Green Fish South Korea
1997, 111min.
Prod.: Gye-nam Myeong, Kyun-dong Yeo, Script/Dir.: Chang-dong Lee, Dir. of Phot.: Yong-kil You, Compos.: Dong-jun Lee, Prod. Design: Joo Byung-Do, Edit.: Hyun Kim.
Cast: Seong-kun Mun, Seong-kyu Han, Suk-kyu Han, Jae-yeong Jeong, Jin-yeong Jeong, Mun-shik Lee, Gye-nam Myeong, Ji-hye Oh, Hye-jin Shim, Kang-ho Song.
In this South Korean crime drama, Makdong is discharged from the army to find changes in his rural hometown village. Aboard a train, he meets nightclub singer Miae, the girlfriend of a Seoul gang leader. Makdong joins the gang, but his increasing interest in Miae puts him in conflict with the boss. (All Movie Guide).
Awards
Baek Sang Art Awards,1997 (Best Actor), Blue Dragon Awards, 1997 (Best Film, Best Actor), Grand Bell Awards, South Korea, 1997 (Best Actor), Vancouver IFF, 1997 (Dragons and Tigers Award), Rotterdam IFF, 1998 (Netpac Award - Special Mention).
| Lee, Chang-dong  Chang-dong Lee (born 01.04.1954, Daegu, Korea)
A successful novelist and screenwriter before becoming a director, Lee Chang-dong came late to filmmaking, but quickly established himself as one of Korea's most talented directors. He studied Korean literature at Kyungpuk National University, where he directed and acted in numerous plays. He graduated in 1980 and published his first novel, Chonri, in 1983. In the early '90s, he co-wrote, with director Park Kwang-su, two pivotal films of the Korean New Wave: To the Starry Island (1993) and A Single Spark (1996). Now an established figure in the Korean cinema community, Lee was encouraged by his colleagues to become a director (they even formed a mock committee dedicated to the cause.) His first film, Green Fish (1997), a critique of Korean society told through the eyes of a young man who becomes enmeshed in the criminal underworld, won awards at the Rotterdam and Vancouver Film Festivals. His next film, Peppermint Candy (2000), took an even broader and bitterer view of Korea's recent history. It tells its story backwards, covering 20 twenty years in the life of a man progressively ruined by his experiences in the military, law enforcement, and business worlds. Fueled by its powerful performances, unique narrative structure, and strong social critique, it was widely praised both in Korea and abroad. He was so impressed with the work of two of the film's actors, Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri, that he cast them in much more demanding roles in his next film, Oasis (2002), as a mentally disabled man and a woman afflicted with cerebral palsy who fall in love. Less overtly political than his previous films, it nevertheless garnered him even more international recognition, winning five awards at the Venice Film Festival. His last film, Secret Sunshine (2007) won Best Actress Award in Cannes.
Filmography
Green Fish (Chorok mulkogi, 1997), Peppermint Candy (Bakha satang (2000), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (Milyang, 2007).
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