Happiness
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Happiness proves to be particularly fleeting for the two wounded souls in Korean filmmaker's Hur Jin-ho's bittersweet melodrama of the same name.
While the story goes along a fairly predictable path, it progresses with a gentle lyricism and stirring performances from leads Hwang Jung-min and Lim Soo-jung.
Not yet attached to a domestic distributor, the film starts off in a soulless Seoul, where hard-drinking, hard-clubbing Young-su (Hwang), has hit bottom, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.
He checks himself into a rural sanatorium, where he meets up with the shy, lovely Eun-hee, an assistant at the facility who lives her life in carefully measured breaths as a result of her diseased lungs.
In time, Young-su's casual flirtation with the young woman blossoms into something deeper, and the two eventually leave the sanatorium and start a life together, tending a small farm.
Through her attentive care, Young-su eventually regains his health, but a surprise visit from a friend and ex-lover drag him back into his old self-destructive ways and, ultimately, Young-su doesn't realize what he had until it's gone.
Hur, whose April Snow was screened at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, gives Happiness a gently rendered breathing pattern of its own, allowing the chain events to be fully registered across the expressive faces of his two main actors.
Even as the script, by Hur and three others, heads in a familiar direction, the journey taken is still a poignant one -- a quality further enhanced by Kim Hyung-koo's vibrant outdoor cinematography and Cho Sung-woo's tender, haunting score.
TORONTO -- Happiness proves to be particularly fleeting for the two wounded souls in Korean filmmaker's Hur Jin-ho's bittersweet melodrama of the same name.
While the story goes along a fairly predictable path, it progresses with a gentle lyricism and stirring performances from leads Hwang Jung-min and Lim Soo-jung.
Not yet attached to a domestic distributor, the film starts off in a soulless Seoul, where hard-drinking, hard-clubbing Young-su (Hwang), has hit bottom, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.
He checks himself into a rural sanatorium, where he meets up with the shy, lovely Eun-hee, an assistant at the facility who lives her life in carefully measured breaths as a result of her diseased lungs.
In time, Young-su's casual flirtation with the young woman blossoms into something deeper, and the two eventually leave the sanatorium and start a life together, tending a small farm.
Through her attentive care, Young-su eventually regains his health, but a surprise visit from a friend and ex-lover drag him back into his old self-destructive ways and, ultimately, Young-su doesn't realize what he had until it's gone.
Hur, whose April Snow was screened at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, gives Happiness a gently rendered breathing pattern of its own, allowing the chain events to be fully registered across the expressive faces of his two main actors.
Even as the script, by Hur and three others, heads in a familiar direction, the journey taken is still a poignant one -- a quality further enhanced by Kim Hyung-koo's vibrant outdoor cinematography and Cho Sung-woo's tender, haunting score.
- 9/10/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.