Milyang (2007) Reviews

• A profound probing through a flawless performance

  harry_tk_yung2007-10-20

  "Miryang" (literally translated "secret sunshine") is the name of a small town in the less densely populated part of Korea, which we see the protagonist Lee Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon) driving towards at the start of the movie. Traveling with her young son, she wants to leave Seoul to start a new life in Miryang, the hometown of her late husband just lost in a traffic accident. With her easy, friendly personality, she soon establishes herself as a piano teacher in this new home, making friends and being courted (ever so shyly) by a 39-year-old, likable, happy-go-lucky auto-repair shop owner. Prospects for a happy new life after bereavement seems around the corner until she make the mistake of going around checking out real estate properties as if she intends to buy but does not really have the money for. (She does that probably to reassure the townspeople that she is financially sound). This unfortunately induced a school bus driver to kidnap her son and, when not getting the money he wants, kill him. All the above happens in the first hour of the nearly two-and-a-half-hour movie. The remainder of the movie is devoted to probing Lee's mental state after suffering from this horrible, devastating double bereavement. In its skillful story-telling, under an easy direction style, this movie is one of those (my apologies for saying so) designed with the aim of fetching the lead actress awards. With resounding success, it became instrumental to Jeon Do-yeon earning the highly esteemed Cannes best actress earlier this year. A most deserved win, I hasten to add. Watching this movie is sometimes like watching Jeon taking a series of tests, each one harder than the one before, towards winning the highest honour. This starts with a sequence of establishing scenes to show the bonding between the little boy and mother, Lee, who is sometimes childlike herself in the simplicity of her affection. Then comes the kidnapper's phone call, a scene Jeon handles with pitch perfection precision. The scene of victim body identification at the riverside is shot with a combination of distance shot and close ups, where Jeon, through both facial expression and body language, conveys the mother's agonizing journey through shock, disbelief and clinging to one last hope. The range of emotions now gets even more complex. There in the painful, tearless silence facing her wailing, screaming mother-in-law (the murdered boy's grandmother) and the eerie feeling that her son is still around in the house. Then comes the most difficult part. Quite naturally, Lee seeks religious solace, through an Evangelist-ish group. Smile begins to come back to her face, as well as a serene, peaceful glow, until she decides to visit her son's murderer in jail to personally give him her forgiveness. This is probably the award-winning scene. She holds the flowers she brings to show the prisoner that it signifies her forgiveness. With an even more serene and loving expression, the prisoner thanks her and reassured her that since he started serving his jail term, he has sought, and been granted God's forgiveness. The audience will observe the subtle change in the expression on Lee's face, so superbly portrayed by Jeon. Back at the parking lot, while her companions on the visit are chatting merrily about how wonderful the transformation of the prisoner has been, Jeon remains ominously taciturn. Finally, she drops the flowers and murmurs "If God has already forgiven him, what is there for me to forgive?" and sinks on the ground, fainting right beside the car. In the remainder of the movie Jeon portrays Lee's heart-wrenching struggle between a desire to forgive and an instinct to hate – a performance that earns her a place among the best of the very best.

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• this movie may push one over the edge

  Ingeving2008-09-13

  If you've had drama in your life, either your own or by someone close to you, the stages of pain this woman (but, in my opinion, it could easily have been a man too)goes through are very very real. It is a movie about not being able to cope with your pain, about not knowing what to do to help yourself get through it. Obviously it then also is a movie about not knowing how to help someone close to you get through their pain. It is a movie that makes you realize that everyone is alone in their suffering. It is a movie that might push someone over the edge...which hardly sounds like a recommendation. I'm not sure I would recommend someone to go see this film, especially someone close, but for me...it is a movie that puts things into perspective, that shows real pain, and is therefore much relevant to being alive. It makes you realize that hey, you or the person close to you have lived through pain, that hey, all the things you worry about now are of so little importance

