
4K Restoration
Director: Lee Chang-Dong
Language: Korean with English subtitles
Country: South Korea
Runtime: 120 min
Rating: M18
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Awards
BEST NEW ACTOR (Sol Kyung-gu)
2000 Baeksang Arts Awards
BEST FILM
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Kim Yeo-jin)
BEST SCREENPLAY
BEST NEW ACTOR (Sol Kyung-gu)
2000 Grand Bell Awards
BEST ACTOR (Sol Kyung-gu)/
BEST SCREENPLAY
2000 Blue Dragon Film Awards
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
DON QUIJOTE AWARD (awarded by the Fédération Internationale des Ciné-Clubs)
NETPAC AWARD – SPECIAL MENTION
35th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2000
Synopsis
Young-ho (Sol Kyung-gu) is a broken and depressed man who decides to end his life by standing in front of a moving train. Following this time moves in reverse as we witness six chapters in his life which led him to this decision. In a backwards spiral we see him as an investor who loses a fortune in the stock market, a corrupt police officer, a soldier and an idealistic student.
A breakthrough in Lee Chang-dong’s career, Peppermint Candy established Lee as the premier poet of modern Korean misery. Melding historiography and psychoanalysis, Lee traces the 20 years of South Korean history leading up to the new millennium, highlighting formative events from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis to the 1980 Gwangju Massacre, which irrevocably change Young-ho. Every detail adds up to form a portrait of a man whose spirit is thoroughly crushed by the increasing difficulties of modern life.
Peppermint Candy is part of the film programme Retrospective: Lee Chang Dong. For the full programme, please click here.
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