[Movie 2005] A Bittersweet Life 달콤한 인생

rubie · January 19, 2006

July 24, 2006

Fantasia Festival 2006 Winners Announced

Fantasia 2006 has come to a close and this year's award winners have been announced ... here are the big categories:

Jury Awards

Best film:
STRANGE CIRCUS - Sion Sono (Japan)

Best director:
Nicolas Winding Refn - PUSHER 3 (Denmark)

Best script:
David Mamet - EDMOND (United States)

Best photography:
Ji-yong Kim - A BITTERSWEET LIFE (South Korea)

Best Actor:
Zlatko Buric - PUSHER 3 (Denmark)

Best Actress:
Masumi Miyazaki - STANGE CIRCUS (Japan)

Public Awards

Best Asian Film
Golden Prize: GREAT YOKAI WAR – Takashi Miike (Japan)
Silver Prize: A BITTERSWEET LIFE - Kim Ji-Woon (South Korea)
Bronze Prize: CITIZEN DOG - Wisit Sasanatieng (Thailand)

Montreal, July, 24th, 2006. The Fantasia International Film Festival is extremely proud to have offered a film event of international breadth to more than 77, 000 attendees. Impressive and varied programming, as well as the unshakeable enthusiasm of an ever-growing adult audience, contributed to elevating Fantasia to both a critical and popular success. This tenth edition was notably marked by the participation of a record number of prestigious guests, originating from the four corners of the globe (notably Russia, Japan, England, Denmark, the United States and Canada). Directors, producers, actors, representatives of various studios, distributors, program planners of international film festivals and foreign journalists participated in these 18 days of cinematic celebration.

The Quebec and Canadian movies were notably honoured this year with the presentation of nine Canadian feature films such as the long-awaited advance screening of GOOD COP BAD COP (Érik Canuel) and the world premiere of THE DESCENDANT (Philippe Spurrell), as well as a record number of short films (some 70 Canadian or Quebec shorts) presented within several thematic programs (14 different short-film blocs this year) or opening for specific feature films.

Our tribute to the New Wave of British Horror Cinema, our sampling of genre trends in modern Russian cinema and our tribute to Contemporary Stop-Motion Auteur Cinema all saw lively successes, while the quality and the variety of our overall programming were able, again this year, to raise the enthusiasm of the film buffs to stellar proportions. The premiere presentations of the works of international filmmakers such as Michael J. Basset, Stuart Gordon, Werner Herzog, Tsui Hark, Toru Matsuura, Lucky McKee, Neil Marshall, Takashi Miike, Mitsuru Meike, David Moreau, Robert Morgan, Billy O’Brien, Xavier Palud, the Pang Brothers, Nicolas Winding Refn, Wisit Sasanatieng, Gary Sherman, Sion Sono, Chris Sivertson, Jan Svankmajer and Kim Ji-Woon re-affirm the strong artistic dynamic that has made Fantasia a celebrated and unique event on the North American festival landscape.

The organizers of the festival also are very proud of the success of their outdoor projections in Parc de la Paix during the Fantasia Under the Stars screenings. This project is the result of the partnership between the City of Montreal, the SAT, Belle Gueule and Concept Audio Visuel. The organizers of the festival are understandably eager to renew this experience for their 11th edition.

Official Jury prizes of the 10th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival
Feature film competition

The official jury of the Fantasia Festival was presided over by director Alain Desrochers and composed of Marc-André Grondin (actor), Jean-François Leblanc (artistic director for the BleuBlancRouge ad agency), Nicole Robert (producer, Go Films), and Paul Toutant (journalist and comic-book writer), and have presented their list of laureates to the public.

Credit & full list at twitchfilm.net

rubie · January 19, 2006

2007 Philadelphia Film Festival (April 5-18)

South Korea | Run time: 120 min. | Director: Kim Ji-woon | 4 stars out of 5

This visually stunning tale of gangland revenge from the director of Tale of Two Sisters has style to burn and shootouts that make vintage John Woo look like romantic comedies by comparison.

Some films just get under your skin and stay there, and it can be difficult to pinpoint why: A Bittersweet Life, for example, is – on the surface – simply an ultra-stylized neo-noir with a standard gangland revenge plot, albeit one enlivened by one of the most visually striking cinematic palettes in recent memory, with eye-popping widescreen cinematography and sleek production design alive with bold use of color. But there’s more to it than that – and that might be the hypnotic mix of hot blood and cold hearts that permeates the story. Regardless, the film clearly ensures that director Kim Ji-woon, who helmed A Tale of Two Sisters, is a major Korean filmmaking force. Sun-woo (Lee Byung-heon) is a gangland assassin and manager of a mob-owned hotel bar named La Dolce Vita. Like so many movie hitmen before him, he is an emotionless executioner who performs his amoral tasks with icy efficiency. Then his boss asks him to watch over his mistress, going so far as to order Sun-woo to terminate her if she is unfaithful – and Sun-woo snaps, allowing himself to finally experience empathy…which of course, winds up resulting in a bloodbath of epic proportions. The dazzling surface sheen of Bittersweet Life is not mere eye-candy, but rather a construct that makes the explosive climax even more powerfully cathartic: just as the beauty of the film’s images are transformed by the violence, Sun-woo’s superficially perfect life must be destroyed to find his emotional core. And it’s going to take a truckload of blood, bullets, and shattered glass to do it. -- Travis Crawford

CAST & CREW
DIRECTOR: Kim Ji-woon
WRITER: Kim Ji-woon
CAST: Hwang Jeong-min, Kim Hae-gon, Kim Roi-ha, Kim Young-cheol, Lee Byung-heon, Lee Mu-young, Oh Dal-soo, Shin Min-ah
PRODUCER: Oh Jeong-wan, Eugene Lee
cinematographer: Kim Ji-yong
editor: Choi Jae-geun

Source: bside.phillyfests.com

rubie · January 19, 2006

2006.01.19

A Review of Korean Cinema in 2005

* This article is for "Korean Cinema 2005" published by KOFIC in December 2005.

