Lee’s enormous, epic, subtle, sprawling portraits of the wo rld.

It’s a movie that should be compared to a novel for all of its elegance and depth, but that is also, truly, cinema: a story that could not be told any other way but in enormous, illuminated images.

For my review of Poetry, which ran on September 26, 2010, click here. The film, which was then screening at the New York Film Festival, earned the highest possible ACF Rating of 4 out of 4 stars. I've watched it again since then, and that rating holds now and will no doubt hold in the future.

ACF 1037: LEE Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine coming out in Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray editions

Well, I'd hoped for it for some time, and soon it'll be a reality. A film by LEE Chang-dong, one of my favorite directors, is getting the Criterion treatment.

Secret Sunshine, his phenomenal 2007 film -- which only recently got a belated theatrical release in the U.S. -- will be coming out in DVD and Blu-Ray editions from Criterion on August 23, 2011. Both versions can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com by clicking here. I'm going to pre-order, and if you love great cinema, you should too.

The film stars JEON Do-yeon (who won the Best Actress award at Cannes as well as other festivals) as a young widower who moves with her son to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. There she experiences one of life's cruelest tragedies and the film depicts her struggle and search to find a way to cope with her grief.

For my review of the Secret Sunshine, click here.

ACF 884: LEE Chang-dong's POETRY will open in New York tomorrow !!!!!

Poetry / Shi
Written and directed by LEE Chang-dong
South Korea, 2010, 139 minutes

Lee Chang-Dong's POETRY opens on February 11th
in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Quad Cinemas

Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival

"Onoe of the heartening glories of the filmgoing year."
- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Thanks to Kino International, director LEE Chang-dong's latest masterwork is receiving a prompt theatrical release in the United States. Unlike LEE's previous film, Secret Sunshine, which had to wait over two years for such a release here, Poetry is opening in New York less than a year after it premiered in South Korea. Way to go, Kino!

The film stars YUN Jung-hee as Mija, a woman in her mid-sixties who lives with her selfish, ungrateful, and unappreciative grandson Jongwook (LEE Da-wit). Mija supplements her old-age benefits by working as a maid for an elderly man who has left-sided weakness as a result of a stroke.

Her life turns for the worst when she is diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (a.k.a., senile dementia) and her son is revealed to have participated in reprehensible, not to mention criminal, behavior with some of his school buddies.

She joins a poetry class, hoping to realize a potential that she may have had since her youth and to do it before her disease causes her to further forget words, a process that has already begun. Meanwhile, with her daughter, Jongwook's mother, living in another city, she has to deal with serious matters that must be addressed as a consequence of his actions.

Ms. YUN is a legenday Korean actress who appeared in a great many films in the sixties and seventies. Her last film prior to Poetry was Two Flags, which came out in 1994, about sixteen years earlier! She reportedly did not make any movies after that at least in part because she did not care for what she was being offered. That obviously changed with LEE's script for Poetry, to everyone's benefit.

She is in nearly every scene in the film, and her skills are obviously intact, and they're incredible. Sitting by a river, her body language alone epitomizes the word "forlorn." In a discretely shot seen in which she stands nude in a shower with the water streaming onto her head, her emotional pain is physically palbable to the viewer.

Most remarkable to me is a brief scene in which she recounts to her poetry class the earliest thing she can remember. Watching the film on a DVD screener, having first seen it at a press screening at the New York Film Festival last fall, I got the feeling that the camera very slowly was zooming or perhaps tracking in towards her. This is a common technique for increasing intensity. But there was no such movement. It was YUN's compelling performance alone that was drawing me in. And she was just sitting in a chair and talking. Incredible!

While there are no outbursts, rages, or ravings, her performance is a true tour de force, a magnificent demonstration of consumate artistry.
As for director LEE Chang-dong, I have written about him numerous times, both here and for Asian Cult Cinema magazine. The first film by him that I saw was Oasis, his third effort, and in my opinion the first of his masterpieces, followed by Secret Sunshine and now Poetry. (His first two films, Green Fish and Peppermint Candy, were both very good, but not quite of the same level.)

