The Lee Chang Dong Collection [2007] [OUT OF PRINT] [Re-UP]

Few people have made as big an impact on Korean cinema as Lee Chang Dong in the last ten years. A former novelist and scriptwriter of masterpieces like To the Starry Island, Lee made his debut in 1997 with Green Fish, one of the best Korean gangster films of the last twenty years. Critical acclaim and countless festival invitations were only the beginning of a pluri-decorated career, which continued to shine with his 1999 film Peppermint Candy, putting the spotlight on amazing actors like Moon So Ri and Sol Kyung Gu. Finally, Oasis was not only important for Lee himself, but for Korean cinema as a whole, as Moon So Ri's unforgettable performance in the film brought her a prize at the Venice Film Festival, along with one for director Lee. After serving as Minister of Culture, Lee is returning to filmmaking with his fourth film, Secret Sunshine, starring Song Kang Ho and Jeon Do Yeon. This is the perfect opportunity to revisit the three films that made him a legend with the Lee Chang Dong Collection boxset.





After completing his military service, Mak Dong (Han Suk Kyu, Forbidden Quest) finds himself working for local gangster Bae Tae Gon (Moon Sung Keun, Hanbando), introduced by singer Mi Ae (Shim Hye Jin, Hello, Francesca). First surprised by how much his hometown has changed, in a period when Korean urbanization was at its most extreme, Mak Dong slowly gets used to his life as a gangster until the grim reality of the business hits him, and he realizes it's a road with no return.

The debut film from under-the-radar-but-really-shouldn’t-be director Chang-dong Lee, the man behind two of the best South Korean films ever, Peppermint Candy and Oasis, Green Fish tells the tale of Makdong, a soldier on his way home from being discharged from the army. While standing in an alcove letting the wind blow on his face, he sees a woman doing the same, who loses a scarf when it blows away and he catches it. As he goes back to give it to her, he sees her being harassed by a group of men. He steps in, but is beat up for his trouble.

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When the thugs get off, Makdong jumps off the train and sucker punches them, but misses getting back onto the train, thus losing his bags. A few days later, he gets a message from a woman name Mi-ae, who happens to have his bags. He figures it’s the same woman whose scarf he still has, so he goes to meet up with her. Little does he know that doing so is about to lead him into a life of crime that will eventually see him joining a group of gangsters that are about to be entrenched in a turf war.

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If you’ve seen any of Lee’s newer work, it’ll take you no time at all to see Green Fish has his name written all over it. It’s pretty surprising to see a debut film from an auteur that still has all of the same qualities as his more mature work; it’s obvious that Lee was busting at the seams to get behind a camera and already had a sense of what he was capable of. Like his other films, Green Fish is low-key and melancholy, yet bubbling below the surface is pain, despair and seething emotions that are clearly apparent yet only flare up in very rare, split-second explosions.

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Which of course makes the handful of violently emotional scenes all the more effective, as the bottled up feelings come pouring out during these exceptionally small windows of opportunity, and they’ll hit you like a brick to the back of the head. Add to that the facts that the characters are sympathetic and feel very real and the story is an intriguing one, and you have a subdued, yet highly interesting film.

Infiniti-Tropolis

Special Features:
- Making of (45 mins)
- Production meeting footage

1999, Kim Young Ho (Sol Kyung Gu, Silmido) walks in the middle of the railroad tracks, planning to end it all. From there begins a gradual look back at all the reasons which led him to this tragic decision, a process that revisits some of the biggest and most painful events of Korea's last twenty years. From the Gwangju Massacre to the IMF Crisis, the film masterfully intertwines Young Ho's struggles with the troubled history of Korea, one of the reasons why this film is considered by many to be one of the finest the country ever produced.

Spring, 1999. On a railroad bridge overlooking an idyllic riverbank, Yong-Ho (Sul Kyung-Ku) faces an oncoming train. Distraught and beyond reason, Yong-Ho shouts, "I'm going back!" right before the train takes his life…

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Peppermint Candy takes viewers back before Yong-Ho's death, and back through 20 years of the doomed man's life. Director Lee Chang-Dong weaves an emotionally wrenching tale about the futility of dreams against the unstoppable march of time. Like Memento, Peppermint Candy unfolds in reverse, with each stop in time giving new insight into Yong-Ho, as he becomes the man who will one day submit to his own death on a railroad bridge - the very same bridge beneath which he would declare his love for Sun-Im (Moon So-Ri) 20 years earlier…

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But Peppermint Candy is more than a portrait of one man's self-destructive regret. Lee Chang-Dong takes Yong-Ho and the audience through 20 years of turbulent Korean history, including a stop at the tragic Gwang-ju Massacre, where Yong-Ho performs an act that will forever change his life. Full of harrowing moments and bittersweet emotions, Peppermint Candy earns every bit of its reputation as a masterpiece of the Korean New Wave!

Special Features:
- Making of (48 mins)
- Karlovy Vary Film Festival featurette
- Audition featurette
- Outtakes
- Theatrical trailer and TV spot

He's a former convict, she has cerebral palsy. Two outcasts at an isolated desert oasis. Hong Jong Du (Sol Kyung Gu) just got out of prison for a hit and run accident, and when he tries to contact the family of the victim, he meets Han Kong Ju (Moon So Ri, Legend), the daughter of the man he apparently killed. At first the two feel uncomfortable, but Kong Ju finds quickly he's the only one who truly respects her, despite the warnings from her family. But can they continue to meet with their families interfering all the time?

Winner of five awards at the 2002 Venice International Film Festival including Best Director for Lee Chang-dong, Oasis is a hard-hitting story about an ex-convict who falls in love with a woman who has cerebral palsy. One of the most acclaimed Korean films of 2002 and a showcase of Korea's top acting and directing talent.

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Lee Chang-dong (Green Fish and Peppermint Candy) returns with the same actor and actress he used for his last movie Sol Kyung-gu and Moon so-ri. Moon So-ri picked up the 59th Vienna film festival award for best young actor/actress, the first such award for a Korean movie.

Moon So-ri plays a women with cerebral palsy who is ignored and abused in life until simpleton Sol Kyung-gu comes into her life.

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The idea is simple but the execution for a film like this is difficult. Keeping a film like Oasis from being cliché ridden is a mean feat in itself but to turn it into a film as watchable as some of the best Korean romances I've seen is watching a true master at work. You will laugh. you will cry and you will be shocked by what's on screen. The performances by the two leads will endear them to you forever.

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A film like Oasis will make art directors squirm in their seats because it is able to get messages across on so many levels without making audiences go "What the heck"? and yet it is still fresh and original in everyway.

A Korean Movie must see.

Special Features:
- Making of (33 mins)
- Oasis in Venice featurette
- Press screening
- Theatrical trailer

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