1. Humanism

The films released in 2005 delivered the humanism which Korean moviegoers had long yearned for. Amongst these films, , a film directed by Jeong Yun-cheol that created its own new sub-genre, the human drama, emerged as the front runner. This film, which tells the story of a young man with autism, who with the help of his mother and a coach, begins to train for a marathon, attracted 5 million moviegoers nationwide despite the fact that it did not showcase a dramatic story or spectacular scenes. The film < Marathon> does not criticize the reality which the disabled have to face, nor focus on the arduous path which disabled persons must take to overcome their limitations. Rather, the film describes how a child with autism grows mentally, becomes independent, and learns to communicate with other people. Audiences openly accepted the main character's heartfelt efforts, and were impressed by the film's depiction of the insignificant events which make up the reality of our daily lives.

The success of , which finishedon top of the box office (8 million admissions) in 2005, seems to have been based on similar circumstances. On the surface, appears to have all the attributes of a blockbuster. However, this is a film which is at its core a human story. The film tells the story of a group consisting of South Korean deserters, North Korean soldiers retreating from the front, and a member of the U.S. armed forces who survived a plane crash, that must live together in a small village in Gangwon Province. The North and South Korean soldiers soon become impressed with the pure hearts of the village people and decide to find a way to coexist. In this remote location, the soldiers are finally able to remove the ideological shackles which have long forced them to suppress their own opinions, and to see each other as human beings. These North and South Korean soldiers who are liberated from the dark ideology of hatred come to regard each other as brothers, and the U.S. soldier as an equal.

In addition to and , whichfinished first and second respectively at the box office in 2005, there were also other films emphasizing a human aspect that fared well with audiences. Although directed by Park Jin-pyo has been classified as a melodrama, the love affair depicted in this film is based on the notion of humanism. AIDS is the barrier which exists between the film's two main characters: a farmer and a sex worker from the local coffee shop. Under the harsh reality of Korean society, in which a patient with AIDS is branded in a manner akin to the "scarlet letter", the only way for these lovers to consummate their relationship is forthem to first see each other as human beings. Humanism can be defined as the unconditionallove which one person feels for another, and as a love which transcends social norms and external appearances. The unexpected success of can also be understood as having been based on a similar foundation. A woman who runs away with a lottery ticket and the gangsters who run after her arrive on a remote island known as Mapado. Although the gangsters must endure all kinds of difficulties on this island populated only by five old widows, they are eventually overcome by the humanity possessed by the five widows. This film, despite being a comedy, has all the elements of a human drama. Other films which can obviously be listed in the human drama category include , the story of two men who try to secure a better life for themselves through boxing, which is about a boy and his older brother who has cancer, which tells the story of a mother who walks hundreds of kilometers to attend her daughter's wedding, and in which two men in rural Korea fly to Uzbekistan in order to secure ethnic Korean brides for themselves.

Certain common themes can be found in these human dramas. With the exception of and , these films were based on real stories. These real-life stories are different from those found in and , two films which shattered box office records in 2004 and which were based on historical facts. While the "historically authentic films" released in 2004 simultaneously exposed two tendencies, namely the desire for spectacular scenes and a return to the past, the real-life films released in 2005 are characterized by their focus on the reality of individual lives. The fact that this individual reality has replaced the desire for spectacle which had been dominant over the last few years proves that Korean cinema has now entered a phase in which the focus will increasingly be on the telling of more authentic and individual stories. This trend is also visible in fictional blockbusters such as < Welcome to Dongmakgol>. The fact that humanism has proven to be a popular topic does not meanthat the range of realism has been extended. Nevertheless, the emergence of new themes and materials constitutesa significant development, in that, it marks a new departure for a Korean film industry which had long dealt with the same topics. Furthermore, these films attracted not only moviegoers in their teens and 20s, but also appealed to audiences over the age of 30. As such, human dramas have to some degree contributed to expanding the range of moviegoers in 2005.

2. Hallyu

The Hallyu Korean Wave- phenomenon, whichhas been gaining steam across Asia, emerged as one of the most influential variables for Korean cinema in 2005. The film which best characterized the Hallyu craze was Hur Jin-ho's . Due in large part to the fact that it starred Bae Yong-joon -- whose popularity with female fans in Japan, where he is known as Yonsama, has reached epic proportions -- this film was presold for an estimated 7 million dollars in Japan, and did rather well at the box office there as well. , which revolves around a love affair betweentwo people in their 30s, marked director Hur Jin-ho's first foray into this particular genre. However, this personal milestone was overshadowed by the presence of Bae Yong-joon as the film's main star. While it fared rather poorly at the box office in Korea, was able to finish in the black on the balance sheet due to strong overseas sales in places such as Japan. Kim Jee-woon's featuring another top star, in this case Lee Byung-heon, is another example of this phenomenon. This film depicts the internal change which a killer undergoes after having assumed responsibility for protecting his boss' lover. Although this film did not reach the break-even point domestically, it was nevertheless able to turn a profit because of strong overseas sales in markets such as Japan. Other films such as , featuring Kang Dong-won, , starring Jung Woo-sung, and featuring Lee Young-ae, also garnered high revenues because of their strong showing in the Japanese film market.

The strong showing of Korean films in overseas markets such as Japan has emerged as a new driving force for the Korean film industry. In this regard, certain films were able, through presales, to secure the necessary costs for production prior to any actual shooting. As large-scale films can now to some degree guarantee profits, the production environment has improved tremendously. For example, , which features Kwon Sang-woo, another Hallyu star, was sold for a presale price of 5.2 million dollars; and this despite the fact that the film is presently in the production stage. , another film which stars Kwon Sang-woo, was sold for 4 million dollars; meanwhile starring Choi Ji-woo was sold for 3.5 million dollars. In the long run, Hallyu will help provide the foundation needed to produce large-scale films, something which the Korean market consisting of a population of 40 millioncannot do alone. It will also serve as a new source of revenues for Korean producers who must depend on the domestic box office for 70% of their overall revenues.

However, certain conditions must be met before Korean films can be sold to overseas markets. Above all, these films must feature actors such as Bae Yong-joon, Choi Ji-woo, Won Bin, Jang Dong-geon, Kwon Sang-woo, Jeong Woo-sung, and Lee Young-ae who have become household names across Asia. While the presence of such stars has little bearing on the quality of the films, the simple fact remains that a director like Kwak Kyung-taek would have been unable to raise the 15.0 billion won needed to produce if Jang Dong-geon had not been a part of the film. Given that a country's cultural contents usually begin to make inroads into another country once a star associated with the relevant culture becomes popular within the target country, it is not abnormal that the success of Korean films in overseas markets is premised on the presence of specific stars. What is more worrisome, however, is that the performance of these films at the box offices of these Asian markets has not improved. The Korean film industry now faces a situation in which it must produce quality films to maintain the interest created in foreign markets by its star power. The Korean film industry should prepare for the possibility of this Hallyu phenomenon fading away, and focus on the contents of the films it produces.

