The Seoul sattelite city of Puchon or as it is now officially known Buchon is attempting to scale up its film festival and quit some of its high school play atmosphere. There was a sense at PIFAN (Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival) 2003 that things are just a bit more important, a bit more vital. And word has it that the local government are concerned that their money could be better spent elsewhere. But the festival itself is not in danger, it’s more that it could be moved from the Boksagol cultural centre as its HQ (complete with swimming pool and child care facilities) to a new purpose built cultural centre. Since this is a city that prides itself culturally (it has its own symphony orchestra) it seems inevitable that PIFAN will become another swank event in the menu of international film festivals. How quickly that will happen is a matter of conjecture, but if the fest does move to “real” cultural centre, a certain charm will be lost to the international traveller who courtesy of the current venue’s location in a high-rise residential area gets to mix it with the locals. However most of the internationalists don’t pay for their tickets, so the problem seems to be that Koreans would rather go to a special function centre rather than a run of the mill cultural centre (more like your typical community centre for a cashed up community). Either that or its is just construction for construction’s sake which is never an impossibility in Korea or any economy trying to boost its economy.
Regardless, at PIFAN’s opening night, the usual old boys network of esteemed Korean directors was rolled out and they took their honorific bows as they do at every Korean film occasion. The festival director Kim Hong-joon who is like Korea’s David Stratton (complete with film review TV program) seemed more relaxed, more confident than last year, but that could be because he didn’t have a potential public screening of pornography scandal going on like last year. Worth mentioning that when porn was shown publicly (see last year’s PIFAN report) the wowsers of Korea handled it with more aplomb than the moral guardians of Australia who created the Ken Park controversy. The Koreans didn’t call in the police, they just pretended it didn’t happen.
The opening ceremony was briefer and quicker to the point from previous years, though we were subjected to a dull fashion show and an opera singer and a jazz singer doing an odd duet combining both types of music after doing a mini solo show each.
Opera also held a key place in the opening film, called Wonderful Days which was a Korean anime which like so many science fiction pictures of this ilk dutifully ripped off Bladerunner and Akira. As regular readers of my contributions to this website can testify, I don’t mix well with anime. However, I did cross check with other attendees and generally the response was the same, i.e. the story lacked purpose and direction (rather the story only had one direction to go in, but since the script had 90 plus minutes to fill up it decided to take the most circuitous route). But please note the animation itself was superb, which I’m told is not always the case with Korean ventures. The locals ate it up.
Putting on a brave face, all the guests were moved to an enjoyable opening night party, which was basically set in an upmarket food court. The party allowed me to catch up with some of the Pusan staff and other luminaries. Amongst the throng, I hooked up with the New Zealand consular general and he told me he liked the Wonderful Days, which only goes to show how unsophisticated these diplomat types can be. Or perhaps he’d never seen Bladerunner and Akira.
Day one of the festival proper provided me with an eclectic bunch of films. A quartet of films from a Shaw Brothers retrospective that was lifted from a wider retro held at the HKIFF earlier this year was my appetiser. The Love Eterne was a splendidly filmed Chinese opera which told the tale of a young woman who dressing as a man fools her parents into sending her to a co-ed college to be educated, despite the attitudes of the feudal times. The deal is that she must dress as a man at her three stint at the college. Along the way she meets another student and they become “brothers”. She falls in love with the male student and subtly tries to reveal that she is really a woman and that the door is open for him to propose marriage. Eventually she enlists a matchmaker, and by the time the penny drops, they have completed their degrees and her father has betrothed her to some rich guy, by which time the lad spontaneously develops TB. She breaks his heart and hers in turn is broken and the pair make a pact to be eternal in death, despite being unable to be paired in life.
As both the incognito female lead and the male lead she falls in love with were played by women, I was anticipating that the comic atmosphere of the first hour would prevail and that the adored lover would likewise be revealed to be a woman. It was not to be, and if I’d read the synopsis (a practice I avoid), it would have been obvious. The fascinating thing is that as viewers of Farewell My Concubine would know, men are the traditional players in Chinese opera, so The Love Eterne actually acts as a reversal of the usual gay tensions. Interestingly, the servant classes (played by actors of the appropriate genders) seemed to be able to fulfil the aspirations of love on the earthly plane, but of course they were not aspirational or deceitful on their path to love.
