Student Works

Film Critique samples

 

 

EXAMPLE 1:  Spring in my Hometown
Spring in My Hometown is a problematic film.  Director Yi, Kwang-mo presents his audience with no easily identifiable central narrative.  Different stories interweave at a meandering pace throughout the movie, but none is give more weight than any other.  Sung-min is clearly a central character, and thus the film could be considered his coming of age story.  But Sung-min always shares the stage with his family or his friend Chang-hee.  Most often Sung-min acts as the viewerís surrogate in observation of whoever he appears on screen with.  Kwang-mo is insistent on not letting the viewer confuse Chang-hee for the star of the film through his use of wide and long camera shots.  These shots encompass not just the characters, but also the land itself.  Spring in My Hometown is the coming of age story of South Korea. ... Sung-min and Chang-hee are hardly alone in their transformation, however.  Sung-minís entire family is touched by change.  His sister, who was the initial source of his familyís good fortune, is a starry-eyed lover at the onset of the film.  By the end she has been disenchanted and abandoned by her GI boyfriend.  Sung-minís father is also quickly caught up in life on the US military base.  The audience witnesses his rise in wealth and status within the town.  With this his ascent comes a change in values.  He reacts to news of the cease-fire with anxiety.  His livelihood relies on the war continuing.  Eventually his hubris gets the better of him and his fall quickly ensues.  Every major character in Spring in My Hometown is altered by the end of the film.  The film even begins with a scene of strife among members of Sung-minís townfiction that we are led to believe was not present before the war.
 

EXAMPLE  2:  My Sassy Girl
South Korea has undergone countless social changes in the last half of the twentieth century, but unlike most other countries, the speed at which these numerous changes occurred is astounding.  Beginning with the Korean war, each generation born in Korea has grown up in a different world than their elders did.  As a consequence of these social changes, generation gaps have arisen. ... One of the ways in which Korean society is unique is the number of generational gaps present in a relatively short time period.  There are 3 main gaps: the first one is between the generation that lived in the prewar and war period, and the generation that did not.  The second gap exists between the generation that grew up in pre-industrial and industrializing Korea, and the generation that grew up in the already industrialized country.  The third gap is lies between the generation that lived through times of post war poverty and the newer generation has grown up in times of prosperity. ...Kwak, Chae-yong is using this movie to contest the view that the new Korean generation has disposed of all traditional values.  He admits that there is a generation gap, but it is a bridgeable one; this is demonstrated by the final scene, where that girl  and Kyon-u are set up by his aunt.  They reunite in the old fashioned way, therefore sending the message that the gap is ìbridgeableî, because in the end both of the main characters succumb to traditional ìdatingî.  The main reason as to why the gap is bridgeable  is because both generations have to same core values at heart, and therefore have something in common that they can relate to, which can act as a bridge between generations.  The director uses that girl as a representative of the new generation, and through her actions it becomes evident that she upholds the core traditional values of Korean society, even if on the exterior she is a very ìwesternî and modern girl.  The director also shows how Korean society has changed and how in some ways it has not, by contrasting old and new.  Ultimately, the director has a positive outlook on the future, when Korea will be in the hands of todayís generation, because in their increasing modernity and adoption of western influence, they have not lost their core values, but managed to combine both.
 

EXAMPLE  3: Our Twisted Hero
Our Twisted Hero, a story of the corruption of authority at a rural elementary school, has been hailed as a social commentary on the transition from authoritarian government to a democratic government in South Korea from the end of the Korean War to the emergence of a true democracy by election finally in 1992.  The film follows a family that moves from Seoul to a rural town in the Northeastern part of Korea, which is generally known as less developed.  The film then chronicles the experiences of the eldest son of this family, Han Pyong Tae.  The audience watches as the young boy who believes in striving to be his best, maintaining equality amongst students and respecting his teachers, transforms becoming nothing but a lackey for the class monitor who claims authority.  There are several metaphors and occasions where the link between the rural school system authority and the Korean government is quite obvious.  The parallel that seems to be less obvious however is a correspondence between certain aspects of the filmís portrayal of Han Pyong Tae and his life surrounding the rural school and town and the relationship between the United States and Korea during the period of authoritarian government.