Peppermint Candy (Dir. Lee Chang-dong, 1999)
When I started watching Korean films (by accident) I knew little to nothing about Korea.
Peppermint Candy, one of the earliest I saw, was a stunning arthouse film with a unique structure and strong emotional core that also doubled up as a history lesson for me. Starting in the present and working its way back through, at first, an invisible trauma that wrecked a man’s life, the 1980s climate that warped his mind and eventually the terrible historic event that initially led him astray, Lee Chang-dong’s film is a searing takedown of Korea’s authoritarian regimes and the latent passivity and hierarchical obstinacy in Korean society that allowed terrible attitudes to lay down and develop roots.
Seol Kyung-gu shines as the traumatized, yet brutal central character, and Director Lee instantly proved himself to be one of the world’s most promising filmmakers with the grave and powerful
Peppermint Candy.
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