A serviceable debut feature that sees Lee Chang-dong attempting a neo-noir that sets up an underworld crime drama of bad decisions and painful consequences, with a touch of rare poignancy.
Review #2,810
Dir. Lee Chang-dong
1997 | South Korea | Crime, Drama, Romance | 111 min | 1.85:1 | Korean
NC16 (passed clean) for some coarse language and violence
Cast: Han Suk-kyu, Shim Hye-jin, Moon Sung-keun, Song Kang-ho, Dong Bang-woo
Plot: Returning home and finding his town drastically changed, a former soldier falls in with gangsters.
Awards: Won Netpac Award – Special Mention (Rotterdam); Nom. for New Currents Award (Busan)
Distributor: CJ Entertainment
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Underworld Crime; Gangsters
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Oldham Theatre (as part of Asian Film Archive’s Lee Chang-dong Retrospective)
Spoilers: No
With this, I’m finally Lee Chang-dong complete, not that he has many feature films to begin with. I’ve been wanting to see his first feature for a long time, ever since I chanced upon what was then his latest film, Poetry (2010) at a retrospective. Described by many as a neo-noir, Green Fish remains to be Lee’s most straightforward attempt at a genre film.
A woman’s red scarf is blown away by the wind and onto a man’s face on a moving train in what could be Lee’s most mesmerising opening to a film, setting up an underworld crime drama of bad decisions and painful consequences.
Played by Han Suk-kyu (who would star in the Korean hit blockbuster, Shiri, in 1999), Mak-dong is done with being a soldier and finds himself in a debilitating limbo. Hoping to earn a living in whatever way possible, he strikes up a connection with a group of gangsters whose boss happens to control Mi-ae, that aforesaid woman on the train.
“You wanna make money, right?”
Lee toys with the idea that she’s a femme fatale, but while Green Fish goes into violent territory with gang fights and all (look out for a young and intimidating Song Kang-ho doing his thing), the film also has a touch of poignancy, best encapsulated by Mak-dong’s relationship of mutual concern with Mi-ae.
In this cruel world of unquestionable loyalties and grand ambitions, Mak-dong must risk carving out his own path or be exploited till the end of days.
As a genre film, Green Fish is serviceable and entertains, but Lee is not content with just the business end of things; he also carves out his own filmmaking path, most noticeably in the epilogue (which most studios would deem extraneous), where observant viewers will find little nuggets of what is to come for Lee the auteur extraordinaire.
His next film, Peppermint Candy (1999) would build upon some of Green Fish’s visual and thematic motifs, be it moving trains, the individual against societal, economic and historical forces, or the impact of time and memory on one’s psyche.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 