Korean Films about Artists’ Lives
Director
YIM Soon-rye, who took part in the
Asian Project Market of
Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) this year, unveiled the plan about her upcoming film
Project LEE Jung-seob. LEE Jung-seob went unseen during his days and died at the young age of 39 suffering from poverty and loneliness although he is one of the best painters in Korea now.
Two Homelands, One Love-Lee Jung-Seop's Wife, released on September 8th, is also a biopic about LEE Jung-seob’s short life and especially love with his wife. Japanese director SAKAI Atsuko unfolds the story of LEE’s wife YAMAMOTO Masako, who couldn’t met her husband never again after she had left for Japan with the kids during the Korean War and now is over ninety.
Recently, there were some local biopics about Korean artists.
DONGJU; The Portrait of A Poet is about YOON Dong-ju’s life who died at the age of 28 at a prison in Fukuoka, Japan. He was tormented when he had to write poems on the desk without struggling for independence, and he could not even laugh out loud. His short life touches our heart.
Although she is not a main character,
LOVE, LIES recalls one of nation’s artists, the singer of Tears of Mokpo, LEE Nan-young. The film shows LEE’s dazzling look in her heyday with her songs.
25 years back, there is another singer on a screen.
Death Song (1991) is about YOON Shim-deok’s love and music, who drowned herself with her lover in the waters of the Korea Strait. YOON’s life as an ultimate super star flows through her masterpiece Death Song, whose lyric YOON wrote to the Russian song.
Meanwhile, all the artists’ lives in domestic films are not unlucky. The story of young singers who had careers around the music bar C’est Si Bon was adapted for the movie.
C’est Si Bon (2015) stirs memories of those days with artists’ real names including YOON Hyung-joo, SONG Chang-sik, CHO Young-nam and LEE Jang-hee.