Christmas in August
Encyclopedia
Christmas in August is a 1998
South Korea
n romance
/drama
film. It was director Hur Jin-ho's debut and stars Han Suk-kyu
and Shim Eun-ha
.
With 422,930 admissions in Seoul
and screenings at the Singapore
and Pusan
, the film to date has enduring fanbase in Asia and is often used for teaching screenwriting
and cinematography
in China and South Korea. Also in 1998, this film was invited to screen in the International Critics Week section at the Cannes International Film Festival. It placed 4th in the box-office among Korean films in 1998. Because of its success, this film was playing at the Hong Kong Art Center on August 3, 1999. Since it became so popular, it had a full commercial release on Broadway Cinematheque from September 30 till November 24. It was one of the titles garnering critical and popular support for the emerging Korean film industry, as well as inspiring subsequent works made in its tribute.
The film has also had an enduring influence within the Korean film industry. Actor Jang Hyuk
reportedly studied the film in preparation for his comeback role in MBC drama "Thank You" . Assistant Director Park Heung-shik
was influenced by particular scenes of Jung-won washing rice and teaching his father the VCR remote control, for his film Bravo, My Life!
. The muffled weeping scene also found its way into My Mother, the Mermaid
. Characters in Barking Dogs Never Bite
and Girls' Night Out
are shown, respectively, watching scenes of the VCR remote and lovers' stroll. Han
and Shim
are named as ideal casting choices by the eponym
ous aspiring script writer in My Sassy Girl
.
The film recently landed in the top spot of Movie Week's special feature of 10 Best Korean Romance/Melodrama
from 1980-2007 , touting the lead performances as gold standards of the genre. In the same feature, noted director Song Hae-seong
of Failan
, names the scene of a lonely Jung-won singing "In the Street" by Kim Kwang Suk
(whose funeral portrait inspired Hur Jin-ho's debut film), as a particularly resonant example of melodrama transcending its genre to express humanity's essence .
photographer, Jung-won (played by Han Suk-kyu) and his developing romance with a parking agent, Da-rim (Shim Eun-ha). However, the romance never gets a chance to develop into intimacy. Jung-won soon finds out he is suffering from an unnamed illness
and has to come to terms with his impending death
. He sets out to continue living as usual, going out with his friends and spending time with his family in the small town he has lived for decades.
In the Japanese remake directed by Shunichi Nagasaki
the female character is a teacher.
Windows were another motif, encompassing the same idea of photography. During the scenes, where Da-rim and Jung-won would have a silent conversation on opposite sides of a window, the window symbolized a picture frame, creating a living portrait. When Jung-won's childhood love came to visit his shop while he was washing the windows, her image is blurry behind the window. This was meant to symbolize that she no longer had a clear place in his life. That's why when the other scenes, where Jung-won sees Da-rim from behind the window, the audience observes that Jung-won always sees Da-rim vividly, symbolizing that she does have a important part in his life. During one of the last scenes, Jung-won is seem affectionately reaching out to Da-rim behind a window. Photos are meant to capture precious memories, and we can only remember, unable to change the photo's reality. This was the symbolism of windows.
The funeral portrait was another motif, which symbolized Jung-won's acceptance of his early death. In the earlier scenes of the movie, Jung-won took a funeral portrait for an elderly woman. She had come back a second time to take her funeral portrait because she wanted to look her best, meaning she acknowledges her death soon and wants to make the most out of it. Through the movie we see Jung-won and emphasis on han, internal suffering. Near the end of the movie, Jung-won returns to his shop and proceeds to take his funeral portrait. This shows that he had finally come to terms with his early death, and was able to die peacefully, with no regrets. This can be confirmed by his final quote.
The final quote, itself, became a motif. “I knew that someday love would become nothing but a memory, like the countless photographs left behind in my recollections. But you alone have remained a part of me. I leave these words to thank you for letting me depart with your love."-Jung-won. This explains the reason why Jung-won did not try to tell Da-rim that he was fatally ill and did not try to reach out or explain to her his sudden disappearance. Jung-won did not want to taint the love he and Da-rim shared. It can be speculated that he did not want it to be love out of pity. Like a photo, he wanted to preserve his memories of Da-rim while they were still innocent and happy, unlike his childhood love, which turned out to be an unfortunate ending. This allowed him to die peacefully, departing from the world with his innocent memories of her. In the scenes where his childhood lover came back, she requested him to take down her portrait. But at the end of the movie, it is seen that Da-rim's portrait remained in his shop window, symbolizing how Jung-won will never forget about her and take her out of his life.