Just for completists, let it be known that this film was remade by Tsui Hark in 1994 with the title The Lovers.
Next was a film that probably had no part in a fantastic film festival, but that has never stopped PIFAN before and it wasn’t stopping them now. Following on the trend set up by the glorious The Road Home, A Little Monk also explored the cross generational conflicts, but this time the boy in question had been abandoned to a monastery and raised by the head monk in the precepts of Buddhism. He’s a rebellious kid with a heavy karma debt to pay, but he just wants to be loved and adopted out. He is picked on by the other local kids and beaten by the head monk, as well as having a bad example set for him by an older fellow monk who continually falls afoul of the head monk as he requests money for various dubious purposes including a circumcision. A tougher sell than The Road Home (and not as potent) for international audiences because of the brutal side of Buddhism that it reveals, A Little Monk was nevertheless amusing and emotionally touching and would be a good family flick (circumcision subplot not withstanding).
I got hooked up for an interview from the daily PIFAN newsletter where they thought that Heroic Cinema was my website (sorry Mark), and unfortunately missed Wild Card (a Korean cop drama). However I did make it back in time for 999-9999 a Thai horror flick partially derived from Ring where a group of university adventurers find out about a phone number you can dial which will grant audacious wishes –for a Mephistophelian price of course. Set up for a Thai “spam in a cabin” flick, one by one each student succumbs to their greed and gruesomely pays the price. Made by a Thai descended New Yorker, 999-9999 had some gripping moments and held the attention, but feminists beware this is a film that hates women big time. Nevertheless director Peter Manus is clearly someone to watch out for, which is more than you can say for his cast particularly male lead, Julachak Jakrapong who, as one of a multitude of Eurasian actors ruling Thai screens, appeared to enjoy being on camera far too for his “too cool for school” character.
From Thai splatter to Korean teen comedy! Teen comedies or coming of age films don’t get any better than Conduct Zero. Joong-pil, “The king of Moonbuk High School” falls for the daggiest girl and so his rep as the toughest student ever is instantly jeopardised. Artfully maintaining his character throughout the film, Ryu Seung-bum is both charming funny and intimidating with the thug with love in his heart. With a surprisingly bloody finale, Conduct Zero shows just how shallow American teen pics are and again how pleasing a lack of respect for genre conventions can be.
Less successful was The Classic. Too long for its own good, this film uses a pair of innocuous romances as an entree to reflect on pre-democratised Korea. However the disproportionate emphasis (no doubt necessary for local box office) on the romantic story makes the political side seem completely out of place as if scenes from The Thin Red Line or Platoon had been grafted on to Sleepless in Seattle. Add to that imbalance, an Oscar and Lucinda sleight of hand and more than a few cheats, The Classic still managed to sustain enough charm to reward the patient (or the indulgent depending on your outlook). The subtext of knowing truly knowing who our are parents as the only way we will be ready for romantic fulfilment is an expression of a profundity that is missing from most romantic dramas from anywhere.
The next Korean flick I rocked up to was Save The Green Planet! I’d gotten wind that this flick had won the best film at the recent Moscow Film Festival and a few raves from others (including a rep from the Toronto Film Festival) may have done me a disservice here. Frankly the film long joke of two nutty people who believe that they have kidnapped an alien from outer space and proceed to torture him to the confession rather quickly collapsed into an endurance test for me. By the time the film’s twist came it was about 90 minutes too late (and I still don’t understand why fans of the film couldn’t see it coming). At one stage during the festival I heard one of the festival jurors say that he was on a mission to save Save The Green Planet!
