Peppermint Candy

Bakha satang

In Peppermint Candy, the second feature film of his filmography, Lee Chang-Dong weaves an elaborate narrative that moves backward in time, sketching a portrait of the dramatic events experienced by South Korea in the last twenty years of the 20th century. Divided in an exemplary manner into seven chapters of escalating tension, Peppermint Candy traces the prescribed course of dehumanization and collapse of Youngho Kim, a (once) romantic young student who dreamed of becoming a photographer. The military dictatorship and the bloody Gwangju Uprising of the early 1980s, the lack of freedom, and the repression that marked Korean society in the following years, the violent economic transformation, and the 1997 financial crisis in Asia are refracted through the story of an ordinary man trapped between warring forces that overwhelmed him. The ever-open wounds of the past, the personal stories crushed under the weight of history, the guilt that cannot find refuge in oblivion, and the irrevocable loss of all innocence bring to the surface the most relentless monster lurking out there: the life that was wasted, the love that slipped away, the time irrevocably lost.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Lee Chang-Dong
Script: Lee Chang-Dong
Cinematography: Hyung-Gu Kim
Editing: Il-Hyun Park
Sound: Seung-Chul Lee
Music: Jae-Jin Lee
Actors: Kyung-Gu Sol, So-Ri Moon, Yeo-Jin Kim
Production: East Film Company
Producers: Kaynam Myung, Makoto Ueda
Co-production: NHK
Co-producers: Jae-Young Jeon, Jay Jeon, Keiko Lino
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: South Korea, Japan
Production Year: 1999
Duration: 130'
Contact: Finecut
Awards/Distinctions: Special Jury Prize, Don Quijote Award, Special Mention (Netpac Award) – Karlovy Vary IFF 2000, Special Jury Prize, Best Actor – Bratislava IFF 2000, Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best New Actor, Best Supporting Actress – Grand Bell Awards 2000, Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best New Actor – Korean Association of Film Critics 2000, Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor – Cine21 2000

Lee Chang-Dong

Lee Chang-Dong was born in Teagu, South Korea in 1954 to a leftist family, and he graduated from Kyungpuk National University, where he studied Korean Language and Literature. Three years later, in 1983, he published his first novel, The Booty. He hoped to become a painter at a young age but made a name for himself in the theater and literary worlds. A celebrated literary figure in South Korea whose fiction earned him accolades well before his foray into cinema, Lee writes and directs harrowing tales that place his characters in extreme psychological and physical agony to test the limits of the human spirit. He was almost 40 when he turned to filmmaking, beginning as a screenwriter and assistant director for Park Kwang-su, a key figure of the Korean New Wave of the late 1980s and 1990s. He began his film career by writing screenplays for To the Starry Island (1993) and A Single Spark (1995), both directed by Park Kwang-su. His directorial debut, Green Fish, screened as part of Cinematheque Ontario’s 1999 Survey of South Korean Film and in the International Competition Section of the 38th Thessaloniki IFF in 1997 (the film was nominated for the Golden Alexander Award). His tightly structured plotlines deliver unflinching exposés of pain, trauma, and rage. He appears to follow conventional genre tropes, from melodrama to noir and gangster flicks, only to subvert audience expectations with exceptionally complex stories that leave them to contemplate perplexing existential, spiritual, and moral questions. Between making Oasis (2002) and Secret Sunshine (2007), from 2003 to 2004, Lee served as South Korea’s Minister of Culture and Tourism.

Filmography

1997 Green Fish
1999 Peppermint Candy
2002 Oasis
2007 Secret Sunshine
2010 Poetry
2018 Burning
2022 Heartbeat (short)