MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 1,604 this week

Failan (2001)

7.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.7/10 from 3,014 users  
Reviews: 47 user | 28 critic

After losing both her parents, Failan (Cecilia Cheung) emmigrates to Korea to seek her only remaining relatives. Once she reaches Korea, she finds out that her relatives have moved to ... See full summary »

Director:

Writer:

(novel)
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2364 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 30 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 105 titles created 10 May 2012
 
a list of 30 titles created 20 Dec 2011
 
a list of 167 titles created 2 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Failan (2001)

Failan (2001) on IMDb 7.7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Failan.
6 wins. See more awards »
Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Oasis (2002)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

Jong-du, a young man just out of prison for manslaughter, is a social misfit: fidgety, snuffling, laughing inappropriately, without a super ego. When released, he calls on the family of the... See full summary »

Director: Chang-dong Lee
Stars: Kyung-gu Sol, So-ri Moon, Nae-sang Ahn
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Hahn Suk-Kyu suffers from a fatal disease. He meets Shim Eun-Ha and falls in love with her. What will be the fate of this love - will it be a tragic ending?

Director: Jin-ho Hur
Stars: Suk-kyu Han, Eun-ha Shim, Goo Shin
Time (2006)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

To save her relationship, a woman puts herself through extensive plastic surgery.

Director: Ki-duk Kim
Stars: Jung-woo Ha, Ji-Yeon Park, Jun-yeong Jang
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A Korean love story about a young couple's enduring love, which is tested when 27 year old Sun-jin is diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.

Director: John H. Lee
Stars: Woo-sung Jung, Ye-jin Son, Jong-hak Baek
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A 19th-century samurai tries to protect a battered wife.

Director: Yôji Yamada
Stars: Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi
Dolls (2002)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Three stories about neverending love.

Director: Takeshi Kitano
Stars: Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tatsuya Mihashi
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A fading movie star with a sense of emptiness, and a neglected young wife meet as strangers in Tokyo and form an unlikely bond.

Director: Sofia Coppola
Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Giovanni Ribisi
The Road Home (1999)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

Director: Yimou Zhang
Stars: Ziyi Zhang, Honglei Sun, Hao Zheng
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A man and a woman move in to neighboring Hong Kong apartments and form a bond when they both suspect their spouses of extra-marital activities.

Director: Kar Wai Wong
Stars: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ping Lam Siu
Daisy (2006)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

"Daisy" is a story about the inevitable showdown between a detective and a killer who fall in love with the same woman. In the story, Jeon plays a street artist who dreams of opening her ... See full summary »

Director: Wai-keung Lau
Stars: Gianna Jun, Woo-sung Jung, Sung-jae Lee
Love Letter (1995)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a man they knew.

Director: Shunji Iwai
Stars: Miho Nakayama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Bunjaku Han
Happy End (1999)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  
Director: Ji-woo Jung
Stars: Min-sik Choi, Do-yeon Jeon, Jin-mo Ju
Edit

Cast

Credited cast:
...
Kang-jae (as Min-shik Choi)
Cecilia Cheung ...
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dae-Hoon Jeong
Hyeong-jin Kong ...
Kyung-Su
Byung-ho Son
Edit

Storyline

After losing both her parents, Failan (Cecilia Cheung) emmigrates to Korea to seek her only remaining relatives. Once she reaches Korea, she finds out that her relatives have moved to Canada well over a year ago. Desperate to stay and make a living in Korea, Failan is forced to have an arranged marriage through a match-making agency. Kang Jae (Choi Min Shik) is an old and outdated gangster who has no respect from his peers. Short on money, Kang Jae decides to take on the arranged marriage. Having nothing more than a picture of Kang Jae, Failan spends her days dreaming and wishing that Kang Jae would come to visit her. Failan often writes to Kang Jae in sorrow about how much she misses and thinks about him, but never has the nerve to give the letters to Kang Jae. Things take a turn when Kang Jae is asked by his boss to take the fall for a murder in exchange for some money. The only hope in his worthless life is the wife he never met. Written by Basia & Moj...

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

korea | letter | money | marriage | murder | See more »

Genres:

Drama | Romance

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

| |

Release Date:

28 April 2001 (South Korea)  »

Filming Locations:


Company Credits

Production Co:

 »
Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Color:

(some sequences)|
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Failan is outside the video shop, a poster of the movie Il Mare can be seen. See more »

Connections

References The Sixth Sense (1999) See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
Arguably, the best movie of the 21st century so far
5 January 2002 | by (Baltimore, MD) – See all my reviews

If you are a fan of world cinema, don't miss this film, arguably the best film of the 21st century so far.

After the first watching this film, I was left dumb-founded. How can I understand this movie? Is this really a melodrama? How can a movie where main male and female characters really never meet be a melodrama? Though, this movie is still an absolutely heart-breaking and tear-jerking love story. This movie is a quantum leap in the melodrama genre. We will probably never see a melodrama like this one again. This movie not only completely rewrites the rules of melodramas but shows that a melodrama can deliver powerful social commentary. Can a melodrama be subversive? Check it yourself. This movie is as subversive as Fight Club.

Though this movie is based on 'Love Letter', a Japanese short fiction by Jiro Asada, the movie is much richer in social context. Failan is the saddest movie in my living memory. I don't know how many times I have seen this film. I cry at the same parts during each viewing. The ending where Failan sang for her 'husband' is simply heart-wrenching. The saddest of all is that even Failan could not save us, poor souls like her husband, from this cruel world. Then, who can? Only death?


35 of 41 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Remake pinkston
Korean movie recommendations cheynemcmahon
Incredible movie Ogster
Is this Cecilia Cheung's only good movie? dextak
What's the deal with the video? Borispdx
Hollywood Can Only Dream cph54
Discuss Failan (2001) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?