Much more interesting I thought was the director Jang Jun-hwan’s remarks when he received a prize at the festival’s end. At the risk of being ungrateful he began (while being cheered on by fans in copies of the character’s costumes and waving placards), I wish that you had all shown your appreciation when the film was actually playing at the cinemas. Save The Green Planet! had been somewhat of a flop and while success in cult films is often borne out of such circumstances, but such a forthright reply was refreshing compared to the type of remark he would have been expected to deliver.
Reversal of Fortune was not a remake of the Jeremy Irons Oscar winning film (though I heard a great rumour about Jeremy Irons and his requests to reduce his boredom during the 1998 Pusan Film Festival which is too rich to repeat here). Instead this Korean film was the story of an arrogant golf champion in Korea who finds himself in the life of a nobody, while the nobody has to deal with sudden fame, an attractive, but bitchy wife (and a mistress) and a wide range of trappings of fame. Weirdly rather than concentrating on seeing a rich guy get accustomed to poverty, the film-makers opted for the less amusing option of seeing a nice guy cope with sudden ostensibly positive change. It might have worked for the Beverly Hillbillies, but it was less effective here and while smiling was frequently an option, laughing usually was not.
Taking advantage of the presence of foreign journalists, various Korean film distributors presented a special series of industry screenings. One of these was the Tale of Two Sisters which is based on a well-known Korean ghost story, but cinematically borrowed heavily from Lynch, Nakata and Tsukamoto. The scares were legitimate, but the storyline twisted to utter nonsense and gave the impression that the film-makers themselves were not entirely sure what they up to. However, the response of other journalists were so positive, that I would be willing to give this another go when the Pusan festival hits in October.
Far more impressive at the industry screenings was Memories of Murder. A suprisingly powerful film from the director of the amusing Barking Dogs Never Bite this film about a serial killer had the tone of Se7en but without the weirdness. More importantly Memories of Murder, but addressed the debate about integrity in police methods with the greatest effectiveness since Orson Welles made Touch of Evil. Song Kang-ho (JSA, The Foul King) is, as always, dynamite as the cop who is obsessed with this case. Every Korean who sees this film knows, even if I didn’t, that this is based on a true story (and from what I can tell is scrupulously faithful to the real events), so there’s no reason for you not to know (even if I didn’t). The interplay between the city cop and the country cops is well-balanced, and the pacing is sleekly maintained to keep you on the edge of your seat as it works the thriller atmosphere and keeping an aura of authenticity. Not just the best Korean film of the year, or the best film of the PIFAN festival (though it actually didn’t appear in the festival program), but one of the great films of 2003. Certainly the best Korean film since JSA and …oh enough superlatives already… this is a ripper and not to be missed if you get the chance!
If Memories Of Murder was the best Korean film, Shivski has to be a contender for the worst. A contraction of a Korean swear word Shibalseki (which apparently means fuck, whereas the contraction which is the film’s title was translated as “fucky”), this flick was made as a graduate film by a Korean TV soap star who concurrent with his appearance in My Wife is Gangster went to film school. The result was an incompetent piece of crap that that I only endured because someone has asked me to see to review it. Childish absurdities about aliens on a game show punctuated this dreadfully shot videotaped film about a teenage gangster wannabe. Frankly an epileptic ten-year old could have shot this better in the midst of a pink fit coinciding with an earthquake.
Similar timewasters were evident from Japan with The Strange Killers and the slightly more upmarket Battlefield Baseball (which was at least shot on film) about a bunch of no-hopers lead to success agains the deadliest baseball team ever by the handsome rebel without a clue.
The New Zealand, Showtime Australia-funded Tongan Ninja showed that dumbness was not exclusive to Asia and that some organisations will do anything to fulfil their programming criteria about local content. That said, there were more genuine laughs in this rather dismal film that almost all of 2003’s appalling collection of Australian comedies (which come to think of it Showtime has also put money into) put together.
