Peppermint Candy

This is film art that makes no concessions to 'entertainment'. A man commits suicide at the start of the film. Then the filmmaker brilliantly flashes his life before us in short scenes moving backwards in time. The emotional power of each scene is built on our knowledge of what is yet to come for this corrupted and despairing man. And that power keeps intensifying, reaching an almost unbearable level of sadness and empathy. Not since Sophie's Choice have I seen a film so unflinching in its despair. Everything about this film demonstrates greatness: the screenplay, the cinematography, the performances, the wisdom and humanity. It's not an easy film and there were many walk-outs the night I saw it at the New Directors Festival in New York, but it will stand the test of time. Should be required viewing for every 18-year-old.

If you manage to not be annoyed during its opening minutes that features a deranged asshole with suicidal tendencies putting up an extraordinary display of craziness before killing himself by getting run over by a train, you just might be able to enjoy Peppermint Candy and even end up being impressed by it too. Told in reverse chronology, this film covers the past 20 years in the life of that stupid maniac & depicts the events that eventually led to his suicide while also showing that he was not such a weirdo from the beginning but was slowly transformed into one by the Korean 'system'.

Nicely directed by Lee Chang-dong for the manner he has narrated this story, well-written too for how the events depicted in the life of the protagonist clash with relevant moments of Korean history, manically performed by its lead actor that also included few moments where he went completely over the top & was hamming like a freak, and displaying fine technical execution throughout its runtime, Peppermint Candy is a sad portrait of a young life wasted away by cynicism & loss of love that didn't really work as well as I would've liked & eventually felt much longer than its runtime.

At the beginning and at the end of the film I did not like his character and his horrible nature. but a good story. at the beginning of the storyline presented by people who are very depressed and suicidal, we will be presented with a flow of flasback back to the steps of the past, step by step from various character changes and behavioral conditions experienced. I was curious that I read on the internet this film raised the issue of tragic events in 1980 (Gwangju Murder) through individual figures. Through this film, the director seems to want to illustrate the dramatic effect of the cruel event, the victims were not only civilians, but also "perpetrators", soldiers who had just carried out orders. we can be prejudiced about this film but we can reflect on life that someone's future that might be destroyed can also be formed by a dark past.

A smart film! We get to follow a man back in time (in the "wrong" chronological order!?). At first he seems to be a cruel, evil and bitter man. But the further back in time the film takes us we get another picture. A picture of how an ordinary nice guy turns in to a sadistic man by the "system". Maybe the film makers wants us to see that no man is born evil.

while it may take being Korean (and being part of the "386-generation" that really went through all the turbulent events of this movie's timeline) to fully appreciate this movie, it is nevertheless a powerful, graphic, and grippingly emotional commentary on South Korea of the the last twenty years. Director Chang-dong Lee masterfully presents the plot in reverse chronological order, and protagonist Kyung-gu Sol handily goes from broken buisnessman to lovesick schoolboy by the movie's end/his troubled road's beginning. In a way, this movie is perhaps Korea's unique and tragic answer to a movie like "Forrest Gump." "Na ottoke" ("what do I do?") - indeed, what does one do when faced with such experiences? Easily one of the best Korean movies I've seen to date.