KOFFIA 2014 Review: HOPE Is An Obvious Yet Successful Tearjerker

By Hieu Chau

It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say that Korean film has some affinity for children. Whether it’s a crowd-pleasing comedy like Miracle in Cell No. 7 or something a bit darker like Silenced, there really isn’t much of a shortage when it comes to stories about children in Korean cinema. Hope, last year’s recipient for Best Film at the Blue Dragon Awards (beating out films including Snowpiercer, New World, The Berlin File and The Face Reader), is one other such film with a story that’s motivated by children.

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CinDi 2012: Masquerade (가면놀이) 2010

Part of MKC's Coverage of the 6th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival.

Let me get this right out of the way first, this is NOT about the brand new Lee Byung-hun period pic of the same title which came out in Korean theaters today. My timing may not great, but so be it.

I knew Masquerade was a documentary and based on the one still that was attached to it in the CinDi program. I assumed it had something to do with pantomine or some sort of performance. To say that I was way off the mark would be something of a cataclysmic understatement. Nestled among a crowd of mostly young women, I grew somewhat uncomfortable when the narrative revealed itself to me for the first time. You see, Masquerade is a hard-hitting film about child abuse in Korea and how it is often ignored by society at large.

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