Weirdly enough two of the best Australian films (one directed by a New Zealander, the other by a Dutchman) of the year also played at PIFAN. One was Rold De heer’s excellent, but flawed Alexandra’s Project which played Australian cinemas earlier in the year. The other film was the actor ensemble piece A Cold Summer which suffered from the same problems of most actor-driven projects it was so bound up in character that its resolution was too pat to do justice to what had gone before. That said the performances, from Teo Gebert and Olivia Pigeot. The third actress Susan Prior was less believable, but given that she had to show more range than the others, the comparison puts her at a disadvantage.
The festival seemed to lag a bit in the middle, which may have been due to unhappy clashes in programming. There was so much on, but most of the most widely anticipated stuff seemed to coincide. That many of the films mid-fest were approached with duty, rather than enthusiasm. One pleasant surprise however was The Laughing Frog from Japan. The story of a man who having been involved in corrupt business practices, is on the run from authorities and now that seven years has almost elapsed (the period of time after which a Japanese criminal can claim amnesty), he seeks refuge with the wife he left behind. She shelters him in a secret compartment in their house and this subjects him to her real life which involves the love of another man and the manipulations of his former mistress and his wife’s family. Rather polite in execution, A Laughing Frog evolved into a much richer film than could have been anticipated at the outset. A film that moves outside of the victim mindset of most domestic dramas it possessed an assured calmness that is often absent from most Japanese comedies.
Less surprising, but just as rewarding was Drive, the latest film from Japanese director Sabu. Bouncing back from the disappointing The Blessing Bell, Drive was much closer to Monday in tone and even surpassed that clever film in execution. This time out a rather literal and methodical salaryman finds himself ambushed by three bank robbers who have been separated from one of their companions who has double crossed them. Instructed to drive in hot pursuit, the salaryman adheres strictly to the speed limit and despite the admonishments of the criminals they cannot manage to make him change his rigid ways. The never puts a foot wrong and from my limited exposure to Sabu, it seems the emotionally richest of his films.
Also of interest was the latest product of Taiwanese writer director Su Chao Pino who was responsible for the Double Vision script. Co-directed (with Lee Fong Nor) and written by Pin, Better Than Sex is a funny if overly zany comedy about a group of Taipei bovver boys who have a magical sword and a boy who is obsessed with pornography and finds himself inhibited by his overly long penis. Amply decorated by Taiwanese pop stars and their music this flick rollicked along and despite many genuine laughs and a splendid split screen gag regarding the aforementioned extended penis and phallic balloon twisting, Better Than Sex also had moments of intimate poignancy. A significant hit in Taiwan, this film probably won’t get the attention it deserves, but with the eclectic resume Pin is getting together it is sure to be a film that Asian film fans will be desperately trying to unearth in the future.
More cohesive and also consistently funnier was The Stewardess. Despite the feeling that if I happened to be a Japanese woman, I’d be deeply offended by this film, I found it immensely enjoyable as it played with the stereotype of a obsessive compulsive servile/dominating and relentlessly sexy Japanese flight attendant (that said apparently Hong Kong-based director Sam Leong apparently has a huge fan base in Japan and claims to have targeted this film for the lucrative Japanese market. In fact I have read that he is a bigger hit in Japan than Hong Kong.)
The story of a pornography writer who has an attractive, but jealous girlfriend, Keung is haunted by a dream of a faceless woman dressed in striking red who is linked to the model aeroplane that sat in his childhood room. A Japanese flight attendant named Yurei who moves in next door to Keung’s apartment fits the description of the mystery woman in his nightmare and Keung contemplates an affair while his jealous possessive girlfriend is out of town. However when Keung’s girlfriend returns, Yurei has been rebuffed and hell having no fury like a woman scorned dedicates her life to getting Keung back. The results are both genuinely scary and amazingly, gut bustingly funny without compromising the frights. Low-budget, this film once again proves that a good script and a smart idea is worth much more than millions of dollars and computer effects.
Other PIFAN films that I didn’t get to included the Qatsi trilogy (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi) playing and introduced by Godfrey Reggio who was a festival guest and whom I got to interview for a couple of hours in a mind expanding and illuminating (for me – I don’t know about him) interview. The extra bonus was that he happened to have with him a tape of his eight-minute film Evidence. With a soundtrack by Philip Glass (of course) the rarely seen short has shot after shot of the dumbstruck and numbed out, slack-jawed drooling faces of children. What could they be witnessing? Sept 11? Massacres? Sex? No just television. The other revelation was that Godrey Reggio was a key participant in the publication of one of my favourite books: Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television. (if the title scares you, you’re probably addicted).
