Peppermint Candy
Asian Cinema
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2h 10m
Directed by Lee Chang-dong | 130 mins | 1999
Opening on a shocking scene of implied suicide, Lee’s sophomore feature proceeds to move backward in time, its reverse chronology following its protagonist’s unhappiness to its source, following him from the end of the ’70s to the close of the ’90s—years of enormous transformation in South Korea—and on a trajectory from youthful romanticism to the cynicism and disenchantment of middle age. A character study that doubles as an allegorical history of a South Korea beset by trauma after trauma, anchored by Sul Kyung-gu’s sensitive and versatile central performance.
Up Next in Asian Cinema
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Green Fish
Directed by Lee Chang-dong | 111 mins | 1997
Already established as a novelist and playwright, Lee made the leap to the director’s chair with this spectacularly assured first feature, a scourging commentary on South Korean society dressed up in film noir trappings, focused on a freshly demobbed y... -
Hahaha
Directed by Hong Sangsoo | 115 mins | 2010
Two friends in a bar trade stories about their romantic exploits at a beach, which we come to realize involve the same people (including a restaurant owner played by Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung). Through adroit layering, Hong brings a wry sympathy to the ... -
In Another Country
Directed by Hong Sangsoo | 89 mins | 2012
Isabelle Huppert plays three variations on the role of a Frenchwoman abroad in Korea in her first venture into Hong’s peculiar, soju-soaked world, and is the connecting link between the elements of this triptych of glancing, awkward romantic encounters wh...