My admiration for LEE Chang-dong is boundless. When it comes to adult drama, no director does it better. Some may have done it as well, but there's no way top cinematic perfection. And that's just what he's achieved yet again with Poetry.

Not surprisingly, Poetry gets a 4 out of 4 star ACF Rating, but only because I can't give it 5 stars. It's an absolute must-see if you're at all interested in experiencing an intelligent, touching, and provocative film.

For an excellent interview with LEE Chang-dong at indiewire.com, click here.

ACF 856: Reminder - special Screening of LEE Chang-dong's POETRY today in Queens

Yun Jung-hee stars as Mija

Poetry / Shi
Written and directed by LEE Chang-dong
South Korea, 2010, 139 minutes

There will be a special screening of Poetry today, Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at The Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Ave. at 37th St., Astoria, NY (take the N or Q Train to 36th Avenue). The film is the most recent work of celebrated South Korean director LEE Chang-dong.

This preview screening, a joint presentation of The Korea Society and The Museum of the Moving Image, is courtesy of Kino International. Kino is distributing Poetry, which will open in New York on February 11th, 2011.

Here's a brief description of the film that appears on The Korea Society website announcement of the special screening:

A mysterious death, a woman with Alzheimer’s (actress YUN Jung-hee, who returns to the big screen after a self-imposed 16-year absence), and a poetry class are at the core of this highly acclaimed new film by Lee Chang-dong (whose other films include Oasis and Secret Sunshine). Featuring an indelible central performance by YUN, this multilayered drama also won best screenplay at Cannes.

For information about this special preview screening of Poetry, click here.

For my post about Poetry (which I rated at 4 out of 4 stars) when it screened at the 48th New York Film Festival this past September, click here.

ACF 847: LEE Chang-dong's POETRY will soon receive theatrical premiere in the U.S.

Yun Jung-hee stars as Mija in LEE Chang-gong's Poetry

Great news!!!!!

Kino Lober, Inc. recently announced that it will be releasing Poetry on February 11, 2011. It opens in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Quad Cinemas.

In advance of the theatrical release, The Korea Society will be presenting a special pre-release screening on Sunday, January 23rd at 4:00 PM. This will take place at The Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Ave. at 37th St., Astoria, NY (N or Q Train to 36th Ave.). For info about this event, which will be one of the first events to occur after The Museum of the Moving Image reopens following a multi-year closing for renovation and expansion, click here.

In the coming weeks, I'll have more to say about this powerful and touching movie from one of the finest directors in world cinema. In the meanwhile you can review the post I wrote about Poetry when it showed at last fall's New York Film Festival by clicking here, and view the film's trailer on YouTube by clicking here.

ACF 820: Secret Sunshine finally gets theatrical release in U.S.

Actress Jeon Do-yeon (left) and Song Kang-ho (right)

A day or two ago I read that Korean director Lee Chang Dong's Secret Sunshine (2007) was ranked by Film Comment magazine as the 27th best movie released in 2010. (For Film Comment's list of the 50 Best Films of 2010, click here. Initially I thought they made a mistake, because it had been released, and I'd seen it at Lincoln Center, so long ago. Furthermore, I'd reviewed it in May, 2008. (For my review of Secret Sunshine, click here.) Perhaps they'd meant Lee's next and most recent film, Poetry, which played at this year's New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

Then I read A.O. Scott's review in the arts section of today's New York Times. There I learned that it's taken this long for this incredible movie to get it's much deserved, if belated, U.S. theatrical release. Hence it's inclusion in Film Comment's 2010 list. Well better late than never, as the saying goes.

I've sung the praises of Lee Chang-dong's films since I saw Oasis (2002), his third film. (Secret Sunshine was his fourth, made after a cinematic hiatus while he served as South Korea's minister of culture and tourism.) It was wonderful to read Scott's unstinting praise, an affirmation of my opinion of Lee by the film reviewer/critic I most respect. For Scott's review, click here. Scott also ranked the film as the number 9 Best Film of 2010 (NY Times, Dec 19th, Page 14). Manohla Darghis, who did not rank her picks, listed Secret Sunshine as one of her recommended films (Page 12 of the same issue of the Times).