Likewise I missed the Guy Maddin retrospective which was up to the minute and included some of his shorts. If you’re unfamiliar with Maddin’s work it is worth checking out the Canadian’s work for its embracing of antiquated cinematic techniques particularly those of the silent era (tinting, irises etc), as well as the surreal logic that dominates his erratic plotlines.
Like the aforementioned Shaw retro, I only managed to make it to one film of Pifan’s ongoing Bollywood presentation. In the context of a film festival taking in a Bollywood film is a doubly time consuming act. For every one Bollywood film you could be watching two other films in the same time, particularly when you take into account travelling between venues. However for my last day I decided to take in Devdas, before going on to the airport. Because it was the festival’s last day, the bus shuttle system between cinemas (mainly the town hall, city hall the cultural centre and one cinema multiplex) seemed to be either running slow or not running. Consequently, I found myself standing at an empty bus stop besides three young Korean women with bindis on their foreheads. Figuring that they were probably going to the same theatre as me, I asked them to share a cab with me (more a point of cheapness rather than chivalry, which gives you an idea of how tight my budget was). On the journey, one girl acted as spokesperson as the others giggled. It transpired that they had been catching the train in from Seoul every day (about an hour’s journey) of the festival and only being watching Bollywood films. I asked if she had ever seen Bollywood films before these screenings at Puchon and she said “Yes… but only on DVD”. She confessed that they were all members of the Korean National Bollywood Fan Club. Suspecting that I had the entire fan club in the back seat of the cab, I enquired about membership numbers and it turns out that the KNBFC is actually a 2,500 member strong organisation!
It wasn’t the first screenings of Bollywood films in Korea, but certainly the first of this magnitude. A lot of discussion went on about this with the other Western critics present at PIFAN. The consensus was that the Western hype surrounding Bollywood films over the past couple of years (mainly generated by the media coincidence of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, a series of articles about the rise of Indian cinematic box office in English cities) is likely to die off as a fad. However unlike other Asian countries (not to mention Africa, Russia and a few dozen others) where Bollywood has long been cheap fodder and Western countries which deplore melodrama, Korea is a place where Bollywood could really take off. The audience for Devdas was packed full of young females who love melodrama, audibly swooned with every piece of sexual innuendo, bopped along to the dance numbers. This was a bona fide hit and if I was a film distributor that is where I would be taking my Bollywood films.
The winners of the festival’s competition were as follows:
Best of Puchon: Save The Green Planet!
Best Director: Greg Pak (an American born Korean) for Robot Stories (which I didn’t see, but I split a cab with the director when we both opted against trying to watch a Japanese film that was only supplied with French subtitles)
Baek Yoon-Sik won best actor for his part in Save The Green Planet! and Wai Ching Ho an Asian American actress best known for her guest spots on US TV dramas won best actress for her role in Robot Stories. The Citizen’s Choice was also Save The Green Planet! While the Jury’s Choice was They’re Watching Us from Spain’s Noberto Lopez. Just goes to show that jury members like the one who thought he could save Save The Green Planet! couldn’t do it himself and, given the slew of other prizes it won in other categories, didn’t have to.
A big year for PIFAN, but as the festival looks set to continue its size, unlikely to be the biggest ever. In fact, given that most of the best films seemed inconsistent with the Fantastic Film Festival tag, it is possible that PIFAN’s growing international rep, but internal identity crisis, may nudge it toward a role as a serious challenger to Pusan’s pivotal place on the international film festival agenda. In some ways that would be great, but I confess that I already miss the smallness of the festival and the more ramshackle atmosphere that too much polish can wear away. Will that prevent me from attending next year’s PIFAN? Unlikely. In fact try and stop me.
Further reading: