Childhood’s end… Scattered Night (2019), London Korean Film Festival Closing Gala, Regent Street Cinema

Remarkably this was co-directors Lee Jihyoung and Kim Sol’s graduation film and in the post-screening Q&A, Kim Sol said that it had even got their tutor to admit that they’d worked hard. He or she may have been very hard to please but this film is a quietly spectacular family drama that touches on many of the themes of the festival and strikes new ground in terms of the universality and deceptive simplicity of its sadness.

The story centres on a family in crisis, parents Mum (Kim Hyeyoung) and Dad (Lim Hojun) – who in the subtitles at least, refer to themselves in the third person throughout - and their children ten-year old Su-min (Moon Seunga) and her older brother Jin-ho (Choi Junwoo). Mum and Dad can no longer continue living together and have decided to move out of the family home and somehow split the children between them in separate flats the only problem being how and who?

This is a common heartbreak – how many families does this affect? - and given extra punch by the directorial team with Kim Sol focused on the cinematography and Jihyoung on the emotional, performative narrative of her script. In the opening sections a wide-angled lens is used to introduce the home and all members of the family but gradually Kim Sol shifts to a tighter focus, often hand-held, closing in on the remarkable emoting of the children and sometimes only showing their parents in part.

Make no mistake, the two youngsters give incredibly detailed performances, especially young Moon Seunga, and the directors deserve all the plaudits that they have had and will continue to get for their work. The film won both the Grand Prix in the Jeonju Festival's Korean competition (2019) and the Best Actress Award went to Moon.

Quality time? Choi Junwoo, Moon Seunga and Lim Hojon

There’s not much to describe in the way of action in Scattered Night, but there is a compelling journey made by the children… Moon is almost ever-present and to a large degree we experience the situation through her mentality with both Mum and Dad bewildering with their shifts from focused attentiveness to behaviour beyond the pre-teen’s ken. One moment Mum is focused on clipping her nails, only half-attentive, the next she gets closer to her daughter as she helps her clip her nails… the ebb and flow of everyday family engagement revealed through nail clippers. There are many such moments; a family increasingly out of its own focus.

Mum and Dad struggle to articulate and in a key discussion with the children they are shot from the side and backs as we see the youngsters put into words what they’re actually trying to say. The family completes the sense of each individual and it will take a long time for the damage being done to be fixed. The parents find it hard to use the words in their heads, perhaps they’re more scared than the children, they can see how lonely life is.

Su-min worries about awkwardness developing between herself and her brother and he responds that there already is… it’s funny in a well-observed way and the humour comes across before the subtitles translate the specific words. The timing of the performers and their expressiveness means that there’s an innocence at play and the hidden tragedy is that we see from the children that they do not fully comprehend how deeply their lives will change.

The parents offer the children three options, both can stay with Mum or one each with Mum and Dad… both staying with Dad doesn’t appear to be a runner as, in his words, Mum will get “jealous” – his most childish moment. It’s for the children to decide… and the way they live in future will indeed change everything but the film succeeds so well in making us feel this as children do. No mean feat. One to watch and cast and crew also not to be missed in future!

So Mayer provided an excellent introduction and also facilitated a Q&A with Kim Sol after the screening - just when we we all reeling from her film!

This was a splendid way to close the home leg of the 14th London Korean Film Festival, but the films carry on across the UK until 24th November, full details on their website.

I know a little more about Korean cinema than I did two weeks ago, and this has only raised more questions and connections to seek out. See you next year LKFF for #15!

Kim Sol gives As to So Mayer's Qs post screening

To the heart... Aimless Bullet (1961), London Korean Film Festival

“Maybe we can change our fate.”

“The wall of fate divides us and we cannot bring it down with a gun.”

“Why not? Why not!”

Yu Hyun-mok’s dark tale of a family’s struggles eight years after the Korean War is regarded as one of the best films of the period and in all Korean cinema. It’s a rough ride but it does not disappoint and has an intensity that is still startling.