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• Secret Sunshine is a life story of a woman who lost families

  byungkeepark2008-11-11

  Secret Sunshine (2007) is famous for its awards at the Festival de Cannes in 2007 and other film festivals. Jeon-Do Yeon, who played the newly widowed Shin-ae, won the best actress trophy at the 60th Cannes festival. Secret Sunshine was also a winner of best feature film and Jeon-Do Yeon received a best actress nod from Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In addition, this movie won the best film awards in virtually all Korean film festivals. Masterfully written and directed, and uniquely photographed, Secret Sunshine expressed the hope and salvation that can be found when life is painful because of continuous tragedy. This film also talked about the forgiveness of God and people. Lee Chang Dong, director and writer of this movie, said in an interview, "In a vast sense, I wanted to express what love is and this movie could be a melodrama in a sense. Without love, we can't talk about hope and salvation." Lee acknowledged that Secret Sunshine had no apparent genre. This movie is not a movie about religion, but it drew attention from many Christians in Korea because there were a lot of Christian elements in the movie. The turning point in Secret Sunshine comes when Jun, Shin-ae's son, is kidnapped and killed. The kidnapper asks for money because he presumes that since she can buy land, she must be rich. Her lie causes much sorrow. Shin-ae becomes a church-goer and wants to forgive the murderer. She decides to visit her son's murderer in prison and forgive him. Jong-chan, Shin-ae's guy friend, says, "Just forgive in your heart. Do you have to go to the prison?" Her church fellows cheer for her and say they will pray for her. Her pastor agrees with what she wants to do. That is a sad moment because it is too early for her to do an action. The result of the meeting with the murderer is another turning point in Shin-ae's life. The murderer says with a peaceful smile that he has already been forgiven by God. This sparks anger in her toward God. She says, "How could You forgive the man before I forgive?" She begins to fight against God. She looks up to the sky and proclaims, "I won't lose to You." She becomes a snare, her heart is a trap, and her hands are chains. It is more bitter than death. She becomes crazier and crazier and is sent to a mental hospital. On the day Shin-ae is discharged from the hospital, she goes to a beauty shop and sees a familiar face. The daughter of her son's murderer works in the shop and cuts her hair. The murderer's daughter has helped kidnapped Shin-ae's son. While she cuts Shin-ae's hair, the protagonist can't understand what's going on and gets out of the shop quickly. It is difficult not to talk about Jong-chan in the movie. Jong-chan does his best to be by Shin-ae's side. Although Shin-ae doesn't care about him at all, he is beside her all the time. Shin-ae leaves church quickly, but Jong-chan, who started attending church because of Shin-ae, stays there because he feels peace with God. Lee Chang-dong, the director of Secret Sunshine, says that Jong-chan is like Milyang( secret sunshine), the rural city or vice versa. He seems to "be too secular and frivolous, but he is always two steps behind her and takes care of her. Milyang is like him." Mr. Lee adds, "Someone joked that Jong-chan could be an angel. I think that he could be the angel. Who knows? We can't say for sure that there is no angel." If there is a person like Jong-chan who forever accompanies his lover's twists and turns, we can defend ourselves against the overpowered. The life of Shin-ae is full of meaninglessness. Her husband died after he cheated on her, and her only son was killed cruelly by a murderer after she moved to her husband's hometown. And her soul was damaged because she learned Christianity in a wrong way—and that makes her crazy, literally. It is too easy to say that her life is filled with meaninglessness. Does she still have hope in her life? Can she find meaning in her life? The final scene gives us hope. Shin-ae tries to cut her hair by herself: we walk our life's journey by ourselves. She, however, realizes that it is hard to do it by herself, and we know that we can't do everything by ourselves. We see Jong-chan holding the mirror for her while she cuts her hair. That's her hope. She has Jong-chan beside her and he is willing to help her in whatever situation she is. As I mentioned earlier, Jong-chan is like an angel for her. If we feel that an angel is always beside and behind us, we can find joy in life even though we face adversity in our lives. Secret Sunshine was a hot topic of conversation in Korea. It is like Da Vinci Code. While Da Vinci Code helps us discuss the early church history, Secret Sunshine prompts us to deal with life's messiness and find meaning when life seems unbearable. With a shallow interpretation of the movie, people misunderstand Christianity and its theology. With a deeper interpretation, this movie will help us see beneath the surface. Some people say they quit attending church worship service after they watched Secret Sunshine, and Lee Chang-dong responds by saying, "They were already anti-Christ before they watched this movie. Secret Sunshine is a life story of a woman and we can interpret our life through Shin-ae's life.

