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For the fledgling movie reviewer, revealing one’s inexperience with cinema is never a wise move. And adding that this inexperience stems from an at best indifferent, at worst active dislike of the subject? Positively suicidal, at least in terms of becoming known as an authority on it.
Fortunately however, that is not my aim with this post. Rather, it marks the first of many movie reviews I’ll write as I personally struggle to see Korean cinema in a new light from now on, hopefully providing readers with an entertaining and informative guide in the process.
I won’t bore readers with the combination of personal factors that led me to under-appreciate Korean cinema for the last 9 years here then; suffice to say, many had little to do with the quality of Korean cinema itself. Hearing of them though, no less than a professor of Korean popular culture, a professor of Korean literature, and a published science-fiction writer all recommended Peppermint Candy (박하사탕) for me to start with (the latter even loaned me his boxed set of director Lee Chang-dong’s DVDs with which to do so), so I had high expectations for this movie. And even if you’re not blessed with such uniquely knowledgeable friends yourself, it doesn’t take long to learn that it has a strong place in Korean popular culture (it was the first domestic movie chosen as an opening film for PIFF for instance), and the screenshot below in particular.
And yet for all my friends’ high praise, for all the accolades, I found this to be a bleak, deeply frustrating movie. Feeling that perhaps my own inexperience was to blame, I forced myself to watch it again, this time with my wife. But unfortunately I gained nothing from the benefit of hindsight – more things to critique in fact – and indeed my wife even fell asleep well before the end.
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The film opens in spring 1999, with main character Yong-ho (Sol Kyung-gu {설경구}) joining a 20-year reunion of his old factory social group on the banks of a river. Quickly revealed to be bitter and angry, his behavior extremely erratic, within a few minutes he’s welcoming his death from an oncoming train on a nearby railway bridge, screaming the now classic line “I want to go back!” (또 다시 돌아갈래). Then it’s 3 days earlier (the first of 6 backward jumps in the story), and we see him buying a gun, then toying with killing himself. Soon it emerges that despite appearances, he’s virtually penniless, and that this is the result of his former business-partner stealing his money, a loan shark charging exorbitant rates of interest, and possibly his ex-wife also (played by Kim Yeo-jin {김여진}).
Then it’s 5 years earlier, and we see him as a successful business-person, and I anticipated seeing the events that led to his financial downfall. Instead, only the dissolution of his marriage is portrayed, for which both partners prove to be at blame. At which point that I began comparing the movie to Clerks.
Yes really: the 1994 budget US comedy. Please bear with me for a moment.
Easy to miss amongst all the jokes, towards the end of Clerks there is a scene where the main character Dante Hicks (played by Brian O’Halloran) complains about everything that has happened to him that day, as, indeed, he has been doing throughout the entire movie. What sets this scene aside from those though, is that in response, Randal Graves (played by Jeff Anderson) points out that everything he’s complaining about is in fact entirely his own fault. And with those 10-15 seconds and 2 or 3 lines, for me the movie was transformed from merely a good but ulitmately forgettable comedy – I find it difficult to laugh at today – to something with a clear moral, and one that I have taken to heart ever since.
Granted, at the age of 18, one is probably more inclined to deliberately seek out such morals from movies than at the age of 33, imaginary or otherwise. And as the events that transformed Young-ho from a very innocent and dreamy young man to the bitter and twisted individual that commits suicide 20 years later are revealed, undoubtedly there is much in this vein to be gained from Peppermint Candy also, particularly with such suburb acting from Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Yeo-jin, and Moon So-ri (문소리), playing his first girlfriend.
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Most of the important ones however, such as how he came to lose all his money, why he joined the (then notoriously brutal) police, why he married his wife despite not loving her, and why he treated his first girlfriend so appallingly, are simply never answered. And therein lies the rub: these gaps are simply inexplicable in a movie about so focused on the linear, chronological development of a single character (albeit in reverse), emphasized cinematographically throughout by footage of trains between each segment in the story, and also – noticeable after a second viewing – the sounds of trains passing in many important scenes. Just like Darcy Paquet of Koreanfilm.org then, I too found that
…ultimately the main character remains out of our grasp. Lee denies us any easy explanations for our hero’s character, or excuses for his behavior. The film frustrated me as I was watching it for the first time; I wanted greater access to the hero’s feelings.
