Et enfin dernière chose pour cette nuit, la sortie de Welcome to Dongmakgol le 4 août qui est apparemment un très très grand film.
J´en avais peut-être déjà parlé, je m´en souviens plus. On retrouve donc dans les rôles principaux :
- Shin Ha-kyun ( Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Guns and Talks, No Comment, Save the Green Planet)
- Kang Hye-jong ( Old Boy)
Le film est réalisé par Park Gwang-hyeon ( No Comment) et la musique signée Joe Hisaishi.
Des photos :
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Les affiches :
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http://www.krmdb.com/stills/2005/Dongmakgol-2005/Dongmakgol-2005-02-b.jpg
Le trailer ( à copier dans le barre d´adresse) :
mms://218.50.54.173/00/00/89/89_x2_300.asf
Et une critique en anglais plus que prometteuse :
A ragtag group of North Korean soldiers led by Commander Lee ( Jeong Jae-young) are ambushed. Only Lee, Private Jang ( Im Ha-ryong, Arahan, The Big Swindle) and teenager Taeg-ki ( Ryoo Deok-hwan) survive. Encountering a strange young girl Yeo-il ( Kang Hye-jeong), they find a temporary refuge in her village, called Dongmakgol. Its residents are blissfully unaware that the Korean War has been going on for three years. The villagers also offer refuge to South Korean soldiers, Lieutenant Pyo ( Shin Ha-kyun) and the medic Moon ( Seo Jae-gyung, the young monk from Spring, Summer, Winter... and Spring) as well as Smith, an American pilot ( Steve Taschler). After a tense standoff, resulting in the blowing up of the village´s warehouse, the soldiers agree to a reluctant truce, at least until the warehouse and its contents are restored.
Based on the long-running play written by Jang Jin ( Someone Special, Guns & Talks), Dongmakgol is directed by Park Kwang-hyun, previously responsible for the beautiful " My Nike" segment in the Jang-produced omnibus film No Comment ( 2002). Based on this short, I had some inkling of Park´s skills with visual imagery. Nonetheless, I confess that my immediate reaction upon reading about the film was " How could he possibly pull this off?" A feel-good fantasy about the Korean War?
Welcome to Dongmakgol Indeed, there were so many ways in which Dongmakgol could have gone wrong. It could have turned out to be a " Disneyesque" melodrama sickeningly condescending in its portrayal of the villagers. Conversely, it could have been a lugubrious nationalist " epic," turning the villagers into puppet Victims of American Imperialism, climaxing with interminable shots of the Korean soldiers mowing down American paratroopers with machine guns, blood and guts splurging in slow motion. It could have been one of those " message" films in which the soldiers learn the true meaning of Peace by being assimilated into a Korean Shangri-la, its characters breaking out into song-and-dance numbers in between sage exchanges dispensing fortune-cookie " Eastern" wisdoms.
Almost miraculously, Dongmakgol avoids all of these pitfalls. There still might be those who find the film´s tone too sweet, although the earthy humor of Jang Jin´s dialogue, especially in the early part, goes a long way to prevent the film from wading into sap. Others might miss the satirical tang of Jang Jin´s other works such as The Spy ( 1999). One could also debate pros and cons of the strong influence of Miyazaki Hayao and Japanese animation on this work, made more obvious by the musical contribution of a frequent Miyazaki collaborator Hisaishi Jo. Ultimately, though, few viewers will be able to resist the film´s power to command their attention: the film has a coherence of design and narrative pull that would be an envy of Hollywood A-list directors.
The fantasy sequences are brilliantly combined with the more evidently theater-driven set pieces. The total of CGI shots reportedly approaches 700 but what is impressive is the way they are integrated seamlessly into the narrative. One jaw-dropping sequence involving a boar, especially, ( possibly an homage to Princess Mononoke) will be talked over in word-of-mouth across the world.
The cast, as usual for a Jang Jin production, is excellent. Particularly noteworthy is Shin Ha-kyun, who has continued to deliver strong performances in a series of commercial failures for some time. Dongmakgol presents him with breathing space to overcome his Anthony Perkins syndrome. Even though Lieutenant Pyo does his share of neurotic eye-twitch, Shin is allowed to play him with a bit of mustachioed machismo and without relying too much on his typical " sensitive soul" characterization. You will choke up seeing Shin´s climactic flash of smile, as memorable as Choi Min-shik´s sad grin at the end of Old Boy. Kang Hye-jeong´s Yeo-il, on the other hand, is a total fantasy figure, more anime-like than an actual anime shojo, and making her cutesy-poo or annoyingly chirpy would have completely destroyed the film. Here, too, Park guides Kang away from obvious mannerisms and solidifies her presence, again greatly aided by Jang´s dialogue. ( Unfortunately, the hilarity of a flower-child sprite like Kang speaking through the thick Kangwon Province accent will be lost to non-Korean speakers)
Depiction of " foreigners," usually a sour point in a Korean movie of this kind among non-Korean viewers, is not perfect, but a definite improvement in Dongmakgol. Taschler does a good job as the beleaguered pilot, although I wish the screenplay allowed him to flesh out his character a bit more. Except for one yahoo obviously set up as a hissable villain, all Americans in the film are portrayed as more than one-dimensional. The same evenhandedness is extended to the North and South Korean soldiers and how they regard the War from their respective viewpoints.
Overall, much of the Dongmakgol´s power must be attributed to the young director Park Kwang-hyun, despite Jang Jin´s unmistakable stamp on its content. He does a superb job of walking the tightrope between fidelity to the genre conventions and logic of humanist fantasy on the one hand and a realistic evocation of the war experience and its very real tragedy on the other. Welcome to Dongmakgol in my opinion is the most accomplished feature film debut of a Korean filmmaker since Ryoo Seung-wan´s Die Bad ( 2000).
( Kyu Hyun Kim)
