Chunhyang

With the Korean story telling tradition performed on stage, it was a interesting and novel way to tell the story. The story was beautiful and the moving. I figure it to be a Korean fairy tale given its happy ending and having a moral to the story.

I didn't find the story telling method completely successful. The music and drumming added tension to the film, but the Pansori seemed to intrude in the film too frequently, describing everything that is going on when it could be done visually, rendering many scenes as some sort of announcement, not letting the ambiance set in. The scene of the whipping seemed to be a little forced, having the camera show us various audience members crying, as if we don't know this is a dramatic situation. It might have worked better if they let the dialogue be spoken by the character Chunghyang instead of the Pansori, since the Pansori does not have much dynamic range in his voicing, being always loud. The character saying it while being whipped gives a different impression than the Pansori screaming it.

But all in all, still a good film.

This is a Korean film telling the story of two lovers torn apart by class. The son of a governor and the daughter of a courtesan. It has the air of a fairytale and is a very good film.

It may be difficult for some people to get into the film in the beginning if you are not familiar with pansori. Pansori is a centuries old Korean form of storytelling in which a storyteller sings the story while a drummer drums and makes short vocal sounds or words of encouragement. It is initially jarring for those of us who mostly watch American and European film, but stick with it. I first saw this in a film class and it was among two films that I wrote about for class and liked so much that I purchased on my own once the class ended.

As the film begins the viewer is placed in the position of someone watching a pansori performance. From here the film transitions from the world of Chunhyang to the pansori audience. Part of the enjoyment of the film comes from watching the reactions of the pansori audience to the story. It is akin to being in a movie theater and sharing the same experiences with everyone else watching the film.

Aside from the format, the story itself is enchanting, full of love, loyalty, and courage. The acting is very good and the actors are not bad looking themselves. The pansori performance is a song of the story so it has some poetic qualities that don't necessarily push the story forward, but are enjoyable if you are patient. All in all it is a look into Korean culture and storytelling that not many films from America, Europe, or the rest of the world do for their own cultures. Most films today just stick to the basic narrative design or are pretentious and abstract. This one creates a new experience for anyone who is willing to give it a chance.

This is a lush and beautiful Korean fairy tale with "Romeo and Juliet" like qualities. As I understand it, it is traditionally told in "Pansori" style with a rhythmic singer/storyteller accompanied by a drummer. The film uses a pansori concert as the framework to tell the tale and interweaves the action with the singer's narration to good effect. The story is classic, star-crossed lovers separated by societies rules. A governor's son falls in love with a concubine's daughter and their love must endure long separation and an evil lord's lust. Classic story and an interesting story-telling method make for a truly entertaining film.

Before video, before film, before printing, before writing -- people told and sang stories.

"Chunhyang" is a wonderful way to experience this oral tradition, listening to the music of language as chanted by a Pansori telling a Korean folk tale. For those of us without facility in the Korean language, the film paints for us the images conjured by the singer. These are beautiful images of a colorful, far-away land in ancient times -- images locked into the race memory of the Korean people familiar with the story, but now on the screen for our benefit as well.

This collision of old and new art forms generates a synergy evident, for example, in the scene in which Chunhyang is beaten for refusing to take to the evil lord's bed. Most of this takes place off-screen -- instead we see shots of the Pansori and of his audience, sitting on the edge of their seats and weeping as he tells of the heroine's defiance. It was one of the most gut-wrenching scenes I've experienced in many years.

Introductory lines extracted from its trailer: "It will take you to a place you've never been and wrap you in a life time you've never lived. It is a story of a governor's son favored by birth-right, and a courtesan's daughter, Chunhyang, marked from birth. beautiful, sensual, innocent, brought together by love, bound by loyalty, but torn apart by law. their life became their legacy until their names became legend." A film of epic beauty and eternal devotion of a broken heart that cannot be divided and a heart that cannot be taken where"

There are a number of lines I found particularly worth meditating and deep thoughts. I didn't think this film would be a great film especially judging from its opening introduction where chants with singing were all I heard. Of course then I must remove the mentality of what a movie should be like set by Hollywood. Having done that, Chunhyang as well as the movie, has taught me a great lot of moral values, and wisdom, and not to mention loyalty. The number of people devoted to marriage and love these days are on the declining slope and it is in my opinion that modern thinking is to be blamed. However, these are two very different contexts. Truly, Chunhyang, is a very 2 hour inspiring film, in a different way from Hollywood.

Its musics are as though playing with the strings of my heart. oh my god, so good! Enjoy!