The really important thing is that Secret Sunshine can now be seen for the first time in theaters in the United States, not just the few festivals and retrospective's of Lee's works that have featured it. The film's main character is Lee Shin-ae (Jeon Do yeon, who won the best female performance award at Cannes for her incredible portrayal).

She's a widower who returns with her son to Miryang (the film's title refers to an old meaning of the word), the hometown of her deceased husband. She is befriended by Kim Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho, widely known in the U.S. for his roles in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Host, Thirst and others), a tow truck operator/garage owner who tows their broken down vehicle into town.

As Scott so accurately and eloquently writes, "the full impact of this film is perhaps best experienced if its shocks are uncushioned by foreknowledge." Suffice it to say here that what starts out feeling like it might be a rom-com/drama combo, takes a turn into far different and darker territory after an unspeakable crime is committed.

And let it be said that if you are fortunate enough to be able see Secret Sunshine during this release, you owe it to yourself to do so. It's a masterpiece (and that's not a word I use lightly and one that also applies to Lee's Oasis and Poetry) by one of cinema's truly great directors.

ACF 700: LEE Chang-dong's "Poetry"

Poetry / Shi
Written and directed by LEE Chang-dong
South Korea, 2010, 139 min.

The second and last showing of Korean director LEE Chang-dong's film Poetry as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 48th New York Film Festival will be at 6:30 PM today at Alice Tully Hall.

The film, LEE's fifth, won the award for Best Screenplay at Cannes earlier this year. It stars YUN Jung-hee as Mija, a 66 year old woman who lives with her ungrateful grandson who is in middle school. (The actress's family name is sometimes also spelled "Yoon.) Mija (which, by pure coincidence according to director LEE, is YUN's actual name) supplements her old age benefits by working as a maid/caregiver to a somewhat older man who has residual effects from a stroke.

Mija also has started to lose the ability to recall certain words, and medical testing yields a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease in its early stage. She decides to take a class and write at least one poem before the disease progresses too far. Complicating matters further is the death of one of her grandson's female schoolmates and the possible involvement of him and some of his friends in her taking her own life.

YUN Jung-hee as Mija

Actress YUN carries the film almost all on her own; the supporting parts are very minor, relatively speaking. Ms Yun recently was voted Korean cinema's greatest actress in a public poll. It's almost beyond belief that Poetry is her first acting role in roughly 16 years! Her consummate skills as an actress obviously have not diminished in the interim. According to Director Lee, Ms YUN had not acted during those years because she was not interested in the roles offered her. Clearly she made the right, and a very wise, decision in accepting this role. Hers is a bravura, Oscar-worthy performance.

Director LEE Chang-dong

As far as the director goes, anyone who has read my previous writings about LEE Chang-dong, either in Asian Cult Cinema or here in AsianCineFest, knows that I regard him highly. How highly? Well, I consider him one of the greatest directors in world -- not only Korean -- cinema. In my opinion, he has a perfect record of directing five very fine films. (For his awards record at IMDb, which at this time has not been updated to include the Cannes' Best Sceenplay award, click here.)

Oasis (2002), his third film, won best director and best new actress (MOON So-ri) awards at the Venice Film Festival, and Secret Sunshine (2007) won the best actress award for JEON Do-yeon at Cannes. Both were superlative works. With Poetry, LEE Chang-dong has created another brilliant film that deserves a place in the Pantheon of world cinema.

Poetry is a magnificent, gripping, and emotionally powerful film that is a must see. ACF rating: 4 out of 4 stars, most highly recommended.

Poetry is a Kino International release. For those who missed yesterday's screening and can't make it to this afternoon's, despair not. My understanding is that a theatrical release is scheduled for early in 2011, and I'm sure a DVD release will follow sometime later.

For full info about the New York Film Festival, click here.

P.S. - I was fortunate to interview Director Lee in person at the Kino Offices in Manhattan this past Friday. (For my 2008 email interview with him, click here.) I'll post the new interview as soon as I can transcribe and appropriately edit it.

