Italian Premiere | Restored Classics | Out Of Competition | Tribute to Ahn Sung-ki
South Korea, 1988/2K 2014, 108’, Korean
Directed by: Park Kwang-su
Screenplay: Choi In-seok
Cinematography (color): Yoo Young-kil
Editing: Kim Hyun
Production Design: Lee Myoung-soo
Music: Kim Su-cheol
Producers: Lee Woo-suk
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki (Mansu), Park Joong-hoon (Chilsu), Bae Jong-ok (Ji-na)
Date of First Release in Territory: November 26th, 1988
Chilsu and Mansu opens with the shriek of air-raid sirens. The famous intersection at Gwanghwamun, Seoul begins to empty out as policemen direct cars to pull over, and people move inside or to underground shelters. Shot during an actual civil defense drill, such events were a common occurrence in the 1970s and 1980s, meant to prepare the nation for a potential attack by North Korea. Yet it also functioned as a show of force – an opportunity for the state to impose order on the populace.
1988 was the year of the Seoul Olympics, and a time of great political and social change for South Korea. Massive street protests against the military government and on behalf of workers’ rights had recently reached their peak. However, the Korean society depicted in the cinema of those days little resembled the passions on display in the street. Government censors, wielding an iron grip over the film industry, ensured that the slightest hint of social criticism was clipped in the screenplay or in the editing room before reaching audiences.
Therefore Chilsu and Mansu is a frequently cited landmark on Korea’s journey from restrictive censorship to a greater freedom of expression. It is based on the story The Two Sign Painters by Taiwanese writer Huang Chunming, whose works were banned in Korea at the time (hence his name does not appear in the credits). The movie focuses on a friendship between two working class protagonists: Chilsu, a smooth-talking billboard painter who struggles to hold down a job, and Mansu, a capable and motivated worker who is held back in life because his father is an “unreformed” Communist sympathizer, serving a long sentence in a South Korean prison.
After meeting at a small workshop where movie billboards are drawn and painted, the two eventually team up in a search for temporary work. Yet society gives them few opportunities, as economically and personally they struggle to make progress. Finally, one hot summer day they find themselves atop a building in southern Seoul painting a beer ad on a huge billboard, and one of the most famous sequences in Korean cinema history begins to unfold…
Chilsu and Mansu marks the directorial debut of Park Kwang-su, who would go on to become an accomplished director, as well as an influential role model for a new generation of socially conscious filmmakers. In this film he focuses on the kind of underprivileged characters that had been largely absent from Korean cinema in previous decades. In the course of telling their story, he also shows us the social and political structures that block their development and keep them “in their place.” The final 30 minutes of the film are ingeniously structured, dramatically gripping and also laced with symbolism: at long last, the two men find their voices and start to speak their minds, but the authorities’ response is cruelly ironic.
Earlier this year, Korean cinema lost one of its most iconic actors in Ahn Sung-ki, whose career stretched from the 1950s to the present day. Among his many unforgettable performances, Chilsu and Mansu stands out for the way he expresses Mansu’s quiet humanity, his easy camaraderie with Chilsu, and a suppressed but growing sense of frustration with his situation in life. This film also marks the first of Ahn’s famous collaborations with co-star Park Joong-hoon, who would go on to appear together in the hit films Two Cops (1993), Nowhere to Hide (1999) and Radio Star (2006). The Far East Film Festival is pleased to present this film in memory of Ahn Sung-ki, and in honor of his great contributions to Korean cinema.
Park Kwang-su
As a student at Seoul National University, Park Kwang-su was part of the legendary film circle Yallasung, and after graduation he founded the Seoul Film Collective, which produced many groundbreaking short independent works. After studying in Paris at ESEC film school, his debut feature Chilsu and Mansu ushered in a new age of socially conscious cinema. In the 1990s he directed many iconic works, while also serving as a mentor to new filmmakers like Hur Jin-ho and Lee Chang-dong. Currently, Park serves as Chairman of the Busan International Film Festival.
FILMOGRAPHY
1988 – Chilsu and Mansu
1990 – Black Republic
1991 – Berlin Report
1994 – To the Starry Island
1995 – A Single Spark
1999 – The Uprising
2007 – Meet Mr. Daddy