Green Fish Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Green Fish Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 25, 2024

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of The Poetry of Lee Chang-Dong: Four Films.

Lee Chang-dong is another one of those perhaps strangely lesser known names not just among the so-called "unwashed masses", but potentially even among some supposed film cognoscenti, despite the fact that he is one of his native country South Korea's more notable filmmakers and also despite the fact that the international recognition Chang-dong has received from any number of festivals and other annual ceremonies means scrolling through a list of nominations and actual awards bestowed on Chang-dong can take some considerable time. Film Movement is therefore hopefully aiding and abetting a wider appreciation of Chang-dong's often fascinating filmography by offering an aggregation of four of his early works. As of the writing of this review, and kind of ironically given the overall title of this collection, it looks like only one of the films in the set, Chang-dong's lyrical 2010 opus Poetry, has had a previous Region A release on Blu-ray, in this case a 2011 release from Kino Lorber.

Though it's largely forgotten now, Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for her performance as Anna Held in the 1936 extravaganza The Great Ziegfeld, a bestowal which has often been cited as stemming largely from one fairly brief scene late in the film when Held has a telephone conversation with Ziegfeld (William Powell) after Ziegfeld has married Billie Burke. While The Great Ziegfeld was one of the probably less illustrious films to take home a Best Picture Oscar, and Rainer's performance probably seems hopelessly kitschy to modern day sensibilities, the film at least had the good sense to arrive before online parody sites were a thing, something that kind of humorously has played into a bit of "legacy" of Green Fish, once again due to a memorable scene involving a phone.

In this particular case, it's a call home to a mentally challenged sibling of focal character Mak-dong (Han Suk-kyu), who has more or less willingly become a cog in an organized crime wheel after "Coming Home" from a stint in the military. This call (which was evidently improvised by Suk-kyu) also overtly contextualizes the somewhat unusual title of the film, while offering a kind of devastating emotional blow to a film that is at that point hurtling toward an inevitably tragic conclusion. A star-crossed love affair is also part and parcel of this character study, as the film begins with Mak-dong kinda sorta "meeting cute" with Mi-ae (Shim Hye-jin) after her scarf flies onto Mak-dong's face (blinding him in a probably over obvious visual metaphor) on a train ride. Mi-ae turns out to be a singer at a club and the "moll" of local crime lord Bae Tae-gon (Moon Sung-keun).

Many can probably now assemble the larger outlines of the plot from the pieces provided above, but what gives Green Fish a kind of ineluctable emotional pull is Mak-dong's attempts to matriculate into a society that in some ways has left him behind during his service (in an element that frankly kind of mirrors the Ashby film linked to above), as well as his simultaneous attempts to either keep or maybe make his family whole. There's a rather interesting subtext here of the corrosive effects of Korea's version of a post-war "economic miracle", though it's the personal stories Chang-dong provides that offer the most consistent interest.

Green Fish Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Green Fish is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Film Movement tends not to provide a wealth of technical information on its releases, and that's once again the case here, though all four films in this set are advertised as having been culled from new 4K scans. I've had some issues with color timing and gamma in particular on a number of Film Movement releases, but I'm really happy to say Green Fish and really all of the films in this set have a beautifully saturated and (even better) natural looking palette, even within the context of this film's kind of "mundane" setting that doesn't really depend on outrageous production design artifices. Detail levels are commendable throughout, especially in any number of close-ups Chang-dong employs, where everything from facial features to (more troublingly) some disturbing scars are offered with precision. Grain is tightly resolved throughout the presentation.

Note: As generally excellent as I found this presentation, it was evidently culled from an incorrect master, and Film Master has announced a replacement program.

Green Fish Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Green Fish offers a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 track in the original Korean. A glut of good ambient environmental sounds helps to enliven this track, with track being the operative word as the film's opening scenes on and around a train make clear. Both nightclub scenes and some outdoor material offer a surprisingly spacious and layered accounting of effects, dialogue and score. All spoken material is delivered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Green Fish Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Lee Chang Dong Intro (HD; 5:11) is subtitled in English.


• James Marsh & Pierce Conran Commentary


• Making Of (HD; 45:22) is subtitled in English.


• Production Announcement (HD; 16:01) is a press event that looks like it was sourced from an old videotape. Subtitled in English.


• Green Fish Trailer (HD; 1:34)

As with most Film Movement releases, the disc also offers an About Film Movement option on the Main Menu which leads to text about Film Movement.

Green Fish Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While arguably not as consistently developed as some of Chang-dong's later work, this directorial debut made abundantly clear how skilled Chang-dong is in creating instantly memorable characters, even when (as in this case) they can be in a somewhat rote story (something that is most definitely not the case with some later Chang-dong efforts). Technical merits are first rate, and the supplements very enjoyable. Recommended.