3. Auteur films

For director Hong Sang-soo, represents something of a turning point. Hong, who has long yearned for a "more reasonable production system", recently established his own production company, Jeonwonsa, and announced that he would from now on produce one film a year. was his first film since that announcement. It is a film about cinema and making cinema. This film consists of two parts: Part oneis a film framed within the film itself. Part two describes the behavior of a person who was influenced by the film he haswitnessed. This film and the film within it become entangled with one other as a thin line is drawn between life and death. The motif of imitation and repetition, which will forever be associated with director Hong, is also complexly intertwined. While is a film which showcases Hong's profound world, it also represents an attempt on the part of the director to reach out to the audience. Although less humorous and sexually provocative than his previous films, reaches out tothe audience in a more pleasant and cheerful manner.

Kim Ki-duk, who showcased just how far he has progressed with 2004's <3-Iron>, has once again broken new ground with . Foregoing advance screenings, Kim released this film on one screen. This film, which tells the story of a unique love affair between a 60-year old man and a 16-year old girl, reflects Kim's distinctive view of the world. Rather than relying on shocking scenes, Kim approaches the film's subject in a sober fashion. Although Hong and Kim's films were recognized for their artistic value, and were invited to the competition and non-competition sections of this year's Cannes International Film Festival respectively, their films failed to achieve any success at the Korean box office. These two directors, who have had few opportunities to come into contact with audiences through the wide release distribution system, opted for the use of an alternative and more independent distribution system. This further compounded these films' failure at the box office. Nevertheless, these directors' efforts to increase artistic films'opportunities to come into contact with audiences was significant, in that, it provided a chance to reconsider the distribution system for artistic films in Korea.

Im Sang-soo's film, , which describes the last days of President Park, the authoritarian leader who ruled Korea for 18 years, also enjoyed a tumultuous run. As part of a lawsuit brought forward by President Park's son, who was trying to stop the film from being screened altogether, a court ruled that two documentary scenes 3 minutes and 50 seconds in length had to be cut from the film. Although Im and the film's producer, MK Pictures, openly voiced their opposition to such censorship, the film was eventually screened with the two scenes blackened out. The debate surrounding became a significant incident in that it marked a setback for the Korean cultural and artistic circles which have long tried to expand the freedom of expression. In particular, the fact that the justice system was able to interfere in art-related matters does not bode well for freedom of expression in Korea.

Director Park Chan-wook's new film, was another film which raised hot-button issues. The story of a woman who takes revenge on a man who betrayed her, does not contain stimulating scenes like , for which Park was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes. However, it provokes a debate on the ethics of revenge and salvation. The first half of the film focuses on showing a new image of Lee Young-ae, to the point where it can be labeleda comedy. The tone of this film, which showcases the absurdity of the world and life, suddenly changes during the second half of the film. The scene in which Geumja, along with other victims, hosts a revenge ceremony for Baek, raises questions as to whether this film is attempting to bring up ethical issues related to revenge or is simply an unethical film which deals with ethical issues. Despite the various debates generated by this film, it is clear that has extended Korean films' range of narratives.

Lee Myung-se's new film, also brought many issues to the surface. The release of was considered big news because it marked Lee Myung-se's first film in six years, or since the runaway hit . While once again reinforced the director's status as an outstanding visual technician, its lack of a narrative left audiences perplexed. This lack of a narrative appears to have been intentional on the part of the director. In this film, Lee, who has always pursued "cinematic things", uses exaggerated visuals and the gestures of stars which have been upgraded to the point where they almost look as if they are dancing. Meanwhile, the film's characters and the stories told by these characters are often disconnected. Lee's attempt to "break the fixed notion that cinema is a drama" canbe labeled as a half-success.

Despite its artistic quality, the film , Jung Ji-woo's first since in 1999, failed to mesh with audiences. The refined description of the main character's inner struggle and cinematic structure of this film, which tells the story of the love affair between a woman in her thirties and a young student, have led this work to be regarded as having opened up new horizons for Korean melodrama.

4. Korean Film Industry

The Korean film industry underwent tremendous change in 2005. The wholesale reorganization of the film investment and distribution structure, exemplified by the growing role of large-scale companies, was by far the most important occurrence. Cinema Service, which was established with domestic capital for the purpose of producing Korean films, was forced to merge with CJ Entertainment because of financial difficulties. For its part, Showbox, which is associated with the Orion Group, managed to solidify its position in the market with such box office hits as , , and . Meanwhile, the Lotte Cinema branch of the Lotte Group is becoming increasingly involved in films as both an investor and distributor. These conglomerates all share the commonality of having secured their own content window, that is, multiplexes. The dominant structure formed by these large-scale companies, which have focused on providing multiplex content in order to raise revenues, is expected to continue for some time.

Telecommunication companies' entrance in the film market has also brought about a big change. SK Telecom purchased the equity of IHQ (Sidus HQ), which was the biggest management company in Korea. KT also entered the film industry, becoming the biggest shareholder in Sidus FNH. This denouement has allowed IHQ and Sidus FNH to secure the funds needed to invest in and distribute films, while making it possible for telecommunication companies to participate in the film industry. These telecommunication companies have entered the film industry so as to gain access to strong contents in order to concretize new services such as DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), and WiBro (Wireless Broadband). Such telecommunication companies are expected to become a new source of investment for the Korean film industry.

MOON Seok

Staff Writer

Cine21

Credit: Korean Film Council (KOFIC)

http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/news/news_view...em=&tmp_cnt=341

rubie · January 21, 2006

A recap of Bittersweet Life

2005 MAGIC MAY

CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Lee Byung-heon, Shin Min-ah Go to Cannes Film Festival

The movie "A Bittersweet Life," directed by Kim Ji-un and starring Lee Byung-heon, has been invited to participate in the out-of-competition division of the 58th Cannes Film Festival. B.O.M. Film Productions, the producer of the movie, said April 19 that director Kim Ji-un and actors Lee Byung-heon and Shin Min-ah will walk down the red carpet at the festival.