Unlike him however, I wasn’t “shattered” upon reaching the end of the movie: more exasperated. And I thoroughly regret watching it twice.
Perhaps as if to subconsciously compensate for these gaps in a movie that they otherwise clearly thoroughly enjoyed though, I have noticed many other reviewers of this movie (particularly Anthony Leong and Thomas Spurlin) finding Young-ho’s character to be both a product of and metaphor for the turbulent 20 years of South Korean history that the movie covers. But this is simply bogus: having a knowledge of that history doesn’t add anything to the movie, nor does the movie in any way educate you if you lack it. Moreover, Young-ho’s financial troubles for instance (vague as they are), are by no means related to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and what happens to him during his military service in Kwangju May 1980 could have happened at any other time before Korea democratized. Indeed, given that the movie’s narrative would have worked equally as well in 1969-1989 or even 1959-1979, I’d argue that in fact its setting is almost irrelevant.
( Source: momo369 )
While I ultimately don’t recommend seeing this movie then, readers that already have may well disagree with my take on it, and I’m more than happy to be persuaded of its virtues. And I do, again, acknowledge the superb acting, and should also point out that the movie is also interesting for its depiction of Korea in the 1980s, for which I highly recommend the book Yogong: Factory Girl by Robert F. Spencer (1988) also to get a sense of just how different daily life was in Korea then.
But however naive and unsophisticated it sounds, I still apply the same standards to movie today as I did when I was 18. And lacking any readily discernible moral then, nor educating viewers about an issue or giving me a fresh new perspective on a previously well-known one, I failed to see the point of this one.
Next week: A Good Lawyer’s Wife (바람난 가족; 2003), which coincidentally features two of the same three main actors.
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I look forward to the next review! It’s always refreshing to hear a different perspective on some of the classics!
Thanks, although I honestly wonder why it is considered a “classic.” Have you seen it yourself?
Yes, I have seen it (though about 6 years ago), and I always include it among the list of films I would watch again if I had the time (a list which also includes Good Lawyers Wife). Why is it on the list? I guess it’s because it’s the first film I saw which tried to get to grips with some of the RoK’s recent history. Maybe next time round it won’t be so fresh.
Ah, I see. As you probably gathered from the post and other comments, personally I don’t really think it does get to grips with Korea’s recent history, but we can agree to disagree on that. And I can fully appreciate the value of “firsts”: I still have fond memories of all of the movies I saw at my first international film fesitval in 1995 for instance, despite them all being quite unremarkable really!
I also look very forward to future perspectives on Korean cinema from The Grand Narrative paradigm.
You might be interested in the gender-based critique of one of the foremost Korean film scholars, Kim So-young.
http://bit.ly/1b4TAr
Printed out and read, with thanks.
While it definitely got me thinking, and made me look at individual scenes in much more detail however, I’m afraid I found it to be a simply terrible article, and very representative of the sort of academic writing about cinema that has put me off the subject ever since I was an undergraduate.
Of course, I make allowances for Kim Soyoung (presumably) not being a native speaker; I can even forgive her mentioning what occurs in the segment in Kwangju in May 1980 roughly a dozen times too. But not only are there are several factual mistakes in her analysis, but they’re consistent with her grafting onto the movie of a treatise involving (for starters) Freud’s concept of the “uncanny”, US geopolitics, male subjectivity, modernism, and capitalist developmental states…that simply isn’t there. Seriously, the more I read it, the more Kim Soyoung reminded me of a medieval astronomer, devising an elegant account of the workings of the heavens consistent with his or her philosophy, but unfortunately largely uninformed by actual observation of it…
Oh, good, you thought it was a mess too. I was afraid I was losing my ability to make sense of academic writing.
Wow. You do see the irony in a blogger whose main trade is unpacking the many codes and concepts hiding in TV ads accusing a paid pro of “grafting” various ideas onto a movie, right?
Male subjectivity? Capitalist development? Not there at all???
Seriously, the more I read it, the more I can’t decide whether your appraisal could come across as less informed or more arrogant.
Well, whatever you decide, you seem to take great offense at my having the temerity to critique the analysis of a “paid pro.” As a lowly blogger, perhaps I should know my place?
