South Korea,
1993, 112 min
Shown in 1996 / 1998
CREDITS
- dir
-
Im Kwon-taek
- prod
-
Lee Tae-won
- scr
-
Kim Myung-gon
- cam
-
Chung Il-sung
- editor
-
Park Soon-dok
- cast
-
Kim Myung-gon, Oh Jung-hae, Kim Kyu-chul
- source
-
Taehung Pictures, 3-1, Hannam-Don, Yongsan-gu, Seoul 140 210, Korea. FAX : 82-02-797-5125
-
COMMENTS
Im Kwon-taek appeared in person to receive the Akira Kurosawa Award in 1998.
OTHER
A huge success at home and abroad, Sopyonje was responsible for an amazing revival of the dying pansori folk song tradition, which is described as a musical expression of Southwest Korea’s collective grief and suffering—in other words, a kind of blues. The three central characters are itinerant pansori singers in the 1950s, a time when many aspects of Korean culture came under siege from foreign influences. The story unfolds in flashbacks. Dong-ho is roaming the rural hinterlands, ostensibly to find rare herbal medicines for his sick son back in Seoul, but actually looking for Song-hwa, the woman he grew up with. Both of them were orphans apprenticed to the pansori master Yu-bong (played by the film’s writer, Kim Myung-gon), who pressured them to sacrifice everything for their art. Dong-ho rebelled and ran away to become the defeated man he is now. Song-hwa stayed, lost her sight and outlived her teacher. Rumor has it that she is still an itinerant pansori singer. The tale has one deeply shocking twist, but the overall tone is plaintive, elegiac and serenely beautiful. Im directs with the kind of simplicity that comes with absolute mastery of theme and visual expression; the magnificent visuals include a virtuoso nine-minute take. It’s the most emotive film of its kind since The Red Shoes.
—Tony Rayns
FACTOID #68
Stanley Mosk, who later became a California state Supreme Court Justice, served as the general chairman at the 1967 Festival.
