Synopsis

Dong-ho and Song-hwa are separately adopted by a traditional singer and grow up as siblings. Dong-ho plays the traditional drum and Song-hwa sings; together with their stepfather, they travel around performing at parties. When Dong-ho comes of age he leaves home, tired of poverty, but his secret feelings towards Song-hwa linger. After a few years, Dong-ho finds Song-hwa only to hear that she became blind because their father deliberately gave her harmful medicine. He gets infuriated thinking that their father must have blinded her out of his obsession for her as a woman. Not long after, their father passes away and Song-hwa disappears. Dong-ho joins a traditional performance troupe where he meets a singer named Dan-shim. He lives with her but keeps following traces of Song-hwa. In the meantime, the popularity of traditional Korean music dies away. Director Im Kwon-taek’s 100th film starts with the story of traditional singers, then overlaps the life of singing with that of human beings, does not separate singing from humans until the film finally ends with pure song. The film’s message that art and life are meant to resemble each other has sorrow in it, but its perspective tries to distant itself from this sentiment. Temperance and ellipsis caused by this attitude bring tension. Simply and rather coolly presented singing is as equally important as the characters. In the end, the film itself arrives at the intersection where art and life meet.

감독

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  • 임권택
  • 1936년 출생. 1962년 <두만강아 잘 있거라>로 감독 데뷔한 이후 지금까지 100편의 작품을 완성했다. 대표작으로는 <만다라>(1981), <씨받이>(1986),<서편제>(1993)를 비롯, 2000 칸영화제 경쟁부분에 초청된 <춘향뎐>, 2002 칸영화제 감독상을 수상한 <취화선> 등이 있다. 2005 베를린영화제에서 평생공로 상을 수상하는 등 국제적 거장으로 인정받고 있다. 현재 101번째 작품 <달빛 길어올리기> 를 촬영하고 있다.