Christmas in August does not incorporate all of the features, and is missing the fourth and fifth one. However, leaving out the fifth feature had become common since the 1990s. This was because South Korea's authoritarian government, which advocated moral frameworks in film through censorship, had collapsed. Starting in the 1980s, filmmakers were able to make their work seem more modern by leaving out the conflict between good and evil.
1998 in film
-Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...
South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n romance
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
/drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
film. It was director Hur Jin-ho's debut and stars Han Suk-kyu
Han Suk-kyu
Han Suk-kyu is a South Korean actor.-Biography:Han is known as a family man, avid golfer, fisherman and voracious reader. He collects animation by Studio Ghibli and hopes to join Ghibli voice cast one day as a Korean-speaking character. While a student at the Film and Theater department of...
and Shim Eun-ha
Shim Eun-ha
-Profile:Shim Eun-ha debuted in 1994 in the basketball-themed TV drama The Last Match, and quickly became the nation's most popular and talked-about star...
.
With 422,930 admissions in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
and screenings at the Singapore
Singapore International Film Festival
The Singapore International Film Festival was launched in 1987. The festival is an annual film event, held around April/May each year, and screens about 300 films from over 45 countries...
and Pusan
Pusan International Film Festival
Busan International Film Festival , held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan , South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia...
, the film to date has enduring fanbase in Asia and is often used for teaching screenwriting
Screenwriting
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is a freelance profession....
and cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
in China and South Korea. Also in 1998, this film was invited to screen in the International Critics Week section at the Cannes International Film Festival. It placed 4th in the box-office among Korean films in 1998. Because of its success, this film was playing at the Hong Kong Art Center on August 3, 1999. Since it became so popular, it had a full commercial release on Broadway Cinematheque from September 30 till November 24. It was one of the titles garnering critical and popular support for the emerging Korean film industry, as well as inspiring subsequent works made in its tribute.
The film has also had an enduring influence within the Korean film industry. Actor Jang Hyuk
Jang Hyuk
- Career :As a child, Jang Hyuk spent most of his life in his birthplace Busan, before making his drama debut in the SBS drama Model in 1997. Besides the TV drama School and a minor role in the little-seen film Zzang, Jang appeared in g.o.d.'s music video of their 1999 debut single To My Mother...
reportedly studied the film in preparation for his comeback role in MBC drama "Thank You" . Assistant Director Park Heung-shik
Park Heung-shik
Park Heung-shik is a South Korean film director. His credits include I Wish I Had a Wife, My Mother, the Mermaid, and Wedding Campaign, which was the closing film of the 2005 Pusan International Film Festival.-External links:*...
was influenced by particular scenes of Jung-won washing rice and teaching his father the VCR remote control, for his film Bravo, My Life!
Bravo, My Life!
Bravo, My Life is a 2005 South Korean film and the fifth film by South Korean director Park Heung-Sik.The story is based on one mother and her son. She is working as cosmetic salesperson who enjoys making up strongly all the time. Young son is just like normal kid who sometimes surprised at his...
. The muffled weeping scene also found its way into My Mother, the Mermaid
My Mother, the Mermaid
My Mother, the Mermaid is a 2004 South Korean film about a young woman who quarrels with her mother but is somehow transported back in time and sees her parents' courtship. In her youth, her mother was a haenyeo, a traditional freediver.IMDB claims the literal translation of the title is The...
. Characters in Barking Dogs Never Bite
Barking Dogs Never Bite
Barking Dogs Never Bite is a South Korean dark comedy film released in 2000. The films original Korean title is a satirical take on A Dog of Flanders, a European pet story that is very popular in parts of Asia...
and Girls' Night Out
Girls' Night Out (film)
Girls' Night Out is a South Korean film, released in 1998 and directed by Im Sang-soo. It centers around three women, whose overt sexual dialogue caused a stir when the film was released....
are shown, respectively, watching scenes of the VCR remote and lovers' stroll. Han
Han Suk-kyu
Han Suk-kyu is a South Korean actor.-Biography:Han is known as a family man, avid golfer, fisherman and voracious reader. He collects animation by Studio Ghibli and hopes to join Ghibli voice cast one day as a Korean-speaking character. While a student at the Film and Theater department of...
and Shim
Shim Eun-ha
-Profile:Shim Eun-ha debuted in 1994 in the basketball-themed TV drama The Last Match, and quickly became the nation's most popular and talked-about star...
are named as ideal casting choices by the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous aspiring script writer in My Sassy Girl
My Sassy Girl
My Sassy Girl is a 2001 South Korean romantic comedy film directed by Kwak Jae-yong. It tells the story of a man's chance meeting with a drunk girl on the train which changes his life...
.
