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- K-CINEMA LIBRARY
- GOOD WINDY DAYS
- by Pierce Conran / Nov 16, 2018
1980｜113 MIN｜DramaDIRECTOR LEE Jang-hoCAST AHN Sung-ki, LEE Yeong-ho, KIM Seong-chan, KIM Bo-yeon, KIM Young-ae, KIM Hee-raRELEASE DATE November 27, 1980CONTACT Dong-a Export Co., LTDTel : +82 2 2008 4724Fax : +82 2 2008 4800Email : donga@dongaexport.comThe movement that paved the way for the Korean cinema we know and love today was known as the ‘Korean New Wave’, a body of films that combined unbridled passion for cinema with an innate desire to voice dissatisfaction with the flagrant injustices of contemporaneous society. This grouping of films includes many notable filmmakers, such as PARK Kwang-su (Chil-Su And Man-Su, 1988), JANG Sun-woo (A Short Love Affair, 1990) and BAE Chang-ho (People in the Slum, 1982), but the man who got the ball rolling was director LEE Jang-ho, and the film he did it with was the irreverent youth comedy-drama Good Windy Days.In this slice-of-life tale, three youths from the countryside become best friends in a neighborhood that is being redeveloped ahead of being sucked into the swell of Seoul. Deok-bae delivers Chinese food, Chun-shik works at a barber shop and Gil-nam cleans up at a motel. All three have romantic hang-ups that over time will highlight their limited social statuses in a rapidly changing environment that they have no control over.Good Windy Days, which has gone by several different names in English, including A Fine, Windy Day (which is the title that KOFA selected for their recent Blu-ray release), has many claims to fame, not least giving a young AHN Sung-ki a chance to shine. However, its most important contribution is taking the baton from the landmark realist works of the 1970s, such as HA Gil-jong’s The March Of Fools (1975), the ending of which is referenced at the end of this film, and transferring it from one politically oppressive regime (under President PARK Chung-hee) to the new one under President CHUN Doo-hwan that was just getting started and would ultimately leave deep scars on the nation.LEE, who worked for many years under Director SHIN Sang-ok, had already achieved commercial success with his debut Heavenly Homecoming to Stars (1974), but after several films he was briefly banned from filmmaking after being caught smoking marijuana. Good Windy Days represented his comeback and ushered in a cinematic period that presented a filmmaker who was more in control of his filmmaking tools and who had a greater desire to make a meaningful point.Though he was already active as a child actor from the late 1950s and well into the 60s, which included a part as one of the children in KIM Ki-young’s masterwork The Housemaid (1960), AHN Sung-ki’s debut as an adult came in the 1970s, but the film that put him on the map and on track to becoming the biggest of the 1980s was Good Windy Days. Playing a kind-hearted and muscular country bumpkin, AHN caught the eye of several awards groups at the time, and earned a Best New Actor prize from the Grand Bell Awards.AHN was surrounded by a number of talented actors, including LEE Yeong-ho and KIM Seong-chan as his best friends, and the great talents KIM Bo-yeon, KIM Young-ae and KIM Hee-ra in smaller roles, in a film that has stood the test of time. Following Good Windy Days, Director LEE would go on to make several masterworks throughout the decade.
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