Description: Filmmaker, playwright, and novelist Lee Chang-dong is one of South Korea's most celebrated artists as well as one of its harshest critics. Newly restored in 4K, this collection of four of his early works reveals the poetic origins of a cinematic career that is uniquely "marked by a fascination with pain and longing" (IndieWire).
In his directorial debut, GREEN FISH (1997), 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 (1999) proceeds to move backward in time, revealing the unhappiness of its protagonist in reverse chronology.
In OASIS (2002), two societal outcasts become unlikely soulmates when an irresponsible ex-con befriends a woman with severe cerebral palsy.
Following a matriarch who finds her capacity as a caregiver threatened by Alzheimer's disease, POETRY (2010) features a Cannes award-winning screenplay by Lee and an achingly vulnerable performance by legendary actress Yun Jung-hee in a role he specifically penned for her.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
OASIS
Full description: 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 brother, whose only concern is the government assistance she receives. Over a series of clandestine meetings, the two begin an improbable relationship that defies the judgment and cruelty of the world around them.
Winner of the Silver Lion for Best Director and Best Young Actress at the Venice Film Festival, Lee Chang-dong's OASIS is a "brave film" that "shows two people who find any relationship almost impossible, and yet find a way to make theirs work" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
Lee Chang Dong Intro
Making of
Cast and crew interviews
Oasis preview screening
Oasis trailer
PEPPERMINT CANDY
Full description: A powerful work of Korean New Wave cinema and Lee Chang Dong's second directorial feature, PEPPERMINT CANDY spans 20 years in the life of one man, Yongho, from his callow teens through his fraught, self-hating middle age. Presented in seven chapters in reverse-chronological order, the film begins with Yongho's untimely suicide and ends with a first date full of the promise and verve of youth. The moments in between these events as seen through lens of Yongho's life observe South Korea's fraught political history during of late 20th century, and in turn elegize a generation of marginalized people with "a quiet, heartbreaking power...," (A.O. Scott, The New York Times)
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
Lee Chang Dong Intro
Making of
Auditions
Outtakes
Peppermint Candy trailer
POETRY
Full description: Mija lives with her middle-schooler grandson in a small suburban city located along the Han River. She is a dandy old lady who likes to dress up in flower-decorated hats and fashionable outfits, but she is also an unpredictable character with an inquisitive mind. By chance she takes a 'poetry' class at a neighborhood cultural center and is challenged to write a poem for the first time in her life. Her quest for poetic inspiration begins with observing the everyday life she never intentionally took notice of before to find beauty within it. And with this, Mija is delightfully surprised with newfound trepidation as if she were a little girl discovering things for the first time in her life. But when she is suddenly faced with a reality harsh beyond her imagination, she realizes perhaps life is not as beautiful as she had thought it is....
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
Lee Chang Dong Intro
Making of
Actor Ahn Nae-sang Interview
Poetry trailer
GREEN FISH
Full description: Mak Dong has just been released from the army and is on his way home when he helps out a woman on the train. She calls him, because she collected his luggage and they agree to meet. It turns out she is a mobster's girlfriend and she gets him a job with the gang.