At one point, on the run from the police after committing a bank robbery, Yeongho (Choi Moo-ryong) is chased through underground sewers, only stopped, momentarily, by the body of a mother hanging dead from the ceiling, her child strapped, still alive to her back. It’s almost ludicrous and yet it hits you hard as a symbol of a desperate country still overrun with the American soldiers and with so many living in poverty with no future.

There are a number of deaths in the film and most happen off screen, casual carnage among an aimless people lacking hope and direction with the exception of the odd lucky movie star, hardworking streetwalkers and dentists. A beautiful woman is pushed to her death by an obsessed young poet who dives after her, if he can’t have her there’s no point in life, a women dies in childbirth and yet her husband, all too defeated to properly process her passing, leaves the morgue and jumps in a cab to, well, nowhere…

Cheolho trudges home

The story is centred on the family of an underpaid accountant Cheolho (Kim Jin-kyu) whose bed-ridden mother (Noh Jae-sin), is still living with traumatic stress post-war and keeps on shouting out: "Let's get out of here!". But, of course, the family cannot, eking out a living in a shanty town with Cheolho's Wife (Jung-suk Moon) barely able to provide for their children and his sister, Myeongsuk (Seo Ae-ja) forced into prostitution, earning money from the American soldiers still serving in Seoul – there were some 57,000 in 1961 when this film was released.

Cheolho spends the film nursing toothache, unable to afford getting his wisdom teeth sorted out and putting his family first with his meagre wage not even allowing him the bus fare to get to work. He trudges from home to the city every day, hopeless… without purpose, just clinging on.

The veterans, Yoon Il-bong centre

Cheolho’s brother Yeongho seems to have more spirit, a war veteran who still dresses well and spends his time drinking with his former soldiers some of whom carry the marks of the war, one has a metal hook for a hand, another can only walk with crutches (Yoon Il-bong, who is ridiculously handsome).

Yeongho also has a good-looking girlfriend, Miri (Kim Hye-jeong) who is an actress and tries to get him a part in the film she is making. The director interviews Yeongho and tells him he’s looking for a veteran with the exact same wounds as his – shrapnel entry and exit wounds on the torso. Yeongho is disgusted and refuses to sell his wounds for entertainment.

“Change the story. Change it so that he has no eyes, no nose and no legs. That way it will sell more. So, what you need is not me but my rotten scars, and you want me to sell them? I didn’t get shot at for fun!”

Yeongho runs into Seol-hui

Yeongho has already been evolving a Plan B after meeting the beautiful former nurse Seol-hui, (Mun Hye-ran) who shows him her top floor “apartment” atop an industrial building and, as the two drift together there’s hope in love. But this is Korea in 1960…

Seol-hui shows Yeongho a service revolver and wants him to have the gun. He has had enough of respecting the rules and decides to be more “daring” … setting up a bank robbery with his former comrades in support; what options are left in a destructed world of shame and poverty?

Yu Hyun-mok directs with rawness and economy giving the two brothers adequate focus and allowing the supporting actors their chance to establish rich characters. It is a highly accomplished film and rightly lauded in the canon of Korean film.

Impossible choices for Myeongsuk

This sparkling restoration is a highlight of the London Korean Film Festival, it’s a film I would recommend very highly so tell your taxi driver to take you directly to the Picturehouse Central on Wednesday 13th at 6.30pm!

It's also being screened at:

Edinburgh 18th November

Belfast on 19th November

Manchester 23rd November

Love and worship… A Hometown of the Heart (1949), Korean Film Festival

This year’s London Korean Film Festival is celebrating a century of Korean film but sadly much of the first 30 years is lost which is why Yong-Gyu Yoon’s striking, bitter-sweet film is to be treasured all the more. It’s a beautifully shot film that finds pain even in peace and is a fearless examination of family, maternal bonds and mortal sin: do we deserve happiness, is it even a natural state?

