From the land to the sea... The Seashore Village (1965), London Korean Film Festival opening gala with Kim Soo-yong, Regent Street Cinema

“And the wives live their lives with a yearning in the heart.”

Kim Soo-yong is in amazing spirits for a 90-year old man who has just flown 14 hours from Seoul to London but this director of some 119 films had every right to be as he introduced his mesmeric seaside adventure romance from 1965. Even through his highly-proficient and quick-witted interpreter, Soo-yong’s sense of humour and spirit shone through and as he praised us Brits for staying to the end of the Q&A unlike say the French or the Italians… his charming of the full house at Britain’s oldest cinema was complete!

This is the 14^th London Korean Film Festival and The Seashore Village is an excellent choice for openers as it reflects the festival’s themes of the impact of modernity on old traditions. The story is set in a traditional fishing village where, even in the sixties, old values constricted women in particular; a town full of fisherman’s widows who rarely if ever get a second chance at marriage. Soo-yong was asked about his reputation for foregrounding women’s issues but this is more from his inherent sense of fairness than, he says, any defined support for feminism.

Ko Eun-ah

The main character Hae-soon (Ko Eun-ah who was in her second year at university at the time) loses her husband to a storm after just ten days of marriage and is left on the collective shelf along with a dozen others who have lost their men to the risky business of fishing. We are lulled into a sense of security by beautiful panoramas of the sea and the village from  cinematographer Jeon Jo-Myeong who’s imagery will be so important to the story, as the villagers are introduced along with the themes of superstition, fear and gender roles that will run through the film.

We see a variety of characters, the helmsman and his pregnant wife who worries about the gloomy dreams she had last night, a boy trying to avoid school as his life will – probably – be just like his father’s, fishermen only need to learn their trade… a girl asks for money to attend school and her father promises it after he returns from the fishing trip. There’s a fluid light touch about these moments and that camera is everywhere around the players.

The boats get ready to leave

The two Seong-gu brothers are late, as usual, older brother Soon-im (Jeon Gye-hyeon) dallying with his pretty new wife and younger Seong-chil (Lee Nak-hoon) trying to hurry him along. We get the first glimpse of Hwang Jung-seun as their mother as a flicker of dread crosses her face when the blinds are pulled back and she looks out to the sea. She’s a remarkable actress and carries so much story value in her expression. Her husband died at sea and she watches and waits for the seeming inevitable.

They’re hurried up by opinionated misfit Sang-soo (Shin Young-kyun) a rebel without cause save for a fascination with Hae-soon, glancing back at her as he follows the boys to the boat. He’s not fishing today; is he not as brave as the others or just too canny.

The boats leave the harbour and before long a typhoon quickly breaks and rips across sea and land as panic erupts, the women pray with the fate of their men in the lap of the sea gods. All this in the first ten minutes…

Hwang Jung-seun (centre)

The family mourns the loss of Soon-im and the ritual is fascinating, as his mother cradles his “spirit” and returns it home to her side even as his body is lost miles under the sea. Tradition dictates that Hae-soon must join the other widows in dutiful mourning and this group is part work-team – diving under the water to lay the communal fishing net – and self-help group. The women laugh and joke, sharing their experience of loss and trying to keep on living, missing their partners but, shockingly, not necessarily missing sex – you don’t need a man for everything.

Sang-soo would disagree on this point and he steps up his advances to the point at which, to my surprise at least, Hae-soon relents and the two begin a relationship. Sang-soo brags of his conquest and gets a beating from Seong-chil who quickly realises that this may be his sister-in-law’s last chance of happiness. He helps to persuade his mother to allow her to head off with Sang-soo.

Shin Young-kyun

In the 1953 novel by Oh Young-soo, the story ends as the couple heads inland to live in the mountains but Kim Soo-yong takes us on a different path. The couple have a series of adventures inland and do indeed find each other in the mountain stillness, thrown together against a beautiful backdrop highlighted by Jo-Myeong’s camerawork yet again.

The mountains and the sea inspire Hae-soon in a similar way but whereas the sea beyond the shore is an elemental force, in land the dangers are man-made. Human nature versus nature… one unchanging and the other more cruelly unpredictable. Will Hae-soon find happiness amongst men with her man or will her sisters by the shore prove more steadfast.

Supportive, argumentative... sisters.

Kim Soo-yong made a, thought-provoking, philosophical film and yet tonight he said that he wasn’t quite satisfied with the film after it was made with the young actors more interested in playing their parts than in supporting his over-arching themes. He accused his young stars of now being “too stuck up” to attend their early work – they should be proud of this film.

The London Korean Film Festival now runs until 24^th November and there are dozens of excellent films screening across London and elsewhere celebrating a century of Korean cinema.

Full details are on the website.