According to Studio Kanal, the movie's distributor in France, only works that have been recognized for their superior quality and commercial value are shown in the out-of-competition division. The company also added that this great honor is awarded only to films that have been shown in the Lumiere Theater and invited to the red carpet event. The festival features a total of 30 full-length movies every year in both the competition and out-of-competition divisions.

The appointment of "A Bittersweet Life" to the official section of the Cannes Film Festival at its first appearance is quite unprecedented, as most films succeed in entering the official section only after establishing their presence in the unofficial one, which is easier to enter. The French distributor of the movie said that feat can be ascribed to the movie's great potential. The fact that a noir movie and not an epic or art film, which easily earn extra credits for "orientalism," has advanced to the Cannes Film Festival as a commercial movie has inspired hopes that the status of Korean movies in the global film market will be elevated further.

"A Bittersweet Life" has shown an impressive performance abroad. So far, the movie has been sold to France, the U.K., Benelux, Thailand and Singapore, and is currently awaiting its opening in Japan on April 23 after recording the highest reservation rate among all Korean movies shown in Japan.

With its advancement to the Cannes Film Festival giving it momentum, the movie's potential to compete in major continental markets such as Spain, Italy, Scandinavia and even the U.S., has soared, opening a new chapter in the history of Korean movie exports.

rubie · January 21, 2006

The ChosunIlbo

Culture - May 17, 2005

"A Bittersweet Life" stars Lee Byung-hun and Shin Min-a and director Kim Jee-woon (from left) pose for a photo Sunday at the 58th Cannes International Film Festival.

rubie · January 21, 2006

A BITTERSWEET LIFE

Year: 2005

Director: Kim Jee-Woon

Cast: Lee Byung-Hun, Shin Min-Ah, Kim Yeong-Chul, Kim Roi-Ha, Hwang Jeong-Min, Eric Mun, Oh Dal-Soo, Kim Han, Oh Kwang-Rok, Jeong Yoo-Mi

The Skinny: Lee Byung-Hun plays a hard-boiled gangster who gets a glimpse of a better life in this stylish, ultra-violent, and strangely lyrical example of neo-noir from director Kim Jee-Woon. This breathtaking revenge fantasy may seem a bit hollow at times, but the poetic, heart-breaking finale justifies everything that precedes it. Simply put, it's an excellent film.

Review by Sanjuro

Revenge has never looked as good as it does in A Bittersweet Life, a dazzling neo-noir gangster film from Kim Jee-Woon, director of The Foul King and A Tale of Two Sisters. Lee Byung-Hun, star of Everybody Has Secrets and Joint Security Area, takes on a new kind of role as Sun-Woo, a glum, impeccably dressed enforcer in the employ of a notorious gang leader named Kang (Kim Yeong-Chul). The plot kicks in when the boss asks Sun-Woo to watch over his mistress Hee-Soo (Sin Min-Ah, from Volcano High) to find out if she's having an affair. Sun-Woo's orders are clear: if he catches her cheating on Kang with another man, he is to contact Kang immediately or finish them off himself.

However, when Sun-Woo discovers Hee-Soo with her boyfriend, he chooses to let both of them live. Unfortunately, this gesture of goodwill brings a world of pain onto Sun-Woo as the entire criminal organization sets its sights on punishing him for his act of "betrayal." Bloodied and beaten, Sun-Woo survives the ordeal, eventually embarking on a brutal, bloody trail of vengeance from which no one seems likely to survive. But the strange fact remains: Sun-Woo had been Kang's faithful servant for years, why would he suddenly have a change of heart now? Out of love? Or something more complicated?

Blending the hardboiled cool of classic film noir with the hyper-stylized action of a John Woo film, A Bittersweet Life is a beautiful, wholly engaging cinematic experience. Before Sun-Woo decides to ignore his boss's orders we watch as he slowly comes to an epiphany. However, we're not quite privy to the depth of this realization until the final scene of the film, in which everything that has come before soon makes simple, perfect sense. Once Sun-Woo goes against Kang, the film becomes a visceral, balls-to-the-wall action film as the carnage comes full-force. As far as cinema revenge fantasies, it's not a stretch at all to say that A Bittersweet Life can stand alongside the best of them.

As brutally violent as the film is, it's refreshing to know that the filmmakers retained their sense of humor. Interestingly enough, the film contains a variety of surprisingly comic moments interspersed throughout all the guts and gore. Oddly, A Bittersweet Life can be a remarkably funny film at times.

Anchoring the entire picture is Lee Byung-Hun, who does a fine job inhabiting the role of the enforcer-turned-romantic-turned-unstoppable killing machine. Although Lee's winning good looks certainly add to Sun-Woo's character, he's more than just a pretty face. The actor brings a certain amount of depth to his anti-hero character, which is quite an achievement considering that a fully-realized characterization of Sun-Woo is hampered by the fact that his motivations must not be revealed until the film's ending. Even so, Lee does convey a sense of Sun-Woo's internal life, even if it is something not made readily apparent by the script itself.

The cinematography, costumes, set design, and soundtrack make A Bittersweet Life a visual and aural feast for its audience. Beautiful as it is, it's not hard to see how people might find the proceedings a little superficial. Thankfully, that actually seems to be based on how the film is constructed, as everything is meant to build towards the film's conclusion in which the real meaning behind Sun-Woo's quest for revenge is revealed. Visceral, lyrical, and sometimes even comical, A Bittersweet Life is a complete cinematic experience and contains an ending that brings everything to a suitably bittersweet close. In short, it's a terrific motion picture. (Sanjuro 2005)

Review from lovehkfilm.com, BSL banner by M

rubie · January 21, 2006

January 20, 2006

A Bittersweet Life

Watching A Bittersweet Life for the first time brings back fond memories of seeing John Woo's The Killer back in the early 90's. Stylistically they're miles apart, but like that definitive Chow Yun Fat movie Kim Jee-woon's ice cold revenge drama never lets up and has instant classic written all over it.

Lee Byung-hun plays Kim Sun-woo, an enforcer for local criminal bigshot Kang. By the time we meet him he's already climbed to a notable position of trust and despite the squabblings of those below him his well ordered life seems untouchable. The future looks bright. On the rare occasion he has to dip down to the underclass he dispenses punishment in such a matter of fact way that you can't imagine anyone getting the better of him. He's set up for a hell of a fall.

