Green Fish.

Described by the NY Times as a "Critique of Korean society told through the eyes of a young man who becomes enmeshed in the criminal underworld"[1] The young man in question is Mak-dong (Han Seok-Kyu). Returning home from service in the army he rescues a beautiful young lady Mi-ae (Shum Hye-jin), who is travelling on the same train, from three thugs who are harassing and manhandling her. The girl escapes without injury but Mak-dong gets beaten for his trouble and his attackers leave the train. The brave young soldier goes after them but ends up missing his train back home, retaining only a red silk scarf that belonged to the girl. Eventually returning to his mother’s house he reacquaints himself with his three brothers and his wayward sister. Mak-dong wants to set up a family restaurant so that all of its members can work together under the same roof. Our budding entrepreneur has two priorities, to earn the money to set up the new business but more pressingly he wants to find the girl and return her scarf. Travelling to Seoul to find work he discovers that Mi-ae works as a singer in a nightclub. On approaching her he again gets into a fight, this time with the gangsters that run the club. This are led by Bae Tae-gon (Moon Seong-geun) known to his men as Big Brother and Mi-ae is his mistress. But all is not lost as Bae Tae-gon takes a liking to Mak-dong and offers him a job as a car park attendant. But things don’t stop there; other tasks are given to our naïve young ex-soldier who gradually begins to get deeper into Seoul’s crime fraternity.

 

'Big Brother' and Mi-ae.

Cleverly balanced between a family drama and gangster genre thriller that’s made all the better by the acting of Han Seok-Kyu with Lee Dong-jun’s music making it feel very European at times. Not particularly original but very well executed. A promising first feature length film from South Korean director and screenwriter Lee Chang-dong who went on to make the wonderful Poetry (2010) that won Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.

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[1] NY Times.

Poetry.

Mi-ja attends poetry class.

The charisma and beautifully underplayed charm of the lead character make’s Poetry (2010) one of the best South Korean dramas of last year and certainly not one to be missed. Director and screenwriter Lee Chang-dong took a chance by casting 67-year-old veteran actress Yun Jeong-hee, who had not appeared in a movie for 15 years, as his main lead Yang Mi-ja a 66-year-old grandmother. It’s her endearing characterization and incredible present’s that makes this intelligent piece of film making so wonderful.

Mi-ja's grandson hides a secret. 

The movie tells the story of a perfectly dressed widow in her 60’s who earns a modest living from attending to an old man, part paralysed from a stroke. Two things happen that rock her humble existence. On a routine visit to the local hospital she reports, in conversation, that her memory is not as good as it once was, she is consequently sent to the main hospital in Seoul for further tests where it transpires she has the early onset of Alzheimer’s. Receiving this rather staggering news she decides to register for a poetry class at the local Community Centre! When the body of a young female suicide victim is washed up its discovered that six boys in her class were responsible for her repeated rape, one of which is the grandson of Mi-ja. It was arranged with the dead girls parents that instead of them going to the police the guilty families would provide a monetary settlement, which would obviously have to include Mi-ja.

The film won Best Screenplay at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. If you enjoyed Bong Joon-ho’s Mother (2010) than you’re certainly going to love Poetry.