Word: kwon
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...films selected for Kwon-taek’s hosted screenings at the HFA, Chunhyang and Chihwaseon, are his two most recent. Another film, Sopyonje, was screened Monday, March 7, but the director was not present...
Chunhyang, released in 2000, was adapted from a traditional epic and recounts the embattled life and tragic death of the titular courtesan. In the film, Kwon-taek combines the conventions of historical melodrama and musicals in ways reminiscent of Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, which, incidentally, beat Kwon-taek’s film for the Palm d’Or at that year’s Cannes Film Festival...
...seductive as Seung-up is, his abusive behavior towards the women in his life is unforgivable, and Kwon-taek’s film compounds these malefactions by relegating all of its female characters to the status of groupie or prostitute. By placing the maligned female voices in the film in the background, Kwon-taek falls into the same trap that has marred so many other artist biopics—recall Ed Harris’ Pollock...
...brilliant film: it manages to be both epic and intimate in equal measure. By viewing it, I not only gained a working knowledge of the historical forces that gave rise to the modern, partitioned Korean state, but I also received tremendous insight into a uniquely creative and troubled mind. Kwon-taek’s Seung-up is not only a compelling figure unto himself, but a portal through which to see and understand modern Korean history...
...only the HFA’s event organizers had been as deft as Kwon-taek’s film in balancing the inspirational and educational components of the screenings...