Can’t get enough classic Korean film now the festival has ended? Try this at the Barbican:
The Hand of Fate
+ Introduction by Hyun Jin Cho
Dir: Han Hyeong-mo (1954, 85 min)
Tuesday 19 Nov 2019, 6:30pm
Barbican Cinema 3 | Beech Street | London EC2Y 8DS | Book ticketsMade one year after the end of the Korean war, this entertaining thriller explores the romance between a spy and a poor student.
Margaret, a spy, passes secret messages to the North Korean army, using music score sheets to encrypt the classified information. She shows an interest in a poor, young South Korean student – are her feelings purely romantic, or does she plan to recruit him?
The Hand of Fate blends several genres – film noir, romance, thriller – to create a hugely enjoyable movie which acts as an invaluable time capsule of early-1950s South Korea. It was the first Korean film to feature an on-screen kiss and boasts a strong role for Yoon In-ja as the duplicitous heroine.
We’re pleased to welcome Hyun Jin Cho, curator at the Korean Cultural Centre UK, to introduce the screening.
By the same director as Hyperbolae of Youth, and it’s on YouTube with subtitles.