Being familiar with Korea though, with its combination of mediocre universities and a status-conscious culture that grants professors a great deal of authority and respect almost completely regardless of their knowledge of their subject, amount of original research done and/or teaching ability, then I’m surprised that you have such distinctions. Granted, creating and policing the boundaries with the public (including bloggers) is very much in the corporatist interests of academia worldwide, but they seem particularly artificial in the Korean case.
So yes, while I’m not for a moment saying that Kim So-young is not an expert on Korean cinema, nor that all of her analysis is invalid, I stand by my accusation that in general she grafts on to the movie a great deal that simply isn’t there. Meanwhile, if you ever believe I’ve done the same for any advertisements here, then by all means engage with me in the comments section(s) of the relevant post(s); a dialogue, I might add, that might make contributors to the Korea Journal look a little less omniscient if we could similarly have it with them.
Yes, well… invoking the Ph.D in film studies vs. blogger could be all about “policing boundaries”… or it could be about the fact that in training for years and gaining a Ph.D from NYU, Kim might have honed her skills in analysis and persuasive power a bit more than you have. And that you simply saying to her analysis, “no,” is not all that persuasive. But, contrary to the evidence that most all critics of Peppermint Candy find such issues as “male subjectivity”/developmental state politics/etc. pertinent to the film, you seem to have it all figured out.
Sorry, but although you seem to imply that people should, I certainly don’t take it for granted that Kim So-young’s years of training and gaining a Ph.D from NYU “might have honed her skills in analysis and persuasive power a bit more” than my own.
Having said that, I suspect we’d be having an entirely different conversation now if that’s what you had written originally. But no, instead of using more neutral terms, you chose to highlight the fact that I was a blogger and she a “paid pro”, and further implied that as the former I was either uniformed and/or arrogant for my criticism of her. Moreover, if “most all critics of Peppermint Candy find such issues as ‘male subjectivity’/developmental state politics/etc. pertinent to the film,” then heaven forbid that I suggest anything to the contrary.
For someone claiming not to be concerned about policing the boundaries between blogging and academia, you seem to have a strange fixation with reminding me of my place in that continuum.
Regardless, however ironic, uniformed and/or arrogant you find it, you seem to forget that I’m entitled to simply have an opinion of her article. But while it’s not beyond me to provide a more coherent critique of it, you hardly encourage me to invest the time and effort to provide one.
Also… get thee to “고양이를 부탁해”
or it to thee. Like it or not, definitely grist for your particular mill.
I couldn’t even finish the film, Oasis from the same director is far superior, I don’t even understand how this one is considered a classic.
A more fitting film on a particular korean period would be the “classic” Obaltan (also called Stray Bullet) on the after war period, darker and quite entertaining.
Indie films Take Care Of My Cat and Flower Island are nice low key films but much more human than Peppermint Candy.
Being interested in Korean societary issues the If You Were Me series (quite surprising considered Korea’s reluctance to criitisise itself) could interest you as well (there’s a segment that deals with korean womens’ body image although I don’t rate it too much either.
But that’s just my opinion I just like to spread a bit of awareness on what I find is an interesting cinema scene in Korea
Glad to see I’m not the only one! It’s a pity that it’s too old for most people to remember why they liked it…if indeed people outside of the arts scene ever did?
Thanks for those suggestions (and anon also). I have actually seen Take Care of My Cat, but about a year ago and while rather drunk and melancholy (long story), so much it of flew right by me. I’ve put it number 5 on my (already rather crowded) list then, so will probably get to it by about this time next month!
Hi James,
I’m no cultural studies student but I wonder if people of different cultures give different opinions on movies. For example, Korea is a very collectivistic culture (as is Japan), will this give them a higher level of ‘nunchi’ compared with people in individualistic cultures?
I’m only assuming people with ‘high nunchi’ feel more involved in a movie/drama, therefore, understanding the flurry of emotions that are being conveyed better.
But then again, you are a sociology professor, I guess you should have high ‘nunchi’ as well, haha. I apologize because my speculation is instinctive and without evidence. Would like to know your thoughts.
Kenneth,
well of course people of different cultures are likely to give different opinions on movies. And similarly, as nunchi (눈치) is basically a way of inferring what people are really saying in a collectivist culture that frowns on speaking directly to one another, then of course individual Koreans are going to be better-honed nunchi skills then someone from a more individualistic culture too, and will pick up things that I will miss.