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• Simply the masterpiece of Lee Chang-Dong

  joonhojptr2010-06-29

  A friend of mine who'd watched Milyang on my strong recommendation didn't look so satisfied. Feeling guilty of wasting her time, I took a little conversation with her and was somewhat surprised to find that she ended up being a little bit against the main female character, Shin-Ae. In the first scene, Shin-Ae's car has broken down on a highway near Milyang. Her phone call is connected to Jong-Chan, a car mechanic who has his own local shop. Jong-Chan's curiosity toward the good-looking woman tells us she lost her husband recently and decided to move to Milyang for good with her only son, Jun. If a handsome male single who meets a pretty widow shows excessive kindness from the very beginning, it's not difficult to imagine what he is thinking of her. "Because it is my husband's hometown," she answers to Jong-Chan's question why she chose Milyang. However, it is hard to tell whether she really meant the reason not only because she doesn't look for any links to her husband in town but also because nothing of Milyang seems to comfort her physically or mentally throughout the movie. "What kind of place is Milyang?" she asks to Jong-Chan looking out the car window. It was her first question in the car fixed and driven by Jong-Chan. Shin-Ae starts to think about Milyang seriously only after it appears in the eyes long after having decided to leave Seoul for good, and even after hours of long winding drives. Shin-Ae is, however, confident and spontaneous in starting a new life in a new place, but at the same time, she resists to be assimilated to her surroundings, not to mention Jong-Chan's consistent approach of affection. She is the mother of her son, Jun, anyway. Jong-Chan's kindness summons not just good wills around her. One twisted mind who runs a kindergarten where Jun is enrolled to kidnaps and kills him to make up money for his gambling debt. Shin-Ae collapses internally and externally. Her world has been lost. Now she desperately needs a real reason why, why she has to suffer so much, or the meaning of her pain. Spectators should not give much significance to the specific kind of religion, which is Christianity in the movie, or its ritual process. Anyone who's been in South Korea would know how common Christian churches are especially in urban areas. So, it is more appropriate that Shin-Ae needed a religious consolation, and it happened to be Christianity due to its wider availability in the culture. After a brief period of peace won from participating in religious process, waiting for her is one event. One day Jong-Chan drives Shin-Ae to the prison for her to meet and forgive the killer of her son despite all the discouraging of her religious fellows just because she was so determined to. She looks confident and spontaneous again before entering the interview room but comes out with unimaginable furious. All she says is a repetition of a simple sentence, "How God can forgive him even before I forgive him?" The killer told her that he also found God in jail and was forgiven by him. Now Shin-Ae seems to desperately try to follow just the opposite of the religious doctrine she learned. She seduces a married man to have sex and even cuts her in the wrist with a knife in a suicide attempt. In that way, she thinks she can win against God. Her world is so twisted that her life becomes a chess piece on the board overlooked by a tormenting super power. Meanwhile, Jong-Chan who lives a simple life never fails to show up for consistent affection for Shin-Ae and accepts even the most hysterical behavior of hers as it is without leaving her any moment. The movie ends when Shin-Ae is cutting her hair by herself in front of a mirror held by Jong-Chan, and the secret sunshine falls on a mingled trash in her yard. Milyang is definitely not a movie of vengeance or religious salvation. It is a story of our life where we tumble down and stand up as if on an endless loop. It doesn't matter whether Shin-Ae saw a possibility of new hope cutting her hair in the yard. I don't care whether Shin-Ae would marry Jong-Chan or not. I just respect both of her resilience and his consistency in life. Every shot and angle was carefully and beautifully created and woven together by Director Lee Chang-Dong. This is surely one of his masterpieces.

