Geuk jang jeon (2005)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Sang-soo Hong

Writer:

Sang-soo Hong (writer)

Release Date:

27 May 2005 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In Seoul, the paths of two men and one woman intersect and move apart from one another, centering around their love for cinema...

Plot Keywords:

Actress | Neon Signs | University Student | Sleeping Pills | Rooftop

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Moonsu Bang
Bo-Kwang Choi
Myeong-su Choi
Han-Cheol Jo
Myoeng-su Kim
Sang-kyung Kim	...	Kim Dong-soo
Seong-Yong Kye
Ki-woo Lee	...	Jeon Sang-won
Kyung-jin Lee
Seung-ah Lee
Ji-won Uhm	...	Choi Young-shil

Also Known As:

Conte de cinéma (France)
Tale of Cinema (International: English title)

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

France | South Korea

Language:

Korean

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Singapore:R21 | France:U | South Korea:18

Filming Locations:

South Korea

Company:

Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC)

Movie Connections:

References Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

A delicate introspectiveness

Hong Sang-soo: Tale of Cinema/keuk jang jeon (South Korea/France/MK2 2005). 90 minutes. No US distributer. Shown at the New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, October 1 and 2, 2005.

Hong was back for the third time at the New York Film Festival with this appealing self-reflexive look at ineffectual young men who happen to be filmmakers. The first segment is a film about such a man (Lee Kiwoo), who is tall and handsome but directionless. He meets an old girlfriend (Uhm Jiwon) and eventually talks her into committing suicide with him, though the attempt ends comically.

Ten years later, the star, who was also the director, is now famous and ill. His co-star, the girl, is a successful actress. She encounters a classmate of the filmmaker, also handsome, now down on his luck, who claims his story was appropriated in the film, and it seems like it is going to repeat itself as he gloms onto her and they spend a drunken night together.

What's interesting is the way Hong slides from glamorous ennui to comical mediocrity in his meandering New Wave-ish sequences in a brightly lit but tacky urban Korea. Is Seoul really anything like Paris? Perhaps not. But Hong's sweetly melancholy film with its gentle convolutions lingers pleasantly in the mind -- despite the slightly too-easy irony of its finale with the once "suicidal" director now whimpering that he doesn't want to die.

Hong was born in Korea but got a BFA at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and an MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago.