The Films of Lee Chang-dong
Lee Chang-dong is one of South Korea’s most celebrated filmmakers as well as one of its harshest critics. Newly restored in 4K, this collection of three of his early works reveals the origins of a cinematic career that is uniquely “marked by a fascination with pain and longing” (IndieWire).
In his directorial debut, GREEN FISH, Lee uses the conventions of film noir to explore the story of a young man who becomes ensnared in a dangerous love triangle with the girlfriend of his employer, a local mob boss. Opening on a shocking scene of implied suicide, Lee’s sophomore feature PEPPERMINT CANDY proceeds to move backward in time, revealing the unhappiness of its protagonist in reverse chronology. In OASIS, two societal outcasts become unlikely soulmates when an irresponsible ex-con befriends a woman with severe cerebral palsy.
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Green Fish
Released from his mandatory military service, Makdong (Han Suk-gyu) returns to a hometown he no longer recognizes. After rescuing a beautiful young woman from harassment on a train, his life takes an unexpected turn when she unwittingly lures him into the criminal underworld. Finding himself in a...
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Peppermint Candy
Yongho (Sul Kyung-gu) stares down an oncoming train as twenty years of his life flash before his eyes. Proceeding to move backward in time, Lee Chang-dong's acclaimed second directorial feature rewinds the protagonist's loss of humanity – from his fraught, self-hating middle age through his callo...
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Oasis
Fresh out of prison, Hong Jong-du (Sul Kyung-gu) finds an unlikely soulmate in Gong-ju (Moon So-ri), the daughter of the victim of the hit-and-run accident for which he went to jail. Wheelchair-bound and suffering from severe cerebral palsy, Gong-ju is kept cloistered in a cheap apartment by her ...