MIRYANG
SECRET SUNSHINE
As Secret Sunshine begins, Shin-ae, a young widow from Seoul, is moving together with her little boy to her late husband's hometown, a provincial city called Miryang. Under the disapproving scrutiny of the gossipy locals, she sets up a piano school and finds a puppyish admirer in a friendly mechanic. Before long, however, a blindsiding tragedy sends the protagonist - and the film - spinning into an altogether different orbit. As Shin-ae agonizes over the meaning of suffering and the mystery of salvation, Secret Sunshine evolves into a provocative study of madness and belief.
Director Lee Chang-dong occupies a unique, somewhat contradictory position in his country's film scene. While the best-known Korean movies of the past few years are stylish, violent genre works - crime thrillers like Oldboy or effects-heavy fantasies like The Host -, Lee's films have a more subdued, literary flavor, and they tend to defy easy classification. Secret Sunshine ends on a note at once ambiguous and hopeful. Its limpid, humble approach to suffering and grace suggests something like Breaking the Waves stripped of mysticism. (Dennis Lim)
- Jeon Do-yeon - Sin-ae
- Song Kang-ho - Kim Jong-chan
- Jo Yeong-jin
- Kim Mi-kyung
- Kim Yeong-jae
- Ko Seo-hie
- Lee Chang-dong
- Cho Yong-kyu
- Yoon Hai-jin
- Kim Hyun
- Christian Basso
- Sihn Jeom-hui
- Cha Sun-young
CJ Entertainment 2nd Fl., 602 Sinsa-dong, Kangnam-gu Seoul 135-893, Südkorea T 2 2017 1195 ky_lee@cj.net
