Yejin Kim in Peppermint Candy (2000)

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Review

Peppermint Candy in one of quite a few Korean “Art Flicks” I’ve seen but this is the first time I’ve been impressed…

Director Chang-dong Lee employed a “Backwards Through Time” aspect similar to Memento that begins with the final moments of “Hongja,” our “protagonist’s” life shortly before he allows himself to be run over by a train at a reunion with his longtime friends.

We then drop back three days to see the pre-climax of Hongja’s building despair. He’s lost his job, bought a pistol to kill himself with, visits his ex-wife who won’t let him in, he shouts a lot and everything just seems out and out shitty for the poor feller. Then the love of his youth (and life) dies and her husband gives him a camera that she saved up for and bought for him long ago… The world seems to be raining shit on Hongja…

Then we jump back a few years and see that this Hongja character’s not all that great of a guy in the first place. He catches his wife with another dude, beats the shit out of both of them, then goes off to bang another broad. After another jump back in time, we find out that Hongja was on the police force and was ousted for using unusually brutal tactics. Another jump back in time finds him in the army where he gets shot, then kills some helpless schoolgirl running amok in the heart of a massacre. Now there’s a seed for some serious psychological problems!

I won’t ruin the end (Or beginning, depending on your point of view…) but it finishes with Hongja and his love standing at the foot of the railroad trestle that he killed himself on in the beginning of the movie. It all wraps up nicely with a perfunctory philosophical statement or two and everyone lives crappily ever after.

There’s plenty of obvious visual imagery in the film, not the least of which is the omnipresence of trains, which I think symbolize the path of life or something… Like I said, it’s pretty artsy, makes you think and is well acted, written and directed. A-

Nudity Report: Three different women briefly show breasts, but the cream of the crop, Yejin Kim, merely flashes a bit of her humble pie when she climbs into bed with Hongja. I’d mention the other babe’s names but unfortunately, the credits are in Korean, I don’t speak that particular language and apparently, neither does anyone over at IMDb…

IMDb Summary: 8.2/10

DVD Info: English and Japanese subtitles, Korean stereo. It looks stark and utterly depressing but we’re guessing that Lee did that on purpose…


Written by: Vance Moravian