The South Korean New Wave of the late 1990s to mid 2000s shone a light onto a country whose films were reserved for the arthouse cinemas and festival circuits, with directors such as Im Kwan Taek and Lee Chang-dong telling beautiful stories of Korean people and the loss of their culture to a world moving too fast for so many. However, in 1999 everything changed for Korean cinema with the release of Shiri. This wasn’t a light Rom-Com or Poverty Drama, Shiri was a high stakes action thriller that had big budget written all over it. It took the Hollywood template and shot for the moon with the biggest South Korean movie budget at the time of $8.5m… and it worked. Shiri was seen by 6.9 million people in theatres, beating the previous record of 4.3 million held Titanic. The stage was set and a new Korea was about to be introduced to the world via its movies, and what movies they were.
By the time 2005 rolled around we had already bared witness to such colossal masterpieces as Memories of Murder (2003) and Oldboy (also 2003), in fact director Kim Jee-woon had also made his own calling card in the eerily poignant A Tale of Two Sisters (2003 again… what a year for South Korean Cinema), but even a gem such as that would pale in comparison to what would become Director Kim’s magnum opus. With influences ranging from Jean-Pierre Melville to the Heroic Bloodshed films of John Woo (in particular The Killer), A Bittersweet Life weaves a bloody melancholic tale of a man just trying to do the right thing as he sees it but ultimately incurring the wrath of powerful men with damaged egos.
Lee Byung-hun (I Saw The Devil & Squid Game) oozes a cool vulnerability, a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders but a man that now finds himself the target of those he once served. His face often fills the screen, relaying a menace or an unexpected reaction with such subtlety that it is hard not to be drawn in, and whilst Lee Byung-hun’s performance is the one on which the film hangs, everyone leaves a memorable memory of their character. Two dimensional people are nowhere to be found within the frames of this masterpiece.
Presented in both UHD and Blu-Ray, Second Sight Films have given A Bittersweet Life the love and care it so richly deserves. Filled with extras such as scene specific commentaries from director Kim along with the stars and crew of the film, another commentary track from Pierce Conran and James Marsh, along with a host of music videos, trailers, deleted scenes and a behind the scenes look at how the film was made, this is the quintessential release of A Bittersweet Life.
With violence interwoven with the darkest of humour, A Bittersweet Life is a classic from a time that produced so many. It was also one of the last films to benefit from the South Korean Cinema Quota. A government mandate that secured 146 days a year that South Korean theatres had to dedicate to films made in the homeland. This led to a wealth of funding and growth in the Korean film industry to have guaranteed production to fill those 146 days. This created a hotbed of talent unlike anywhere else in the world at the time. Films with such fearlessness and imagination stretched across the globe, the influence of which can still be felt to this day.
A Bittersweet Life is out now on Second Sight Films Blu-Ray
Ben’s Archive – A Bittersweet Life (2005)
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