That tumble comes of course in the form of a woman - Kang's mistress no less who is left under his supervision. Kim warms to the girl, a cellist, and in the few days they spend together everything goes smoothly despite her insistence that she doesn't need a minder. Things go to hell when Kim discovers her infidelity and subsequently breaks his own rules and Kang's wishes in the way that he deals with his discovery. The mobster returns and before Kim knows what is happening he finds himself on the wrong side of the people who have just been dreaming of him making such a slip. Torture and revenge follow as both employer and employee attempt to find the solution to unanswerable questions. Just exactly why all this unfolds in the way that it does is the central theme.

Gunfights, fisticuffs, Russian gunrunners and a memorable standoff in an ice rink follow, before the inevitable action fest finale that actually has much more in common with Sam Peckinpah than anything to come out of Korea in recent years. There's no point in the Americans even trying to remake this one unless they can revive Steve McQueen first.

A Bittersweet Life is generating comparisons to Park Chan-wook's 'vengeance' trilogy (Lady Vengeance is released next month) and while this is understandable Kim Jee-woon seems to be aiming for something very different. There's no quirky plotting here and smiles are thin lipped throughout. Old Boy in comparison is a riot, a tricked out BMX to this cold chrome racer and yet both share intensely memorable leads whose quests for truth have the ring of Greek tragedy about them. This is heroic bloodshed as it used to be done and you'd be crazy not to give it a go.

Credit: Mike @ Londonist

http://www.londonist.com/archives/cinema/

Thanks to Lucy (LBH.SG) for the highlight.

January 22, 2006

A BITTERSWEET LIFE IN LONDON CONTINUE.....

A Bittersweet Life

Reviewed by Macleod

The coolest film in ages comes yet again from South Korea. Director Kim Ji-woon takes what appears to be a slight plot and mixes it up into a dizzying display of violence and revenge that recalls the glory days of John Woo's Hong Kong masterpieces and Jean Pierre Melville's ultra cool crime flicks of the Sixties.

When we first meet the protagonist Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) eating a delicate sweet in the swanky restaurant he manages, the viewer is startled to see him not two minutes later using fists, feet and whatever bottles come to hand in a lethal manner on some thugs who could do with a lesson in manners - and all without getting a crease in his suit. It is only the first of many sequences that jolts and stuns you into full attention over a two hour running time.

Sun-woo is not only a restaurant manager but also a mob enforcer. When asked by his boss to keep an eye on his younger girlfriend and to use extreme force if she is up to no good, common decency and personal feelings get in the way. Bad news for Sun-woo; great news for us!

Without spoiling it too much, let me say things go wrong for our hero, causing him to take a course of action, which involves scraping faces off concrete, driving cars through walls and buying guns off dodgy Russians.

Kim Ji-woon's last film, A Tale Of Two Sisters, was the best of the crop of ghost stories that popped up in the wake of the original Japanese Ringu. Putting his own stamp and assured direction on the overcrowded Spooky Girls With Loooong Hair mini genre, he manages to pull off the exact same trick here. The cinematography and sparse musical score also deserve a special mention for its particular quality.

While moviegoers might be put off by yet another guns-and-gangsters thriller, they really should give A Bittersweet Life a chance. This is not a film that wishes to remind you of Tarantino, or (God forbid!) Guy Ritchie. There are no hipster, swaggering, ultra cool characters on these mean streets. Sun-woo comes across as confused, angry and scared by the cold, sadistic villains he is up against. It gives the film a more emotional and frightening core, while never being anything less than entertaining and exciting.

iofilm.co.uk

Thanks to Lucy form LBH.SG

January 22, 2006

i just loved this movie!!! it's one of my favorites!!! the action was just so breathtaking and LBH was the perfect actor to play the main character!!!!

rubie · January 23, 2006

i just loved this movie!!! it's one of my favorites!!! the action was just so breathtaking and LBH was the perfect actor to play the main character!!!!

Hi Shinhwa LoVe! Welcome to BSL or Bittersweet Life!

Totally agree with you... awesome high-kicks, stylish cinematography & absolutely cool hero!

--------------------------

Source: http://www.iofilm.co.uk/

IOFILM'S TOP 10

1. Shopgirl

2. King Kong

3. Brokeback Mountain

4. The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

5. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

6. A Bittersweet Life

7. A richard simmons And Bull Story

8. Jarhead

9. Memoirs Of A Geisha

10. Breakfast On Pluto

Thanks to Lucy (LBH.SG) for the highlight.

rubie · January 23, 2006

Apart from the BSL review dewa130 posted earlier... another one from iofilm.

IOFILM : FILM : REVIEW

A Bittersweet Life

Director Kim Ji-woon

Writer Kim Ji-woon

Stars Lee Byung-hun, Shin Mina, Kim Young-chul, Whang Jung-min, Kim Roi-ha, Moon Ching-hyuk, Lee Ki-young, Oh Dalsoo, Jin Gu, Kim Hae-gon

Running time 118 minutes

Country South Korea

Year 2005

Reviewed by Docker

After the success of Tale Of Two Sisters, Kim Ji-woon's latest has been eagerly anticipated. In his previous film, the marks of originality, intellectual challenge and superb visual style hailed the possibility of a brave new talent in South Korean cinema.

A Bittersweet Life commences with similarly awesome photography and ambiance. The wind in the leaves of a tree - "Is it the leaves, or the wind that moves?" asks the disciple of the master. "Neither," he replies. "It is your mind and heart that moves."

Cut to La Dolce Vita, the swish bar restaurant, which we are to discover is the gangland stronghold of Sun-woo. A single tree stands in the centre of the restaurant's sky lounge, red and black, glossy and visually forceful. Lushness, or delicacy, is conveyed later by colour, a respite to the bloodshed that will almost certainly swamp us, as a tinkling piano (Chopin is used as part of the score) adds its delicate counterpoint.

Sun-woo has served his boss, President Kang, faithfully for seven years and is now manager of La Dolce Vita, as well as Kang's right hand man. Background profits and gang competition focuses on innocuous sidelines, such as the supply of guns or dancing girls and from which countries they should come.

Kang has a secret lover from the "normal" world, a cellist who is much younger than he, and whom he suspects of infidelity. Kang entrusts Sun-woo to sort it out and show no mercy. The warfare that follows goes beyond honour, beyond profit, beyond vengeance, . . . beyond any rational point, in fact.