A young boy is abandoned aged three by his mother and left in the care of monks at a Buddhist temple in the hills far outside Seoul. She is poor and unable to care for one more child and as we join the film we see the boy Do-seong – played with remarkable tenderness by Min Yu – a few years on, trying to understand why he was abandoned and clinging on to the hope that someday she will return.

The chief monk (Ki-jong Byeon) won’t reveal the truth and wants Do-seong to complete his spiritual journey in order to atone for the sins of his mother but, as those around tell him tales can he attain this higher level in ignorance? The temple worker (Heon-yong Oh) who tells him his mother will return when he has grown taller or when the next year has passed, means well but this only keeps him in a childlike state of grace.

Other boys hunt for birds as Do-seong lives in discipline and hope.

Min Yu and Eun-hie Choi

A widow (Eun-hie Choi) and her mother (Geum-seong Seok) visit the temple, seeking to make sense of her loss by contributing to the upkeep of the sacred site. Grief attracts loss and the boy and widow become drawn to each other. Eventually the widow asks to adopt Do-seong and take him to live in Seoul where she will pay for his education and he will live well… it’s an answer to the boy’s prayers, a new “mother” to fill the void he has always struggled with.

The widow has a fan made from feathers and Do-seong starts killing birds to make a similar fan for his mother who he is certain he will meet in Seoul. The need for his mother leads him away from Buddhist instruction and there can only be trouble when she does indeed arrive, unknown to him, to argue with the master that she should have him back. The priest is unbending and, for the boy’s spiritual wellbeing, insists that he stay.

Clearly there is going to be a conflict between the strictures of faith and maternal love and the film deals with this in unexpected and thought-provoking ways. It says much that speaks to the modern heart and the juxtaposition of Do-seong’s turmoil with the peaceful surroundings subverts expectations: there is no peace without love and loyalty is a poor substitute for family.

Yong-Gyu Yoon’s understands the mind of a child and balances his emotional narratives with sublime external cinematography. His challenge to the audience is both subtle and respectful, you cannot watch this film without taking sides, forming opinions and, ultimately being surprised.

The London KoreanFilm Festival continues until 14th and then heads out around the UK; full details on the website!

Quartet… The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996), Regent Street Cinema, London Korean Film Festival

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well was Hong Sangsoo’s directoral debut and it’s a sophisticated tale of four interlinked characters that, for a man reputed to have no more than a dozen DVDs, shows an envious depth of cinematic convention.

The people in the film are flawed and erratic, especially the men, and, as film programmer Simon Ward said in his introduction, in films such as Grass – also shown last night – Sangsoo shows some influence from Antonioni. Whilst he wasn’t referring to this film there is the same communicative distance as in the Italian’s work with men often unable to express themselves to women except through sex and anger.

One of the men is Hyo Seob (Eui-sung Kim) like Marcello Mastroianni in La Notte, a writer and yet he cannot give verbal expression to his heart. He’s having an affair with an elegant married woman Bo Kyeong (Eung-Kyung Lee) who, married to the sexually stale husband Dong Wu (Jin-seong Park), is perhaps attracted to his youth and passion - everything she has lost in marriage.

Eun-hee Bang and Eui-sung Kim

Hyo Seob declares his love for Bo Kyeong and yet he is still conducting an affair with the much younger woman (Eun-hee Bang) who he is stringing along. It’s hard not to see the director in the character of Hyo, but then you have to write about what you know!

Hyo’s a fitfully published author hanging on for his next paycheck and fetishizing the process of creation, making his own notebooks and handwriting even in an age of desk-top computers of which many wonderful vintage models are shown. As with one of the character’s pagers, they’re a reminder of how much has changed in just twenty-odd years.

Not human nature though and Hyo’s true colours are revealed when he gets drunk with friends and tries to force one woman to drink too much and then picks a fight with a waitress who spills food on his only shirt. He ends up with a week in jail despite an eloquently-hollow defence.

