Message from jflinn

[Anonymous]

I watched this movie with a large group of Americans, and there were very mixed reactions to the movie . . .
a majority of the viewers found it very touching, but some really couldn't get past very negative feelings about the little boy, and found his behavior even at the end lacking. It was a really interesting look at the results of child-rearing behavior in South Korea, to be sure, and I felt in some ways the director was taking a sly poke at a generation of children who are growing up without much parental discipline (by American standards) Since Korean school life can be very regimented and disciplined, combined with postwar prosperity that made providing material advantages to children possible for parents who in many cases grew up with very little had made for a lax approach to disciplining kids in many households.
I have mixed feelings about the romanticized view of the countryside in this movie . . . I'm glad the director included touches to show just how difficult and isolated rural country life can be (the film was set in a VERY remote part of the mountainous Kangwon province), and it was a realistic representation of how some people in Korea do still live ~ in my host family, the maternal grandmother lived in a somewhat similar situation. I do worry, however, that people outside of Korea will not comprehend the ENORMOUS difference between the exceptionally rural setting of the movie and the very "modern" life most Koreans live. My concern is not to be taken as a criticism of the movie, however ~ I have to say, it's one of the most moving films to come out of Korea. Part of the popularity of the film in Korea is based on the fact that it shows a dissapearing way of life that echos the nostalgia many city-dwellers now feel, and I hope that it's the sense of nostalgia, not an image of backwardness (to which the Korean movie-going public is very sensitive too when the images originate outside of Korea - witness the indignation of the most recent Bond movie), that is transmitted to foreign audiences [Edit by="jflinn on Mar 22, 3:40:49 AM"][/Edit]