Sun-Woo is the ultimate cool bad guy. Indentured to a world of violence and expert in the use of martial arts, knives and guns, he is almost a humanised Bruce Lee, who has woken up on a Tarantino set. It sounds almost too good to be true and it is.

The story lines are formulaic and derivative, consisting largely of how to engineer more ingenious punch-ups, torture or revenge posturing. Light humour, afforded in the contrast between suave top dogs and bumbling henchmen, has been done so many times before - the entertaining debacles could have been lifted from Kill Bill. But entertaining it is, on an undemanding level.

Sadly, it is not the work of the master that we might have expected from the maker of Two Sisters. "The dream I had can't come true," laments the protagonist, and so the dreams Kim Ji-woon fans may justifiably have had don't come true either. Otherwise, A Bittersweet Life is an elegant shoot-em-up, with reasonable boys-night-out potential.

Source: http://www.iofilm.co.uk/fm/b/bittersweet_life_2005.shtml

rubie · January 23, 2006

Anyway... if there's a pro... there'll surely be a contra... also from iofilm, another set of BSL review. From the other side of the coin...

A Bittersweet Life

Director Kim Ji-woon

Writer Kim Ji-woon

Stars Lee Byung-hun, Shin Mina, Kim Young-chul, Whang Jung-min, Kim Roi-ha, Moon Ching-hyuk, Lee Ki-young, Oh Dalsoo, Jin Gu, Kim Hae-gon

Running time 118 minutes

Country South Korea

Year 2005

Reviewed by Scottie

A Bittersweet Life is tiresome in the same vein as Tony Scott's Man On Fire. It is weakly scripted and dull, with better performances than such utter hokum deserves. I found myself dreaming of Tarantino tackling the same material.

You can immediately sense that the creators are willing this film to be associated with Chan-Wook Park's terrific Old Boy, purely through association with South Korea, neo-noir and extreme violence. In reality, all it does is liberally steal pieces from superior films and cobble them together without realising just why those movies worked.

Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) is a short-tempered, tightly controlled and explosively violent enforcer, who takes care of business for a vicious crime boss, named Kang. He's told to look after Kang's girlfriend - Hee-soo, a highly skilled cellist - and report if she's meeting with anyone unusual, or more likely going behind Kang's back for sex. She reflects an awakening need in Seon-woo that he doesn't know how to deal with it, falling back on what he's good at - kicking the crap out of people. We see this in a road rage scene of vile potency. One would think that if he had a stress-ball, or a contemplative head on his shoulders, a lot of pain could be overcome.

When Hee-soo is discovered sleeping with another man, Seon-woo lies to his boss to defend her, on condition that the pair never meet again. Kang finds out and orders Seon-woo's unpleasant death. Thus the pattern is established for a criminally dull revenge picture.

A Bittersweet Life's central characters drove me livid. Those seeking emotional, or psychological, insights are wasting their time. The crude simplicity and unoriginality of structure, not to mention the jerking around of the audience, wore me out long before the film did.

Also, the unwarranted brutality is not used for any other effect than just to be nasty. Other than a spectacular firebrand fight - another Old Boy twist on the one-against-many theme - and a fairly amusing competition, assembling and disassembling a Russian handgun, there's nothing that stirs the imagination. The luscious, expensive production design and gorgeous lighting earns it points, but all it really has to offer is brutal, realistic violence, a sickening scream from a truly empty place.

Source: http://www.iofilm.co.uk/fm/b/bittersweet_life_2005_r2.shtml

January 23, 2006

Hi Rubie..here is an interview with director Kim from Sight and Sound magazine in regards to the launching of a series of Korean movie starting with BSL as the appetizer.....

Interview: Kim Jee-woon

James Bell:

Your films bring your own distinctive style to different genres.

Kim Jee-woon:

Choosing a genre is like choosing a theme: for instance, noirs deal with destruction, horror or thrillers with intrigue, comedies with the aesthetics of absurdity, sci-fi with our hopes and fears for the future, melodramas with emotional excitement and pain. And the most effective way to tell a given story is often to use certain narrative conventions. There's also an ease to film-making when you've mastered a genre that reduces the risk of failure. And lastly there's a commercial imperative: since the horror genre, for instance, has its own box-office appeal I spend my budget on upgrading the production values rather than on casting a star to draw an audience.

'A Bittersweet Life' has been linked with other recent films as evidence of an action/thriller genre in Korean cinema.

A Bittersweet Life falls between film noir and gangster cinema. I've said that it's influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville, whose films I watched as a child. I was drawn to the more philosophical and aesthetic action thrillers and I made A Bittersweet Life from the desire to talk about the darkness and cold-heartedness of life as well as to capture the pleasure of action. In Korea most films about violence focus either on becoming box-office hits or on communicating to critics. Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy is an example of an auteur courting both, as is Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder.

Do you see comparisons between your work and Park Chan-wook's?

When you look at the kind of story A Bittersweet Life is trying to tell then you see it has a totally different intention from the 'Vengeance' films. For a start, Old Boy is a universal tale while A Bittersweet Life deals with an extremely personal story. A Tale of Two Sisters, The Foul King and The Quiet Family all belong to another world from the films of Park Chan-wook but we're put in the same category because we both demonstrate our own directorial style - in our use of music and sense of beauty - while appealing to the general public. We like similar movies but he's more enthused by masculine films whereas I like delicate, feminine films such as Agnès Varda's Happiness, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive. I should ask Park Chan-wook if he likes these films too.

'A Bittersweet Life' suggests that Sun-woo only discovers who he really is once the surface trappings of his existence (the sharp suits, flash apartment, respect from his boss) are taken away.

The hotel setting is a place where splendour (the sky lounge and lobby) and the dark side (the nightclub and staff corridors) co-exist and as such it epitomises the idea of living at the borderline between brightness and darkness: the character's state of mind is reflected in the spaces. The luxurious sky lounge could represent Sun-woo's bad faith, and he realises his true nature only when he has nothing left - when he's dying. And I wanted to show a man reminiscing about the sweetest moment in his life as he dies.

Q:

There are many very stylish, very violent scenes, such as the one where Sun-woo fights off several people to make his escape. Do you have a clear idea of the look of these scenes before filming starts?