Eung-Kyung Lee

To see what Bo Kyeong sees in him we have to follow her husband on one of his business trips. He’s a very particular man with OCD germophobia who is clearly not that important as his meeting is delayed throughout the day leaving him stuck in a hotel hoping to see his client the next day. It’s humiliating and yet that seems his lot. He orders a prostitute and asks just for a conversation… he’s completely lost any intimacy with his wife and probably all through his own inward obsessions. The woman lights a cigarette – there’s a lot of smoking throughout, I was gasping for a Woodbine and I don’t even smoke – and says that men like him are the real perverts…

When finally he does get what she thinks he’s asked for, the condom breaks and he’s in a serious spin trying to clean away potential disease as she laughs. He goes for a test and, after Bo Kyeong finds out, the result hangs over the rest of the film, right up until the climactic finish.

Hong Sangsoo weaves his four-sided narrative carefully; it’s an ambitious first feature and as the character arcs get closer together the time spent on each one gets shorter and shorter as we had towards a collision between these careful orbits and, indeed, the satellites revolving in separate circuits around each main player.

Jin-seong Park and Eung-Kyung Lee

This film was made about a decade after South Korea was democratized and times where tough with almost all the characters short of money. The young ticket girl played by Eun-hee Bang gets a break voicing video games but when she is asked to add “vocalese” to a animated porn film she draws the line. Her regular work is hanging by a thread and she is pursued by another man who

He wants to posses her just as possession drives the other men; money, commodification and insecurity are the results of the hard-won freedoms the nineties brought.

The characters are wonderfully drawn and the performances generate real sympathy and antipathy as the director pursues his vision to the profoundly uncompromising end. The supporting cast is also especially vibrant and one of them was Song Kang-ho in his film debut: so many arrive fully formed like Hyo’s neighbour who loans Bo some money and notes that he’s now growing chilli and the waitress who just won’t take any of his drunken abuse.

Eui-sung Kim and his ever-present cigarette

Ultimately you get the feeling that this new freedom requires a more spirited response from not just the characters in the film but everyone. This much is true everywhere. The pig long ago fell into the well in the UK… and we need to pull it out.

The London Korean Film Festival continues in London until 14^th November and then around the UK until 24^th – full details are on the website.

There must be more...

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.

Korean Autumn… Kokdu: A Story of Guardian Angels & London Korean Film Festival 2019 1st-24th November

Kokdu is the latest film from director Kim Tae-yong, probably best known for Memento Mori (1999) and Late Autumn (2010) and who also curated the restoration of Korea’s oldest surviving feature, Crossroads of Youth (1934) – as seen in London earlier this year.

It’s a charming mix of traditional Korean theatre based on the myth of the Kokdu, four supernatural spirits who guide the dead to their destination in the afterlife. The action is split between live action in “reality” and a spectacular theatrical production with the two gradually becoming one as the film progresses.

Two children, Su-min (Kim Su-an) and Dong-min (Choi Go) trade their grandmother’s flowery shoes for a puppy they discover at the market but when the latter (Park Jeong-suk), is taken seriously ill, they try to retrieve her shoes and take them to hospital. The children follow a trail to the junk dealers’ site and, spotting the shoes deeply buried, fall down after them only to emerge backstage at a theatre where their mother (Park Mi-hyen) is directing a Kokdu show.

In the grand tradition of Oz, the play’s the thing but Tae-yong keeps his fantasies balanced throughout maintaining a firm grip on his poignant narrative to the elegiac end.

‘I am an entertainer Kokdu. I’ll cry and laugh with you, comfort you through the journey.’

On stage the children are greeted by four Kokdu; the Caregiver (Cho Hee-bong), the Guide (Shim Jae-hyun), the Guard (Park Sang-ju) and Entertainer (Lee Ha-kyoung) all are new to their roles and so nervous about apparently having to escort children to their after-life they decide that the best policy is to fib a bit and play along with the pretence of finding grandma’s shoes which, no doubt, when clicked together under the incantation “there’s no place like home” may well return you to reality.

