Daijiga umule pajinnal (1996)

Director:

Sang-soo Hong

Writer:

Hyo-seo Koo (writer)

Release Date:

4 May 1996 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Extramarital Affair | Neglected Women | Love Triangle | Struggling Author | Murder

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Eun-hee Bang
Eun-sook Cho
Park Jin-seong	...	Dong-woo
Eui-sung Kim
Eung-kyung Lee
Sun-mi Myeong
Kang-ho Song

Also Known As:

The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Singapore:R(A) | France:U

Company:

Dong-a Exports Co. Ltd.

Movie Connections:

References The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Not a pig or a well in the entire film

The debut film by the great Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo may have a bit more going on dramatically than the later ones, but it also shows many of the trademarks that would achieve more polish as Hong refined his rambling, low-key style. "The Day a Pig Fell in the Well" is a fine debut, and the director carries it off with the assurance of a pro. Hong's always liked to portray loser men and the women that suffer them (he's a kindred spirit of the great Japanese director Naruse Mikio), and he's come up with a pair of real sad-sacks here. A failed writer leaches off of a girl who's smitten with him; meanwhile he latches onto a married woman, and demands that she only sleep with him. Her traveling businessman husband is a manic-compulsive who mopes over a family falling to pieces and a wife that will no longer touch him.

Hong's structure here is similar to the films he'd make later: each of the main characters gets a section of the movie and we slowly learn how their lives relate to each other. In "Pig," Hong punctuates his typically languidly paced scenes with clips of the characters' dreams and flashbacks, a technique that he'd ditch in favor of a more straightforward approach by his next film. Hong is a sharp guy and wants you to pay attention to the details (though his seemingly haphazard style initially gives a very improvised and random impression). Minor details or people who make cameos in one section of the film become major factors or players later on, whereas things or people that come off as potentially important in the beginning might only briefly be mentioned in a later section or play no part at all. The director's always mined the ways in which chance and fate play a part in human relationships (this theme is probably best represented in the superb "Power of Kangwon Province"), and the ways in which people fail to make the right decision when presented with a possible way out of the pit they've dug themselves into. Hong's first film is also his darkest; it's lacking in the occasional dry humor of the later pictures and it's only one where the path ends in bloodshed for any of the characters. "Pig" packs a quiet punch and has recently been voted one of the greatest Korean films ever made by critics there. It has also finally got a DVD release in Korea (the rest of the director's films are also on DVD), though the English subtitles are rather poor.