Freer Gallery of Art and
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
AFI Silver Theatre and
Cultural Center
National Museum of
Women
in the Arts
National Museum of
Natural
History
Festival Venues
AFI - AFI Silver Theatre
FGA - Freer Gallery of Art
NMNH - National Museum of Natural History
NMWA - National Museum of Women in the Arts
Friday, May 4. 7 PM. FGA
Witty and warm-hearted, this film by Kim Tae-young uses a clever flashback structure to tell two stories. In one, a humble small-town woman's wayward brother brings his new chain-smoking bride home to live with them. In the other, a rebellious young woman must come to terms with her mother's terminal illness. How these tales intertwine is the film's most satisfying surprise. 2006, 114 min.
Sunday, May 6. 2 PM. FGA
Internationally acclaimed director Hong Sang-soo's latest film is perhaps his warmest, funniest examination of relationships to date. Beneath the story's subtle humor of a roguish film director who uses his status to seduce two different women at a seaside resort lies a deep consideration of the fleeting nature of human interactions. 2006, 127 min.
Friday, May 11. 7 PM. FGA
Yoon Jong-bin's forthright look at brutality and brotherhood in the military is at once an absorbing character study and a suspenseful tale. Cutting back and forth between two soldiers' time in the service and an awkward meeting later, it gradually reveals how their shared secret changed their lives forever. 2005, 122 min.
Sunday, May 13. 3 PM. FGA
Kim Ki-duk, Korean cinema's resident provocateur, returns with this over-the-top plastic surgery psychodrama. Jealous of her boyfriend's roving eye, a young woman convinces a surgeon to change her face so she can seduce her man as another woman entirely. While this proves her point, it creates myriad other problems as well. 2006, 96 min. Intended for mature audiences.
Friday, May 18. 12 PM. NMNH
Lee Chang-jae's documentary-fiction hybrid looks at the five thousand-year-old tradition of Korean shamans, who serve as intermediaries between the living and the spirit world. In Lee's fascinating film, a young woman suffers an inexplicable paralysis and then learns she is destined to become a shaman, a calling for which she might not be prepared. 2006, 98 min.
Park Jin-pyo caused a sensation with his directorial debut Too Young to Die, an intimate film about two septuagenarian lovers. He followed it with the critical and box office hit You Are My Sunshine, which won him the award for best director at Korea's Blue Dragon Awards. Park introduces and discusses both films at the Freer Gallery of Art.
This event is cosponsored by the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Friday, May 18. 7 PM. FGA
In person: Park Jin-pyo
Praised in Cannes but banned in Korea, Park Jin-pyo's eye-opening film challenges common views of the elderly. Park Chi-gyu and Lee Soon-ye (who re-enact their own story) met and fell in love in their seventies, but they act like teenagers about it. The director shows every aspect of their relationship, including their sex lives, without being shocking or exploitive. Rather, Park offers a deeply sympathetic and moving look at love in old age. 2002, 67 min. Intended for mature audiences.
Sunday, May 20. 2 PM. FGA
In person: Park Jin-pyo
Melodrama has always been a staple of Korean cinema, but Park Jin-pyo's approach raises it to a new level. In this brilliantly acted, poignant love story, a naíve farmer falls for the tough city girl who works at the local coffee shop (which doubles as a prostitution business). She eventually returns his affections, but tragedy and scandal threaten to tear them apart. 2005, 122 min. Intended for mature audiences.
Saturday, May 26. 6 PM. AFI
Wednesday, May 30. 7 PM. AFI
By turns heartbreaking and humorous, Kang Ki-kwan's debut film features a powerhouse performance by the phenomenally gifted actress Moon So-ri. This subtle drama, with its shifting moods and acute observation of the dynamics of relationships, stars Moon as a woman who, after being dumped by her fiancé, marries another man-but did she make the right choice? 2005, 118 min.
Saturday, June 9. 9:30 PM. AFI
Sunday, June 10. 8:15 PM. AFI
A true gangland epic, Yoo Ha's sprawling film charts the dangerous trajectory of a tough-but-honest young hoodlum who struggles to balance his devotion to family and friends with his duty to treacherous gangsters. Full of great characters and exciting action scenes, this movie delivers the goods. 2006, 141 min. Intended for mature audiences.
Wednesday, June 13. 6:30 PM. NMWA
In this entertaining documentary, director Grace Lee tracks down dozens of women who share her name, and in the process she finds an astonishing range of fascinating and at times eccentric personalities. Underneath the humorous tone is a thoughtful consideration of the complexities of Korean-American identity. 2005, 68 min., video, English.
Wednesday, June 13. 8 PM. NMWA
An award winner at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals, So Yong Kim's first feature is a quiet yet emotionally intense film about a teenage Korean immigrant in Canada. Her shyness, and the demands of living in a strange new land, make it particularly difficult for her to tell her only friend that she has fallen in love with him. The more isolated she feels, the more she realizes she must look within herself for the answers to her problems. 2006, 82 min.
Tuesday, June 19. 9:30 PM. AFI
Thursday, June 21. 9:20 PM. AFI
A giddy mix of comedy, suspense, action, and drama, this film from director Jang Jin is a murder mystery with a twist. When a beautiful executive is found dead in a luxury hotel room, the police search for the killer, but it turns out the crime is much more than it seems. To make matters worse, their investigation is being broadcast as a reality television show. 2005, 115 min.
Wednesday, June 20. 9:30 PM. AFI
Friday, June 22. 9:30 PM. AFI
Events surrounding the 1979 assassination of Korean president Park Chung-hee are recreated in this biting, bitter political satire that pulls no punches in its attack on corruption and cronyism in Park's repressive regime. Im Sang-soo's film is bold, thrilling, and full of pitch black humor. 2005, 102 min.
Tuesday, June 26. 9:20 PM. AFI
Thursday, June 28. 9:25 PM. AFI
Sleek and stylish, this gangland saga from director Kim Ji-woon delivers shootouts, vengeance, and betrayal, but it also offers more character depth and insight than the average crime flick. This story of an assassin who discovers his conscience just a bit too late is a prime example of Korean action movies at their best. 2005, 120 min. Intended for mature audiences.