CHUNHYANG
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Lot 47 Films Director: Im Kwon Taek Writer: Kim Myoung Kon Cast: Lee Hyo Jung, Cho Seung Woo, Kim Sung Nyu, Lee Jung Hun
While "Dancer in the Dark" does a satiric take on American musicals, whatever parody informs "Chunhyang" lies in its criticism of social-class rigidities and not in its use of music. "Chunhyang" could be called a musical but is unlike any such genre known in the U.S. Utilizing a legend of a woman who is swept away by a nobleman in 18th Century Korea, director Im Kwon Taek introduces a Western audience to a theatrical form known to educated Koreans today in much the way that Kabuki and Noh drama are perceived by cognoscenti in Japan. The result is a mixed bag. "Chunhyang" displays exquisite cinematography in a lavish, high-budget costume drama using 8,000 extras that curled its way around the festival circuits in Cannes, Telluride, Toronto and New York. The simple story is effectively told but is interspersed with musical numbers not only unfamiliar and strange to most of its targeted audience of cultivated viewers but to my Western ears downright irritating, unnecessary and shrill. "Chunhyang" features a vocalist who, together with a drummer, belts out the story in a piercing cacophony that makes no distinction between elements of high melodrama and components of ordinary, mundane affairs. The tale is recited by a Pansori who chants at various times during its exposition like a Brechtian narrator foreshadowing and commenting upon what is developing. Lose this Pansori and you're left with a lovely fable that could easily go over with a broader audience but would, of course, deny the producers their claim to originality and their apparent wish to enlighten most of us about this unique feature of Korean culture.
A Romeo-and-Juliet-style fable with a happy ending, Kim Myoung Kon's screenplay, exquisitely photographed by Jung Il Sung, focuses on a handsome scholar, Mongryong (Cho Seung Woo), who is the son of the provincial governor and is reading furiously in preparation for a state examination. Using his Sancho-Panza-esque servant, Pangja (Kim Hak Yong) as a travel agent, he winds his way about the countryside, looking in on villages to further his education about his country, but forgets much of the landscape when he discovers the topography of a courtesan's beautiful daughter, Chunhyang (Lee Hyo Jung). Arrogant at first in demanding that Chunhyang come to him for a meeting, he gives in to this independent lass by meeting her more than halfway, charming her into secretly marrying him, and then sadly leaving her when ordered to do by his father--who has just been appointed to the king's cabinet. The replacement governor (Choi Jin Young) gives new meaning to the term "male chauvinist pig," demanding sexual favors from this married woman and ordering his chief penal officer to beat her severely when she resists. He has her thrown into prison and orders her execution. "I cannot serve two husbands any more than I can serve two kings," she repeatedly cries as she desperately hopes for her man's return.
"Chunhyang," Korea's most lavish film ever, looks terrific. Costumes, art direction, and shots of the landscape are magnificent. Im Kwon Taek's direction is on target not only in the portrayal of 18th Century Korea with its courtesans, bureaucrats, and governors with unlimited power, but in his vignettes of the lovers as they coyly take part in marriage- night antics, later to become madly in love with each other as they playfully roll in the hay. As we witness the title figure's growing passion for her husband, we easily believe her fierce loyalty to the handsome, if somewhat bland noble, and we accept Mongryong's willingness to overlook class differences as irrelevant. Credibility suffers only at one point: Having been beaten, left incarcerated for months or years, and about to be executed, Chunhyang looks as beautiful as she was on the day that her prince charming met her. Every hair is in place, her face is appropriately made up, her clothing immaculate.
Did I mention that Im should lose the drummer and Pansori (nothing personal)?
Not Rated. Running time: 120 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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