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• An instantly sobering, brutally honest character piece

  movedout2008-03-06

  Lee Chang-dong's exceptional "Secret Sunshine" is the single most emotionally ravaging experience of the year. It is an instantly sobering, brutally honest character piece on the reverberations of loss and a graceful memento mori that resonates with a striking density of thought, yet remains as inscrutable as the emotions it observes. Through its layered naturalism and stunningly trenchant view of small-town dynamics, Lee implicitly deconstructs the traditional Korean melodrama by pulling apart the cinematics of excess and ripping to shreds the arcs that shape its characters and grounds the proceedings into a crushing grind of stoic realism. "Secret Sunshine" remains an immensely compelling, fluid work throughout its 142-minute runtime. Its bravura first hour is filled to the brim with subtextual insinuations, remarkable foreshadowing and adroit reversals of tone brought about by humanistic capriciousness. Adapted from a short story, Lee infuses the film with his sensitivity for the sublime paradoxes of life, last seen in his transgressively comic and irreverent "Oasis". Understanding how personal revolutions are forged when views of our universe are changed, Lee not only sees the emotional cataclysm of a widow's sorrow through an inquiring scope but also feels the tumultuous existential currents that underpin the film when religion becomes a narrative scapegoat in comprehending the heinousness of the human experience. Do-yeon Jeon's ("You Are My Sunshine") Best Actress accolade at Cannes in 2007 is well deserved. Her performance as the widow Shin-ae remains an unrelenting enigma. As a character pulled apart by forces beyond her control, the sheer magnificence of this performance is central to the film's turbulent nature. With Jeon essaying one cyclonic upheaval after another, there's a tremulous sense of collapse that the film, to its credit, never approaches. Instead it finds a delicate balance that saps the charged theatricality and subsequent banality from ordinary tragedies and its fallouts. She becomes the centre of the film's universe as well as ours. Filmed in glorious hand-held CinemaScope, the film demolishes the cinematicism of frames and compositions by becoming visually acute just as it is quietly harrowing when the camera never relinquishes its gaze from Shin-ae through times of happiness, guilt and remorse. Lee captures the details of life in the small, suspicious town of Miryang – the awkwardness of communal situations, its uncomfortable silences and its devastations spun out of personal dramas. Shin-ae's interactions with the townsfolk rarely inspires dividends, especially when they are merely done out of obligation to fit in for the sake of her son, Jun (Seon Jung-yeop). The one recurring acquaintance is Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho), a bachelor mechanic of uncertain intentions who helps her en route to Miryang in the film's enchanting open sequence set to a captivating stream of sunlight. Song has situated himself as a comedic anti-hero in South Korea's biggest films but his nuanced, low-key delivery here purports the director's thought process of never having to reveal more than plainly necessary. If pain is ephemeral, then grief can never truly dissipate. And Lee finds complexity in subsistence. When Shin-ae attempts to head down the path of reconciliation only to be faced again with unimaginable heartbreak, she unsuccessfully employs the fellowship of evangelical Christianity as a foil to her sorrow. But Lee knows better than that when he understands that religion, in the context of the human canvas of strife and misery, is never a simple solution. But Lee never rebukes the essence of religion as he realises the value of salvation for some through a higher power even if it serves a form of denial in others. The scenes in its latter half which deal with religion doesn't allow itself to become aggressively scornful, which is a feat in itself considering how many filmmakers let the momentum of the material take over from what they need to say to be true to its story and characters. Lee's first film since his call to office as his country's Minister of Culture and Tourism is an uncompromising dissertation on human suffering. In a film so artless and genuine, it arduously reveals that there's nothing as simple as emotional catharsis, just the suppression and abatement of agony. "Secret Sunshine" leaves us with tender mercies pulled out of evanescence, and points towards a profound understanding of despair and faith.

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