There are definite limits though, and nunchi is not like some combination of secret handshakes, rites and incantations that (say) only eating kimchi and rice for breakfast for over 20 years provides. Personally, I consider it to be no more than one of a number of conceptual tools by which entirely too many Koreans like to create black and white distinctions between themselves and non-Koreans, and like those – foreigners don’t like kimchi, they’re all ready to have sex at the drop of a hat, they can’t speak Korean etc. etc. – ultimately unsustainable. And yet still they persist.
Also after 10 years of watching Korean TV and movies also (not nearly enough though, granted), I’ve seen little evidence of a “flurry of emotions being conveyed” that fabled high-nunchi would enable me to see either (and particularly not in this movie). In fact, you could argue that living in a high-nunchi society would mean the exact opposite – that Korean people like much simpler things in their entertainment than they do in real life – as, indeed, it turns out to be the case for their dramas. Recall this next from Recentering Globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism (2002) by Koichi Iwabuchi for instance, which I talk more about here:
Granted, it’s technically about Japanese dramas, but it’s equally applicable here.
Sorry if sound like I’m really going after you just for asking a simple question by the way(!) – I don’t mean to – but, well, I can’t lie: I think your image of nunchi is a bit misguided sorry, and especially that you think it’s a bigger difference between Koreans and non-Koreans than it really is. But please feel free to disagree with me!
Hi James,
Thanks for the reply! You don’t have to apologize because that’s exactly the type of answer I’m looking for! I can’t think of a way to disagree with that.
There’s one part I don’t really understand, which is how nunchi relates to Korean’s frequently creating black and white distinctions.
btw, should I refer to you with an honorific title? I feel calling you by your name is a bit rude…
Thanks, and you’re welcome.
But I didn’t mean to imply that nunchi is directly related to Koreans’ proclivity for making black and white distinctions between themselves and non-Koreans sorry. To be more precise then, while non-Koreans supposedly lacking (and being unable to learn) nunchi is just one of many distinctions that are often mentioned, I’d argue that the desire to do so make such distinctions exists largely independently of it.
I’m not actually a sociology professor by the way (sigh): just James is fine (and would be even if really was one anyway! {wistful sigh}).
Ahhh, I understand. Thanks for the reply James. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Uh, back on the movie itself. I’m struggling with the dislike/disinterest here. It’s by far my favourite Korean film, tbh.
Wasn’t the whole point that his life went off the rails (badoom) when he lost his innocence in the Gwangju incident? His girlfriend was somehow associated with the girl he shot (he thought it was her…she’d just visited his camp to give him some peppermints) so he wanted to drive her and the memory of the whole thing away. And that’s also why he ended up with the waitress he obviously didn’t love (she fancies him the whole time but the first time he shows interest is to put up a show in front of the ex-girlfriend.) Losing his money…I don’t remember the specifics but it’s hardly a stretch considering his unhinged state. The police thing I’ll give you .. prolly just a device to hammer home the martial-law-sucked message.
Just watched this movie last night…I didn’t think it was so bad. My biggest commentary is about the catalyst of his delve into negativity after his military service. James asked why we weren’t told the reasons behind his treatment of his first girlfriend, why he joined the police force and all the other junk that happened in the movie. I’d have to say it just stems from the killing of the student. It seems in his youth he was just a sensitive dreamer and a bumbling stooge in the military. He’s pretty soft until he kills the girl. Then he becomes a sadist pretty much and pushes everything away.
There doesn’t seem to be a “good” reason to explain it, but is there rarely somethibg you can always pinpoint? If there is I think it had to be the self loathing projected onto everyone else. He hates dogs, yet he barks and growls at people. I think the guy just hates himself and once he loses it all he finally decides to take himself out.
I like this idea of film reviews, gonna try and keep up and comment on them. It should furnish some good discussion. I am always looking for good films to watch as well.
Sorry for taking so long to reply Palapo & Joey.
Palapo, I don’t personally think that he did associate his girlfriend with his accidental shooting of the high school girl in Kwangju, although I remain open to the possibility. But to be precise, he only very briefly thought that the girl was his girlfriend, when she was in the distance and he was hallucinating from the loss of blood, but of course he realized that she wasn’t after he she came close and he talked to her (and there was no way his girlfriend could physically have been there anyway).