ACF 253: Free Screening of Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine" in New York

I've been singing the praises of Korean director Lee Chang-dong since I saw Oasis, his third film, several years ago. His fourth and most recent film Secret Sunshine (Miryang) came out in 2007 and I saw it at a press screening in conjunction with that fall's New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. I later reviewed it in my May 6, 2008 post (see ACF 109 in the May 2008 Archives).

The film is about Lee Shin-ae (actress Jeon Do-yeon) who moves with her young son to Miryang, the rural Korean city where her late husband was from. Kim Jong-chan( actor Song Kang-ho) is the owner of a garage who tows their broken-down vehicle into town and falls for Sin-ae. The film seems to be a romantic comedy at first, then a crime thriller, before finally settling into its true raison d'etre, an absolutely amazing consideration of grief and the search for spiritual solace.

Jeon Do-yeon won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Asian Film Awards, the Blue Dragon Awards, the South Korea Grand Bell Awards for her role as Shin-ae. Awards most well-deserved, as were the film's other nominations and wins.

In my opinion, Secret Sunshine, like Oasis, will hold its own in comparisons with the best works of the greatest international driectors: Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, etc. It is absolutely not to be missed by anyone who cares about great cinema.

The film will be shown free at the ImaginAsian Theatre, 239 East 59th Street, New York, NY. The screening is presented by Korean Cultural Service NY as part of its ChungMuRo Express: Classic Korean Cinema series. Although admission is free, you must RSVP at 212.759.9550 to have your name placed on the guest list.

ACF 109: Lee Chang-dong Retrospective - Secret Sunshine

Jeon Do-yeon (left) and Song Kang-ho (right)

The Asia Society's Lee Chang-dong retrospective continues tomorrow night with a screening of Secret Sunshine, his fourth and most recent film, made after he served as Korean Minister of Culture and Tourism from 2002 until 2004.

Lee Shin-ae ( actress Jeon Do-yeon) and her young son move to Miryang, the rural Korean city which her deceased husband was from and which gives the film its name. There she hopes to start a new life giving piano lessons. When their car breaks down, Kim Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho), who owns a garage, brings them and their car into town.

It's immediately obvious that he's attracted to her and that she is indifferent to his interest. Perhaps because I'm so accustomed to what Hollywood would do with such a situation, the film seemed to be starting out as a romantic comedy. You know, the guy keeps after the woman until she finally realizes that he's her "Mister Right."

Then a crime takes place. My initial reaction was that perhaps this was an incident that was gong to play into the thwarted romance. But it soon turned out to be for real, and to have dire consequences for Lee Shin-ae. The remainder of the film is an incredibly powerful exploration of human suffering, as Shin-ae searches for spiritual peace in the face of one of the worst tragedies that can befall a person. Throughout it all, Jong-chan continues to be there for her.


Like all of Lee Chang-dong's films, Secret Sunshine has won numerous festival awards. Last year at Cannes, Jeon Do-yeon received the award for best actress. Her performance, like Moon So-ri's in Oasis, is one of those rare, magnificent thespian tour-de-forces that I can only term "beyond incredible."

At the inaugural Asian Film Awards earlier this year, the movie won for best film, best director, and best actress. And Song Kang-ho has not come away empty handed. He won the prize for best actor at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Complete info about the film's wins and nominations can be found at this link to imdb.com.


Secret Sunshine further solidifies Lee Chang-dong's place in my list of great film directors. Though an emotionally demanding film to watch, it deserves to be seen by anyone who appreciates magnificent film making and story telling.

Screenings for it and the two other remaining films in this retrospective are at Asia Society, 725 Park Ave (at 70th Street), Manhattan. The schedule for the three remaining films, each of which will be shown at 7:00 pm, is:

Secret Sunshine
2007, 142 min
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
- This screening is co-sponsored by The School of Visual Arts
- Director Lee is scheduled to be present

Peppermint Candy
2000, 127 min
Thursday, May 8, 2008

Green Fish
1997, 111 min
Monday, May 12, 2008

For more information or to order tickets, click here.

