A lonely man makes quite a catch in Park Chan-kyong and Park Chan-wook’s NIGHT FISHING
N.E.P.A.L. NEVER ENDING PEACE AND LOVE (Park Chan-wook, 2003) / CUT (Park Chan-wook, 2004) / NIGHT FISHING (PARANMANJANG) (UPS AND DOWNS) (Park Chan-wook & Park Chan-kyong, 2011)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, March 2, free with museum admission, 3:00
Series runs February 28 – March 3
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
Korean auteur Park Chan-wook has made some of the most suspenseful, violent films of the last twenty years, creating compelling characters caught in untenable situations. Most well known for his Vengeance Trilogy — Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance — he has also written and directed such features as the military thriller Joint Security Area, the horror film Thirst, and the futuristic romantic comedy I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK. As part of a retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image, being held in conjunction with the theatrical release of his first English-language film, Stoker, the Astoria institution will be screening a trio of Park’s intriguing shorts. N.E.P.A.L. Never Ending Peace and Love is based on the true story of Chandra Gurung, a Nepali woman who went to Korea to find employment, only to wind up in a mental institution when no one could understand her language and instead thought she was an unstable woman speaking gibberish. Chandra appears at the beginning and end of the film, most of which is shot in black-and-white from her vantage point, as if the viewer is experiencing exactly what Chandra went through. It’s a fascinating film made for the National Human Rights Commission of Korea. In Cut, part of the 2004 Asian Scream Team omnibus Three . . . Extremes, which also includes short works by Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan (Dumplings) and Japan’s Takashi Miike (Box), Park turns up the gore level with the tale of a film director (Lee Byung-hun) and his wife (Kang Hye-jeong) who are kidnapped by a crazed extra (Lim Won-hee) who threatens to slice off her fingers one at a time unless the director kills a small child in the room. There’s plenty of bloody violence here, but the overall execution is lacking. Several years later, Park teamed up with codirector Park Chan-kyong — and took the dual name PARKing CHANce — for 2011’s thirty-three-minute Night Fishing, which was shot using multiple iPhone 4s (before adding special effects in postproduction). Alone by a river, fisherman Gi-suk (Oh Kwang-rok) makes a very unusual catch — a beautiful young woman (Lee Jeong-hyeon) who seems to have mysterious powers. The film, winner of the Golden Bear, opens very strangely, with a music video by the UhUhBoo Project, before turning into a meditation on love and loss, highlighted by a bizarre, mystical twist that adds to the surreal nature of the story. Seen together, the three shorts lend yet more perspective on a filmmaker always willing to take risks while understanding the essential nature of narrative.