A :

Before the shoot I designed the action scenes with martial-arts director Jung Doo-hong, and Lee Byung-hun (who plays Sun-woo) did many rehearsals with the martial-arts actors, which I filmed on camcorders. Then when we found our location we refined the scene with the participation of the special-effects person, the CG person and the car-stunt people. The scene took five or six days to shoot: I had to have everything from the rainwater to the lighting working to my own satisfaction so I repeated the takes until I got it right. Thanks to so much preparation I think we were able to capture many good pictures.

Thanks to www.koreanfilm.org

rubie · January 27, 2006

'A Bittersweet Life' [DVD Review]

Comparing it to Park Chan Wook's 'Old Boy' is off the mark

Kyu Hyun Kim (internews)

Lee Byung Hun plays Seon Woo, an owner of a bar (named "La Dolce Vita") and a lieutenant to a gangster boss (Kim Young Chul). He is entrusted with a job of looking after the boss's very young girlfriend Hee Soo (Shin Mina). To Seon Woo's consternation, however, the boss also orders him to kill her (and her lover) if she ever "strays." When Seon Woo catches her red-handed, though, he cannot quite bring himself to carry out his job. He lets her go... a decision with which he now puts his own life at risk.

Lee Byung Heon as Seon Woo

The first half of the film advances with a languorous rhythm of a sleepy-eyed cat prowling his haunts. The cinematography by Kim Ji Yong, gorgeously jade and golden (and later hellfire orange and scarlet) in night scenes and punctuated by silver rays of sunlight in day scenes, Ryoo Sung Hee's sets, with its mixture of chrome-and-glass glitz of the bars and restaurants and dark muddy pools of the abandoned warehouses, and the flamenco-inflected sassy score by Jang Young Gyu and Dal Pa Ran, are skillfully orchestrated by Director Kim Jee Woon in order to illustrate Seon Woo's routines, glamorous on the surface but empty inside.

In the second half, Seon Woo's escape from an impromptu muddy grave, using a cell phone battery, of all things, as a weapon of deadly assault, launches the fireworks of frantic action set pieces, culminating in the final confrontation between Seon Woo and his boss inside "La Dolce Vita:" "Why?" He berates his former boss. "Why did you try to kill me? After working like a dog for you for seven years?" For Seon Woo really did not mean to challenge the boss, or subvert his loyalty, by saving Hee Soo's life. Unlike an American noir hero's struggle with the weighty issues of morality and redemption, Seon Woo's choice to save Hee Soo is more of a gesture of recognition toward the impossible or the unattainable. As the quasi-Zen Buddhist fable that opens and closes the film hints at us, he is like a novice fakir, presented with a momentary glimpse of the enlightenment, but knows, to his ultimate sorrow, that he cannot attain it within this life.

Kim Young Chul as The Boss

Kim Jee Woon is an underrated actor's director and adept at eliciting wonderful performances from his stars and supporting players, and "A Bittersweet Life" is no exception. Shin Mina (all grown up since showing up in Kim's debut film "The Quiet Family [1998]"), Kim Young Chul, Kim Roi Ha (memorable as a dumb cop in the murder mystery "Memories of Murder [2003]") all give solid backup performances, but the stunning impression is made by the soft-voiced, bear-like Hwang Jeong Min, brilliant in the gay-themed "Road Movie (2002)" and the controversial "Good Lawyer's Wife (2004)," who here plays a slightly goofy but absolutely frightening thug. Hissing Korean cusswords like an angry cobra, smiling like a fat cat about to swallow a mouse and comically waddling with a hunched frame, Hwang's President Baek explodes with spine-chilling bursts of violence, reminiscent of Bobo Justus (Pat Hingle) in Stephen Frears' classic noir "The Grifters."

Hwang Jung Min as President Baek

Ironically it is Seon Woo's character that, despite Lee Byung Hun's persuasive display of psychological distress, never quite gels: the conception of his character is convincing, but not his actual behavior. Director Kim is awkwardly perched on the fence between exploring Seon Woo's emotional conflict on the one hand and keeping him "cool" and inscrutable on the other. He cannot quite keep his central character as elegantly mysterious as the French master Jean-Pierre Melville did with Alain Delon's criminals in such latter-day film noir variations as "Le Samourai" and "La Circle Rouge," which might be just as well for Lee Byung Hun fans.

Finally, Kim should really avoid cramming so many climaxes into a single movie, a major problem that needlessly bogged down the ending of his masterpiece "A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)." With such incredible cinematic skills at his command, Kim Jee Woon should stop acting like a teenage boy who cannot let his girlfriend go without asking for just one more good-bye kiss. He should learn to trust himself as well as his audience, and end his film where it must.

"A Bittersweet Life" is being compared to Park Chan Wook's "Old Boy" (true enough, there are a few amusing set-pieces in the film that specifically recalls Park's films) but in the end these two films are very different from one another. Most significantly, "A Bittersweet Life," despite its horrid, bloody scenes of violence, is ultimately a sweet film. It's a box of truffles, with just enough strong liqueur and spice inside its nuggets to remind us that sometimes bitterness tastes good too.

DVD Presentation:

CJ Entertainment DVD. 2-Disc Special Edition. Dual Layer. Region 3. Audio: Korean (DTS, Dolby Digital 6.1 Surround). Subtitles: Korean, English. July 2005.

The Special Edition DVD comes in an attractive slipcase that contains a standard cardboard-and-plastic 2-disc platter. Lee Byung Hun is prominently featured in all graphics, leaving no doubt as to who is the real star attraction here.

The first disc contains "Director's Cut" of the film. According to Kim Jee Woon, the director's cut is more tightly edited with some "excess fat" excised, except for a few major additions, including an extended, character-revealing sequence in which Seon Woo drives away from Hee Soo's house. The film is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen format, anamorphically enhanced. The transfer is excellent, keeping up the high standard we are used to seeing for Region 3 releases from major Korean companies, in this case CJ Entertainment. The encoding bit rate is very high, and the technically complex lighting and subtle color schemes are reproduced with great fidelity.

There are two commentary tracks, both with Director Kim Jee Woon. For the first track, Kim is joined by the star Lee Byung Hun and by the supporting actor Kim Young Chul. Lee Byung Hun definitely holds his own against the extremely articulate Director Kim, explaining why certain scenes (a throwaway shot near the end where he glances at an arms dealer played by Eric, for instance) were so difficult to play, contrary to Kim's directions. Kim Young Chul admires the younger performer's skillful acting but seems to think he is in a straightforwardly macho gangster film, throwing un-self-conscious quips such as "Women viewers would have difficulty understanding the relationship between [The Boss Kang] and [seon Woo], I would say," seemingly oblivious to Director Kim's satirical jabs at the self-delusions of the film's gangster characters.

