Im Kwon-taek’s Revivre is a powerful story of a man, whose wife is terminally ill, who begins to fantasise about a sexual relationship with a much younger woman. Deftly contrasting traditionalism and modernity within the characters themselves, Revivre’s strengths ultimately lie in the painful, poignant realism on show, in spite of one rather questionable character motivation. [Read More]
Title: Hwajang
Festival Film Review: Hwajang / Revivre
Well, I was right. Ahn Sung-ki confessed in the Q+A which followed the screening of Hwajang that one of his most difficult tasks in portraying Oh Sang-moo, a senior executive in a cosmetics company, was to project certain aspects of being old – of being blocked inside because of the swollen prostate, of being more … [Read More]
Bringing Kim Hoon’s Hwajang to the big screen: How to act a swollen prostate?
Im Kwon-taek set himself quite a challenge when he decided to make a movie of Kim Hoon’s Hwajang. It is a dense, concentrated and rich piece of writing – I hesitate to say “short story”, because really there’s not much narrative flow. Instead, there’s well-balanced contrast; there’s inner thoughts and emotions; there are the human … [Read More]
Im Kwon Taek’s Hwajang selected to close 2014 LKFF
It’s tremendously good news that the closing gala screening of the London Korean Film festival 2014 is Im Kwon Taek’s 102nd film, Hwajang (western title: Revivre). It synchronises nicely with the KCCUK’s focus on literature this year, as it is based on a short story by Kim Hoon. More importantly, it’s a film that has … [Read More]