ACF 108: Lee Chang-dong E-Interview

Renowned South Korean Film Director Lee Chang-dong

In conjunction with the retrospective of his four films at Asia Society in New York, which begins Monday, May 5th, I was given the opportunity to submit an email with some questions for director Lee Chang-dong. This method does not allow for follow-ups or for asking about things that come up in a response, as a normal face-to-face interview does, but I think it worked pretty well nonetheless.

At the end of this post, after my questions and his responses, I've provided a link to the Asia Society webpage about the series.

ACF: I understand that you had achieved success as a writer, then, when you were not yet 40 years old, did your first work on film as one of the screenwriters of Director Park Kang-soo's To the Starry Island.

How did your involvement with that film come about?

Lee: Actually at that time, I was in considerable doubt both as a writer and as a person stepping into his late 30s. Perhaps you could say I wanted to punish myself. And so I wanted to do something like hard physical labor, and what I chose was to work as an Assistant Director. Director Park Kwang-soo had just suggested that I do the scenario[script] for 'To the Starry Island,' and I made a kind of 'deal' with him to use me as an Assistant Director. Of course at the time, my filmmaking experience was nonexistent and I was in no way qualified to AD. In a way what made me a director today is very much indebted to Park Kwang-soo's gamble to use me as First Assistant Director.

ACF: After writing another screenplay (for A Single Spark, 1995), you wrote and directed your fist film, Green Fish (1996).

How did you come to direct? Was it something you had been considering for some time? Did you want to make a personal statement rather than have another director produce his own interpretation?

Lee: How I came to be a director results from a few unexpected coincidences. Because I wanted to 'punish myself' I worked very hard on the set, and it seems that made a good impression on some of the staff and cast members that I didn't expect. After that, those people kept suggesting that I become a director, and eventually helped me to debut as one. Of course, it's not as though I had never had the desire to become a director. I had always been curious about the distance between film and reality, and had questions about the apathy of movies (whether commercial movies so-called art films) that were growing farther and farther detached from reality. I wanted to make films that closed the distance a little, between film and reality.

ACF: Both Green Fish and Peppermint Candy, which followed, allude to the economic and political situation in South Korea. While they, like all your films are primarily about individuals and their stories, did you deliberately set out in Green Fish and Peppermint Candy to portray the economic and political problems that South Koreans faced in the 80s an d 90s?

Lee: There's no question that 'Green Fish' and 'Peppermint Candy' draw on the political and economic problems of Korea. But they weren't my main focus. My main interest has always been human beings. I believe film is the best medium to show something about human beings. But people can't be separated from the environment (including the political and economical reality) that surrounds them. Man is affected by his reality, and in fighting against it finds meaning in his life. Those are the kinds of things I wanted to show.

ACF: I loved the train footage used between segments of Peppermint Candy. As I recall, they were filmed from the back of the train as it traveled forward, but the film was run backwards in the movie so it looks like we're going forward, but we're actually going back time, in terms of the train's "real movement." How did this idea for using this device come about?

Lee: 'Peppermint Candy' is a film about a sort of time travel. And so I needed a way to visualize time. That's the train. Actually, time and trains have several similarities. You could say that mankind's perception of time changed with the invention of the train. Film is, of course, a medium that deals with time, and in that sense, the fact that one of the first films ever made is the Lumiere Brothers’ 'Arrival of a Train' is very symbolic. Trains are also linked with memory. That's probably why the image of a ‘train journeying to the past’ came to mind.

ACF: In both Green Fish and Oasis, there are characters with Cerebral Palsy, though the male in Green Fish is of far lesser plot significance than Moon So-ri's Han Gong-ju in Oasis. In Green Fish the character is cared for and loved by his family, whereas in Oasis, Gong-ju is exploited or ignored. Does this have to do with your belief in a difference in approach to family in more traditional, rural-rooted families (Green Fish) vs urbanized, Westernized families (Oasis)?

Lee: It's possible. Another reason could be that there is a mother in 'Green Fish,' and in 'Oasis' there are no parents. I think it's very difficult, a strain for brothers and sisters to care for a sibling with cerebral palsy, even more so than for parents to care for such a person. But I don't think the two individuals with cerebral palsy in the films are in such different circumstances from each other.

