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Category Archives: Lee Chang-dong

Alienation and industrialisation in Green Fish

13-Jul-08

Alienation and industrialisation in Green Fish

Matthew Jackson encounters Lee Chang Dong for the first time “Good, but gruelling” was Jason Bechervaise’s summary of the film for me in the lift in on the way up to the screening of ‘Green Fish’ at the Cultural Centre on Thursday night. I later learned this film had been the subject of his dissertation, but I found this succinct version to be remarkably apt. The story follows a young man returning to his hometown to be faced with unemployment and a general sense of alienation. He is beguiled by a mixture of lust and lucre into the world of the minor-league mafia boss Bae Tae-kon and his paramour Mi-ae. This choice leads initially to financial security, and ultimately to adultery, murder, ...
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Lee Chang Dong featured at KCC

09-Jul-08

Lee Chang Dong featured at KCC

The theme for this month’s films at the KCC film club is Director Lee Chang Dong (right). A few weeks ago we had Im Sang-soo at the KCC talking about his “modern Korean history trilogy”; and the recent KOFIC book on Im says: Im Sang Soo is practically the only director now making films that take a long look at the lives of contemporary Koreans without losing their historical sense … There are few texts as good at understanding the sensibilities and concerns of modern Koreans as the films of Im Sang Soo. Strike out Im Sang Soo and replace with Lee Chang Dong and you have a statement with even greater validity. Having started as a writer Director Lee learned film-making on ...
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Secret Sunshine at the BFI London Film Festival

29-Oct-07
Note: this post contain spoilers It was slightly disappointing to see Screen One of the Odeon West End (seating capacity: 500) somewhat under half full for the London premiere of Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine last Monday. By contrast, No Mercy for the Rude, a film which (from its description at least) is much more in the hackneyed Asia Extreme mainstream, was fully booked for the following night, albeit at the much smaller ICA screen (seating capacity: 185). At two hours twenty minutes, it's a long film, but somehow time didn't seem to drag. The slowest part was the time up to the point when Shin-ae suffers the calamity which sets off her downward spiral. The nature of the calamity itself was guessable ...
Also filed in Autumn K-Film 2007, Event reports and reviews, Film, Jeon Do-yeon | Tagged | Comments (0) »

Kim Young-jin: Lee Chang-dong

21-Sep-07

Kim Young-jin: Lee Chang-dong

(Seoul Selection, 2007) Stern(5,g) I can imagine that there was a certain amount of discussion about the timing of this book. After a break of some years -- enforced by his stint as Roh Moo-hyun's first Minister for Culture and Tourism -- the well-regarded director Lee Chang-dong was active again. His new film, with two of the hottest stars in the Korean film industry, was nearing finalisation and was going to get international attention at Cannes. What to do? Wait until the release of Secret Sunshine, do some in-depth analysis and some interviews, digest the critical reaction to the film, and thus produce a book which is as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible? Or rush out a virtually ready-made book so that ...
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Jeon Do-yeon wins at Cannes

28-May-07
Congratulations to Jeon Do-yeon on winning best actress at Cannes. She was an early front-runner in the competition, and just for once those early hopes of success were justified. For the first third of its nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time, "Secret Sunshine" feels like a slightly somber fish-out-of-water comedy (reports AO Scott at the New York Times), until a sudden catastrophe cranks up the psychological intensity, sending the heroine (the remarkable Jeon Do-yeon) into a frenzied, desperate search for some kind of peace. Her pain is almost too much for Mr. Lee's deliberate style to contain — and there is something incomplete about the film, in spite of its length — but Ms. Jeon's portrayal of a meek soul in torment is a ...
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Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine gets early thumbs-up

07-May-07
Probably the most eagerly awaited Korean film of 2007, at least by me, is Lee Chang-dong's fourth: Secret Sunshine, or Milyang (밀양). I've admired his first three for the issues they tackle and the superb acting: Lee has had access to some top stars for his films - Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri for Oasis and Peppemint Candy, with Han Suk-kyu in the slightly lesser-known Green Fish. And for Milyang we can look forward to Song Kang-ho and Jeon Do-yeon appearing together. An early report from this year's Cannes festival is of an advance screening of Milyang, and the viewer was certainly enthusiastic - about the film, about Song, and particularly about Jeon. Visitors to koreanfilm.org will know that Darcy has ...
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Darcy’s predictions for 2007

11-Jan-07
It's getting to be the case that the more interesting stuff over on Darcy's site is in his What's New page rather than his forums. Here are his predictions for 2007: Park Jin-pyo's VOICE OF A MURDERER is going to be a major critical and popular hit (at least 6 million tickets) There will be about 80 Korean films released in 2007, down from 103 this year Korean comedy will make a comeback Kim Ki-duk will fight with the press, and will not release his new movie in Korea Total annual admissions will drop for the first time in a decade Jeon Do-yeon (below) will win Best Actress at Cannes Darcy's been Jeon Do-yeon's number one fan for as long as I can remember. But it would be ...
Also filed in 2006 year-end posts, Film, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Ki-duk | | Comments (0) »