15th New York Asian Film Festival

Jun 22 - Jul 9, 2016

FilmsGuestsSchedule & Tickets

Photo: Luz y Sonidos; Courtesy of M-Line Distribution

Dongju: Portrait of a Poet

동주

Lee Joon-ik (The King and the Clown, The Throne) has made a career out of vibrant historical films—visual operas splashed with color—but he takes a more intimate, chamber-like approach for this charged depiction of the life of Yun Dongju, a beloved poet who died young at the hands of Japanese colonialists. Dongju (Kang Ha-neul) never wanted to be a revolutionary, but in a time when the Korean language was banned and Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names, his clarion verses are regarded by the authorities as an act of dissent, and he is inexorably drawn into the struggle by his fiery cousin, Song Mong-gyu (Park Jung-min). Wisely opting for subtlety over sensationalism, Lee shot the film in sober and misty black and white, and the result is an impressive piece of cinematic poetry that embodies the spirit of the title character.

Director: Lee Joon-ik
Screenwriter: Shin Yeon-shick
Cast: Choi Hee-seo, Kim In-woo, Park Jung-min, Kang Ha-neul
Languages: Korean and Japanese with English subtitles
2015; 110 min.; DCP

SCHEDULE:

Tuesday June 28, 9:15pm
Film Society of Lincoln Center

Q&A with Lee Joon-ik and Shin Yeon-shick

Lee Joon-ik
이준익

Lee Joon-ik serves up Korean history with black comedy, razor-sharp satire, and plenty of mud and blood. His first commercial hit was the 2003 satire Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield which he followed two years later with one of the ten most successful South Korean films of all time, The King and the Clown, about a Joseon Dynasty king who falls for a young, feminine actor in his court. After contemporary comedies Radio Star and The Happy Life, and the bittersweet Vietnam film Sunny, he returned to historical ground with sword actioner (and NYAFF 2010 closer) Blades of Blood. Battlefield Heroes was his wildest swing yet, a sequel to Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield that plays like an absurdist All Quiet on the Western Front. He vowed to retire if it flopped, which it did... before returning with Hope in 2013 about a horrifying case of child rape. This year we screen his most recent films, which show the impressive range of his cinematic output: lush period drama The Throne, and stirring biopic Dongju; Portrait of a Poet.

Shin Yeon-shick
신연식

After dropping out of his Spanish studies major, Shin Yeon-shick turned to filmmaking with his directorial debut Piano Lesson, made for just $300 in 2002. Committed to a career in the movie industry, he next made black-and-white indie A Great Actor, which put him on the cinematic map with screenings at the Busan and Rotterdam festivals. Four years later, Shin received critical acclaim with his controversial inter-generational romance The Fair Love, featuring Ahn Sung-ki as a 50-something in love with a friend's daughter half his age. In 2012, he again explored the creative process with sophisticated arthouse drama The Russian Novel about a man waking up from a coma to find himself a literary sensation for novels he didn't write. In Rough Play (2013), Shin adapted a screenplay by Kim Ki-duk that explored the dark side of the Korean film industry. Following road movie The Avian Kind and omnibus Like A French Film, Shin has created his most ambitious work yet in the Lee Joon-ik-directed Dongju; The Portrait of a Poet.