ACF: You have been described as "an actor's director," much as Sidney Lumet has. While your films all tell compelling stories, and tell them marvelously, you have clearly elicited incredible performances from your actors and actresses, who have been nominated for and won numerous awards. [I personally thought that both Moon So-ri, for Oasis, and Jeon Do-yeon, for Secret Sunshine, should have at least received Oscar nominations, but such are the vagaries of Hollywood.]

Are you comfortable with being considered "an actor's director"? Are their certain things about your approach to filmmaking that you think especially contribute to such outstanding performances?

Lee: Though I'm not exactly sure what 'an actor's director' means, it's clear to me that of the many things shown on the screen, the human being is the most important thing. There are probably a million things a director can do to draw out an actor’s performance. These words also mean that there is no particular method to it at all. I often tell my actors "Don't act." I tell them instead to instead "experience" the character's emotions. I only help them to the extent that they can feel and experience those emotions.

ACF: Are there any things that you accomplished as Minister of Culture and Tourism about which you are particularly proud?

Lee: Though I did my best as a Minister, I’d prefer not to talk about it right now. Others will be able to judge the things I did.

ACF: The publicity materials for Secret Sunshine indicate that you were planning Peppermint Candy even before Green Fish had been released, and that Secret Sunshine had been, as you put it, "in my head ever since 2002." after Oasis came out.

Is something already in the works for your next project? If so, can you say something about what it will be about?

Lee: There is something I'm thinking about. But I don't think it’s the right time to reveal it yet. Before I start any film, I ask myself 'Why do we need this film right now?' I'm looking for the answer to that question these days.

Most sincere thanks to Director Lee for taking his time to consider and respond to my queries, to Ernest Woo for his terrific job translating the questions and answers, and to Helen Koh of Asia Society and Jenny Lawhorn of fatdot.net for arranging this interview.

For more information about the Lee Chang-dong film retrospective or to order tickets, click here.

ACF 107: Lee Chang-dong: A Retrospective

A fantasy sequence from Lee Chang-dong's Oasis

New Yorkers rejoice! Soon we'll be treated to the four film retrospective of this brilliant South Korean director that was part of the still ongoing Korean Film Festival DC 2008 in our nation's capital.

Oasis will be the first film shown. It happens to have been the first of his films that I saw. Sol Kyung-gu stars as Jong-du, a young man of limited mental abilities who's just been released from prison for vehicular manslaughter. After re-uniting with his family, he goes to visit the victim's family, where he meets Gong-ju, played with incredible intensity by Moon So-ri.

Both are shunned or exploited by their respective families, depending on circumstances. The relationship that develops between them is remarkable, and the acting is fabulous.

I've seen the film at least two or three times, and each time I've been haunted by it for days afterward. "Haunted" in a good sense, a wonderful sense, as in unable to stop thinking about the story and the performances. This is the mark of truly great cinema.

Sol Kyung-gu (l) and Moon So-ri

Oasis garnered 11 of the 13 awards for which it was nominated at various festivals, and deservedly so. Lee won eight awards and was nominated for two others. Moon So-ri won two, and Sol Kyung-gu, one. (For complete awards information at imdb, click here.) Although his first two films each won several festival awards, for me Oasis marks Lee's true arrival as a master director on the international film scene, a position he has further solidified with last year's Secret Sunshine.

The four films in the retrospective will be shown at Asia Society, 725 Park Ave (at 70th Street), Manhattan. All showtimes are 7:00 pm.

The complete schedule is:

Oasis
2002, 133 min
Monday, May 5, 2008
- This screening is co-sponsored by The Korea Society
- Director Lee and Ms Moon are scheduled to attend and participate in a Q&A after the screening

Secret Sunshine
2007, 142 min
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
- This screening is co-sponsored by The School of Visual Arts
- Director Lee is scheduled to be present

Peppermint Candy
2000, 127 min
Thursday, May 8, 2008

Green Fish
1997, 111 min
Monday, May 12, 2008

For more information or to order tickets, click here.