Traditional gugak music is used throughout and as per its stage origins, the story was originally performed live at the National Gugak Center in Seoul, generating record ticket sales, the film has spectacular theatrical routines as the children head towards Heaven or Hell and Grandma, waking in hospital, heads out towards them…

The children with Caregiver, Guide, Entertainer and Guard 

The two children give wonderful performances beyond their years and the Kokdu are excellent value too, especially Lee Ha-kyoung who dances superbly and Cho Hee-bong who's dynamically funny in any language. Entertaining for all ages, I found the film very moving – we never stop preparing ourselves for grief and processing it once it has arrived: and fairy tales have always served that purpose.

The film was screened as part of the programme launch of the London Korean Film Festival which runs from 1^st to 14^th November in London before touring across a further six cities from 18^th to 24^th. Now in its 14^th year the festival will highlight 100-years of Korean cinema with UK and International premieres, guests and events across a diverse set of strands.

The Seashore Village

The festival’s Opening Gala on 1st November with a UK premier of a restored The Seashore Village (1965) a story of a young woman, Hae-soon, living in a village heavily populated by women who have lost their husbands at sea. The film’s director Kim Soo-yong is now in his 90s will be present to discuss the film, his career and the rich history of Korean film.

Special Focus: A Century of Korean Cinema picks up from the LKFF’s superb collaboration with BFI earlier this year featuring pivotal titles exploring the nation’s rich cinematic history and incorporating UK and European premiere film screenings of culturally-important retrospective titles, many newly restored, and introduced by leading filmmakers and critics from Korea and the UK, along with Q&As, forums, workshops and unique events. 

The oldest film to feature in the Special Focus programme is Yun Yong-gyu’s melodrama A Hometown in Heart (1949) and there will be a focus on films from the 60s including Aimless Bullet (1961)from Yu Hyun-mok, a key figure of the period, which I’m told is a powerful, downbeat view of postwar struggle told with style and substance. A Woman Judge (1962), the second ever film from a woman director, Hong Eun-won also looks another highlight featuring the struggles of a young woman to break the mould and become a judge.

Aimless Bullet

The strand continues with key films from the 80’s and 90’s an era when Korean cinema finally started to gain more international recognition with directors like Hong Sangsoo, whose The Day a Pig Fell into a Well (1996) sounds too good to miss, Lim Soon-rye, her debut, the satire Three Friends (1996) is on show, and Lee Chang-dong whose second work Peppermint Candy (1999), portrays a tragic personal story which reflects on Korean society as a whole. 

The Cinema Now strand showcases the best of contemporary Korean cinema with a diverse line-up including some of Korea’s finest recent titles, including festival sensations and domestic box office hits from the past year most of which are UK and European premiers.

Presented by the LKFF in conjunction with the Barbican’s Hidden Figures film programme, there is a celebration of renowned director Ha Gil-jong, one of Korean cinema’s most iconoclastic auteurs from the early 70s – when censorship was strict - to date. The March of Fools (1975), Ha’s best-known film, is among those screened and shows how he was able to use a college comedy to reflect on the prevailing dictatorship of the time.

The Day a Pig Fell in a Well

Women’s Voices celebrates the work of first-time women directors with four films: Cha Sung-duk’s Youngju (2018, UK Premiere), Ahn Ju-young’s A Boy and Sungreen (2018, International Premiere), Shim Hyejung’s A Bedsore (2019, International Premiere) and Young Sun Noh’s intimate documentary Yukiko (2018, UK Premiere).

The Documentary strand highlights the work of two of the country’s political film collectives which developed in the 1980s, the Seoul Film Collective, who from 1982 to 1987 produced a number of films that contributed to the collective social and political reform movement and the collective Jangsangotmae whose film The Night Before the Strike (1990) was banned and had to be shown illicitly.

The Animation strand will showcase a classic Korean animated film from Shin Dong-Hun, a pioneer in Korean animation, A Story of Hong Gil-dong (1967) one film Disney will not be re-creating as live action.

Full details of these and the other strands, Artist Video and Mise-en-scène Shorts, are set out on the festival’s website: it’s going to be a richly rewarding November!