Milyang (2007)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Chang-dong Lee

Writers:

Chang-dong Lee (writer)
Chong-jun Yi (novel)

Release Date:

17 May 2007 (South Korea)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Sin-ae moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. As she tries to come to herself and set out on new foundations, another tragic event overturns her life. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

8 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Do-yeon Jeon	...	Shin-ae
Kang-ho Song	...	Jong Chan
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yeong-jin Jo
Mi-kyung Kim
Yeong-jae Kim
Seo-hie Ko
Myeong-shin Park
Jung-yeop Seon	...	Jun

Also Known As:

Secret Sunshine (International: English title)

Runtime:

Argentina:142 min | South Korea:142 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:13 | Netherlands:AL

Company:

CJ Entertainment

Trivia:

South Korea's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008).

A harrowing tale

"Secret Sunshine" reminded me of "The Rapture" (1991), with Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny, but this Korean production is a better film. It portrays super-religious Korean Christians in a provincial Korean city, and the main character's experiences interacting with them in the wake of a horrible personal tragedy. Shin-ae is a widowed single mother who moves to the city of Milyang ('Secret Sunshine' in Chinese) from Seoul with her young son. She has chosen Milyang because her late husband (killed in an auto accident) was born there, and she feels she needs to make a new start in life in a new place. She does not react well to the overtures of the local Christian zealots, one of whose members tries to convince her to come to their church and prayer meetings. Shin-ae is essentially irreligious and brushes these people off as politely as she can. In fact, she brushes just about everyone in Milyang off to begin with, but some of them are persistent in trying to invade her world, and the consequences are often hilarious. To say more would be to give the film away, but it should be noted that the performance of the woman in the lead role (Jeon Do-yeon) is stupendous. Having read that she won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2007, I expected her to a decent job. But Ms. Jeon is captivating and it is impossible to take your eyes off her when she is on screen. The movie is a sort of harrowing Evelyn Waugh-esquire piece of work, showing how Fate can feel insane as much as strangely inevitable.