Korean cinema came out of nowhere in the early 2000′s, blowing up conceptions for what action thrillers can be. They were the perfect antidote to a Hollywood system that was (and still is) becoming increasingly one-dimensional. In turn, giving directors like Park Chan-Wook, Kim Jee-Woon & Bong Joon-Ho the chance to rise to the very top of the game. While all of that is fantastic – expanding horizons through familiar genres – it is also reductive to one of the world’s great new film export markets, singling it down to the violent revenge thriller. Korea, like any country, is more than that, and with Bleak Night, the UK market is being introduced to the kind of talent that only comes around once a generation, a talent that doesn’t fit in the box marked “Korean New Wave”.
Yoon Sung-hyun’s Bleak Night sees the father of a High School student attempt to get answers surrounding the death of his son. All he has to work with is a photo of his two best friends, neither of whom attended his funeral. The film unfolds through flashbacks, filling in Ji-Tae (Lee Je-hoon’s) father with what went down. Bleak Night is told in a non-linear and out of chronological order, but this is not a gimmick by a young director attempting to forge a name for himself, instead, Yoon Sung-Hyun’s film becomes an incredibly affecting gaze into the lives of three Korean teenagers lost in plain sight.
Most of the Korean cinema that makes the jump from East to West paints the country in fantastical, exaggerated hues, both cutesy & colourful or moments away from a disturbing outburst of the old ultra-violence. Bleak Night is neither. Instead, this is a realistic and unflattering vision of Seoul that would make the Korean Tourist board wince. With its sombre colour palette of greys and tower blocks, this is a Seoul rarely seen by the outside world. The most fitting comparison would be British social realism thanks to this monotone palette and themes of inner-city child abandonment, teenage gangs and street crime. Okay, maybe not British Social Realism as that is on a trend of drowning its audience in misery and poverty porn in recent years, something else, something with a little light in its eyes, albeit a light that is fading.
Directorial debuts with such fire of intent and ferocity of technique are the rarest of breed, too few emerging directors have the stomach for it. As sad as it is to say, titles like this are lost next to more easily marketed films exported from Korea.
I may have given the impression that Bleak Night is a film concerned only with shattering perceptions, and, to a point, that is true. The austere aura is offset by romanticized and fleeting moments where the three friends, Ji-Tae, Dong-Yoon (Seo Jun-Young) and Baek (Park Jung-Min), spend lazy afternoons together, having fun, chasing girls, acting their age. It’s in these moments where the film finds its dramatic might, the joys of growing up with a group of close friends play off of Ji-Tae’s new daunting persona beautifully. This proves to be heart-breaking by the film’s end. We don’t get any answers, nonetheless, Ji-Tae’s final smile to his friends is devastating.
It is genuinely awe-inspiring to see Bleak Night released here in the UK, as Yoon Sung-Hyun’s film was his graduation film for the Korean Academy of Film Arts. To see such a humble project from the other end of the world turn up in high street chains up and down the UK is something rarely seen in world cinema, its massively inspirational stuff. The consistency and high-quality actors coming out of the tiny country are about the best I’ve seen in any country at any point in modern history, not being hyperbolic either. And that this is still true in a student project says more than any catchy poster quote ever could.
Bleak Night’s young leading men illuminate the conservative heart of Korea, with their bowed heads and humble mannerisms. This only becomes more interesting when Ji-Tae transforms from a caring friend with a dark sense of humour into a terrifying gang leader butting heads with his former friends; it is one world versus another. Moments fuelled by nostalgia, again, butting heads with the palpable sense of dread that comes from someone irrational and full of anger. That’s about as much as I can say about the plot, as the more you know, the less impact its final revelation will have. Conflict upon conflict, Bleak Night is a house of cards that not only works its drama out beautifully but also becomes one of the most potent Korean films seen on these shores.
Both slow-paced and minimal, Bleak Night is an atmosphere piece about disillusioned youth passing into adulthood, a vision of a country beyond the tourist ideal. Realism, muted realism, with its handheld photography and grittiness this graduation film is the sombre antithesis to the extravagance of the Korean New Wave whilst still being without touching distance of it. You could easily make the argument that Yoon Sung-Hyun’s film has a mood beholden to inner-city documentaries: i.e Steve James the Interrupters (2011) or the work of Errol Morris. Directorial debuts with such fire of intent and ferocity of technique are the rarest of breed, too few emerging directors have the stomach for it. As sad as it is to say, titles like this are lost next to more easily marketed films exported from Korea. Regardless of appeal, this needs to be shouted from the mountain tops: this intimate, powerful tale of childhood lost, Bleak Night is simply Korean cinema at its best.
BLEAK NIGHT IS OUT ON THIRD WINDOW FILMS DVD
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ROB’S ARCHIVE Bleak Night
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