The second track is participated by DP Kim Ji Yong and Production Designer Ryoo Sung Hee. Considering that Kim's films almost always contain stylistic or technical innovations for Korean cinema (albeit often adapted from non-Korean movies) and are breathtakingly beautiful to look at, the contributions by these two to the relative success of the film cannot be underestimated. The commentary track is a bit dry but is highly informative for anyone who wants to know the details of set design, location scouting, makeup effects and the startling use of "Body-cam" during the film's major action set pieces (Unfortunately but typically, the commentary tracks are unsubtitled and will be useless for non-Korean speakers).

The second disc opens with a spiffy menu design and unfolds to a series of short docu segments, including interviews with actors Lee, Kim Young Chul, Hwang Jung Min, Kim Roi Ha and Shin Mina and major staff members including composers Jang Young Gyu and Dal Pa Ran and martial arts-stunt coordinator Jung Doo Hong. Other supplements include: a docu of the cast and crew attending a screening at the Cannes Film Festival (Kim Jee Woon without burning cigarettes! Without sunglasses!), deleted and alternate scenes (the most interesting being Sun Woo's infiltration of The Boss Kang's own home), a discussion session with the select "netizens" from DVDPrime.com, a DVD credit scroll accompanied by a recording session footage with Hwang Jung Min crooning the film's title song (alas, unused in the film), a music video for another song performed by Yang Pa and directed by Lee Byung Hun, and trailers and teasers. The most entertaining special feature in my view is a Q&A banter session entitled "Why Did You Do That?" where cast and staff members "get back" at Director Kim by demanding explanations for his quirky behavior and mild (and sometimes cutesy) eccentricities during the production.

Even though Lee Byung Hun dominates the glossy packaging, content-wise the Special Edition supplements are unquestionably geared toward Director Kim Ji Woon's directorial vision, supporting the observation that many of the commercial successes in South Korea remain strongly director-centered projects.

Kyu Hyun Kim is Associate Professor of Japanese and Korean History, University of California, Davis. He can be reached at q@koreanfilm.org

2006-01-26 11:33

Source: OhmyNews.com

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/ar...271166&rel_no=1

Review-article highlighted by Hancinema.net

rubie · January 27, 2006

A Bittersweet Life Movie Review

Written by Matt McAllister.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Don't be fooled by the innocuous title. This latest addition to the South Korean gangster movie comes brimming with enough ultra-violence to fill several Tarantino pictures featuring, as it does, an ample dose of burnings, beatings, shootings and stabbings. But A Bittersweet Life is also an extremely stylish and at times even beautiful film from one of the most talented directors of the South Korean new-wave.

Sunwoo (Byung-Hun) is the taciturn right-hand-man to ruthless mob boss Kang (Young-Chul). He’s the kind of fellow that every self-respecting crime lord would want on his side – loyal, respectful and extremely good at dishing out violence on request. Things start to fall apart however when Kang enlists Sunwoo to watch over his girlfriend Heesoo while he’s away on business. When Sunwoo discovers that Heesoo is having an illicit affair not only is he unable to “take care” of the matter as instructed, but he becomes strangely drawn to Heesoo himself – and every gangster know that developing a heart is the first mistake in this line of business. Soon Sunwoo finds himself betrayed by the same people that he’s always been unquestionably loyal towards, and a path of escalating violence inevitably ensues.

The actual plot is pretty straightforward. All the usual gangster movie themes (both Eastern and Western) are present and correct – loyalty, unexpected betrayal and, of course, rivers of blood. But A Bittersweet Life is a stranger film than it might initially appear. There's a weird ambiance to the movie as it effortlessly shifts between the dreamy slow-burning atmosphere of a Ki-duk Kim movie and an expertly choreographed action thriller, complete with thrilling fight scenes. Director Kim Jee-Woon claims that the violence in his movie is intended to be "fun, not realistic", but there's a real visceral energy about the bloodletting on display here. The stand-out scene sees an apparently invincible Sunwoo do battle with hundreds of goons, amidst a backdrop of fire, dust and cars, and it's a scene that even competes with Oldboy’s outlandish corridor-set hammer clash for sheer guilty excitement. And like Oldboy, A Bittersweet Life is injected with moments of jet-black, often incongruous humour, particularly the bickering low-life duo that would slot nicely into the cast of Pulp Fiction.

Kim Jee-Woon has obviously seen his fair share of genre pictures, but his film is defined by its uniquely stunning visuals combined with an inventive use of locations - a character bleeding to death on an ice rink, Seon-woo being buried alive in rain-soaked mud – that makes it a constant joy to watch, even when the plot becomes rather unfocused at times.

Kim Jee-Woon’s last movie, A Tale of Two Sisters, was one of the creepiest Asian horrors of recent memory. His latest proves that he can apply his unique vision to whatever genre he damn well chooses, and A Bittersweet Life cements his position alongside Chan Park-Wook and Ki-duk Kim as one of the leading lights of contemporary South Korean cinema.

Credit: FutureMovies

http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=451

January 27, 2006

is there a website where you can buy the DVD?

rubie · January 27, 2006

The Times January 19, 2006

A Bittersweet Life

BY WENDY IDE

18, 120mins

"You can do a hundred things right. But one mistake can destroy everything," says the gangland boss to his most loyal henchman in A Bittersweet Life. Nobody, not even the most hardened fan of ultra-violent Korean crime thrillers, can anticipate how bloodily prescient that warning will turn out to be. The result is a terrific, tightly plotted and vividly stylised depiction of Korean gang culture focusing on one man’s fall from grace.

Sunwoo (Lee Byung Hun) is both an immaculately presented hotel manager and a ruthless enforcer for underworld boss Kang. The robotically efficient killer is at odds with the inarticulate boy who falls hard for the boss's sweet young girlfriend.

It's the complexity of Sunwoo's character — and the guilt that shadows him — that make this handsomely photographed film a cut above the rest.

Source: TIMESONLINE

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/art...1995219,00.html

rubie · January 27, 2006

is there a website where you can buy the DVD?

Hi! I think you can try these links below.

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[Movie 2005] A Bittersweet Life 달콤한 인생

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