Peppermint Candy South Korea / Japan
2000, 130min.
Prod.: Gye-nam Myeong, Makoto Ueda, Script/Dir.: Chang-dong Lee, Dir. of Phot.: Hyeong-gu Kim, Compos.: Jae-jin Lee, Art. Dir. Il-hyeon Park, Sound: Seung-cheol Lee, Edit.: Hyun Kim.
Cast: Yeo-jin Kim, Kyung-gu Sol, Jung Suh, So-ri Moon.
The film opens in the spring of 1999 when a family outing is spoiled by a raggedy old man, Yeong-ho, who threatens to throw himself under a train. Rewind to three days earlier: Yeong-ho is buying a gun to kill himself. Just ruined by bad stock deals, terrorized by loan sharks, and dumped by his adulterous wife, Yeong-ho is a typical victim of the Asian financial meltdown. He pays his dying ex-girlfriend a visit in the hospital and, though she is unconscious, he gives her the same peppermint candy that she used to send him. Flashback to the summer of 1994: Yeong-ho hires a detective to tail his philandering wife, though he is involved with a pretty office assistant. Rewind to 1987: Heong-ho is a thuggish policeman known for dispensing horrific amounts of brutality. (All Movie Guide)
Awards
Bratislava IFF, 2000 (Special Jury Prize, Special Jury Prize), Grand Bell Awards, South Korea, 2000 (Best Film), Karlovy Vary IFF, 2000 (Special Prize of the Jury, Netpac Award - Special Mention, Don Quijote Award).
| 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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