Regardless, his choices weren’t fixed after losing his innocence, and – had I not been seeing events in reverse – I could just have readily anticipated his attempting to atone for his mistake from then on. Moreover, although he’s eased into his role as a brutal police officer in 1987, in 1984 he’s clearly uncomfortable with it, so I disagree with you Joey that him becoming a sadist followed immediately (and naturally?) from what happened in Kwangju. Sure, there may not be one or two unequivocal reasons that explain the process, and I’m all for viewers not being spoon-fed everything and so being made to think and figure things out for themselves too. But you still need something to go on, yes?
In hindsight, the treatment of his girlfriend primarily stems from him have tortured someone just a few hours previously, her telling him that he has “good hands” particularly poignant and ironic just after a prisoner was so frightened of him that he shat on them. I take it back that this isn’t really explained in the movie then, and it also adds weight to Palapo’s argument that he wanted to put all memory of the period behind him.
But was that scene in the restaurant really for this new girlfriend/wife? I didn’t really understand it to be honest. And sadistic or not, do you put all memory of a former girlfriend behind you by marrying someone you don’t love instead?
Finally Palapo, you probably don’t remember the specifics of him losing his money because…they’re never actually explained. Again, we’re left to fill in the gaps on our own. Personally, I think the jump from (moderately) successful businessperson in 1994 to penniless and suicidal in 1999 is siimply too abrupt.
Korean cinema is definitely worth watching. You indicate that you’re not very familiar with it, so I decided to list a few movies I’ve liked.
This Charming Girl and My Dear Enemy are both by the same director. The former is to Korean hyper-melodramas what the anti-Christ is to Jesus, and the latter has an understated naturalism similiar to This Charming Girl, and a pleasantly easygoing atmosphere. Ad Lib Night, also by the same director, is worth checking out as well.
A Tale of Two Sisters is a peculiar horror movie because it’s actually more sad than it is scary. It’s more of a psychological drama with incidental horror elements. A very, very intelligent and poignant story. It’s one of more widely seen Korean movies (258 external reviews on IMDB), and was unfortunately subjected to an awful Hollywood remake.
A Light Sleep is apparently completely obscure. Nobody has reviewed it (in English, anyway), most Google hits point to torrent sites, and it’s not even on IMDB. It’s a story about an insomniac teenage girl who is trying to take care of her younger sister after their parents died, and is told in chronologically disjointed sequences loosely arranged into some sort of chapters. It’s a bit odd, but I like it very much.
On the lighter end of the spectrum there is Someone Special, a very amusing quasi-parody of Korean romantic comedies that is nevertheless a better romantic comedy than the ones it makes fun of. Going by the Book, with the same writer and lead actor as Someone Special, is great as well.
I would love to say that M is simply underrated, but I think it’s something that most people just didn’t like. It’s very unconventional, and I’ve never seen anything else quite like it. If Wong Kar-wai and David Lynch made a Korean romantic comedy together, and somebody watched it and had a dream about it, the result might resemble M.
Thanks very much for those suggestions, and with your description “[it] is to Korean hyper-melodramas what the anti-Christ is to Jesus,” you’ve completely sold me on This Charming Girl in particular!
after watching this movie, I just thought it was anti-military. That it showed how screwed up a life could become from doing the mandatory military service required of Korean males.
But I found the director’s other movie, Green Fish (초록 물고기), to be much better. It shows us how someone falls into the mafia life. It really kept my attention.
I like these movies (and 고양이를 부탁해) because they show real Korean streets, and Korean people. Not Gangnam, and rich people, which seem whitewash real Korea.
Also watch, this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring,_Summer,_Fall,_Winter…_and_Spring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_care_of_my_cat
Andrew.
I didn’t like this one either.
Individual sequences were very compelling but when taken as a whole…what was the point of it all? Many sequences seem like they could belong to other movies entirely. There seemed to be little if anything that really linked most scenes together other than common characters or surroundings. It made it hard to sympathize with the main character.
If the goal is for the viewer to fill in the blanks then I’m afraid, what is shown in the film doesn’t give much if any hints that would make trying to fill in the blanks an even remotely interesting endeavor.