The film recently landed in the top spot of Movie Week's special feature of 10 Best Korean Romance/Melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
from 1980-2007 , touting the lead performances as gold standards of the genre. In the same feature, noted director Song Hae-seong
Song Hae-seong
Song Hae-seong is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. He made his feature film debut in 1999 with Calla, but didn't become more widely known until the success of his second film, Failan...
of Failan
Failan
Failan is a 2001 South Korean film written and directed by Song Hae-seong. The film was adapted from a Japanese novel by Jiro Asada. It stars Choi Min-sik and Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung.-Plot:...
, names the scene of a lonely Jung-won singing "In the Street" by Kim Kwang Suk
Kim Kwang Suk
Kim Kwang-Seok was a South Korean folk rock singer. He made his debut by joining the recording of a musical ‘Gaedongi’, which consisted of topical songs and was produced by a songwriter and activist Kim Min Gi in 1984...
(whose funeral portrait inspired Hur Jin-ho's debut film), as a particularly resonant example of melodrama transcending its genre to express humanity's essence .
Plot
The plot follows a portraitPortrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
photographer, Jung-won (played by Han Suk-kyu) and his developing romance with a parking agent, Da-rim (Shim Eun-ha). However, the romance never gets a chance to develop into intimacy. Jung-won soon finds out he is suffering from an unnamed illness
Illness
Illness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...
and has to come to terms with his impending death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. He sets out to continue living as usual, going out with his friends and spending time with his family in the small town he has lived for decades.
In the Japanese remake directed by Shunichi Nagasaki
Shunichi Nagasaki
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director: is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director: is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director::2007 Black Belt Known in Japan as Kuro-Obi【黒帯】....
the female character is a teacher.
Motifs
In the film, there were several motifs that the director tried to convey to the audience. Photography had a significant part in this movie. The director purposely made the scenes of the film very still and slow. His purpose doing so was to create the sense of a photo, where everything is still. This was meant to allow the audience to observe every detail, just a like a photo.Windows were another motif, encompassing the same idea of photography. During the scenes, where Da-rim and Jung-won would have a silent conversation on opposite sides of a window, the window symbolized a picture frame, creating a living portrait. When Jung-won's childhood love came to visit his shop while he was washing the windows, her image is blurry behind the window. This was meant to symbolize that she no longer had a clear place in his life. That's why when the other scenes, where Jung-won sees Da-rim from behind the window, the audience observes that Jung-won always sees Da-rim vividly, symbolizing that she does have a important part in his life. During one of the last scenes, Jung-won is seem affectionately reaching out to Da-rim behind a window. Photos are meant to capture precious memories, and we can only remember, unable to change the photo's reality. This was the symbolism of windows.
The funeral portrait was another motif, which symbolized Jung-won's acceptance of his early death. In the earlier scenes of the movie, Jung-won took a funeral portrait for an elderly woman. She had come back a second time to take her funeral portrait because she wanted to look her best, meaning she acknowledges her death soon and wants to make the most out of it. Through the movie we see Jung-won and emphasis on han, internal suffering. Near the end of the movie, Jung-won returns to his shop and proceeds to take his funeral portrait. This shows that he had finally come to terms with his early death, and was able to die peacefully, with no regrets. This can be confirmed by his final quote.
The final quote, itself, became a motif. “I knew that someday love would become nothing but a memory, like the countless photographs left behind in my recollections. But you alone have remained a part of me. I leave these words to thank you for letting me depart with your love."-Jung-won. This explains the reason why Jung-won did not try to tell Da-rim that he was fatally ill and did not try to reach out or explain to her his sudden disappearance. Jung-won did not want to taint the love he and Da-rim shared. It can be speculated that he did not want it to be love out of pity. Like a photo, he wanted to preserve his memories of Da-rim while they were still innocent and happy, unlike his childhood love, which turned out to be an unfortunate ending. This allowed him to die peacefully, departing from the world with his innocent memories of her. In the scenes where his childhood lover came back, she requested him to take down her portrait. But at the end of the movie, it is seen that Da-rim's portrait remained in his shop window, symbolizing how Jung-won will never forget about her and take her out of his life.
Jung-Won
Jung-Won is the main character in this film. He owns a photography shop, which is where most of the film takes place. In the beginning of the film Jung-won was very optimistic. He didn't show his emotions about his inevitable death because he didn't want to burden others with the fact that he was going to die. The first time he announced that he was going to die was when he was drunk with his friend, Chul-goo. After this scene he begins to display more emotion about his imminent death, for example when he was at the police station he started to yell and cry causing a commotion, which was uncharacteristic of him to do. From this point forward Jung-Won's personality begins to change, he is no longer as happy and optimistic as he was in the beginning of the film. Jung-won is unable to contain his emotions making the audience see his vulnerable state.Darim
Darim is a traffic officer in this film. In the beginning of the film Darim is first introduced to Jung-won at the photography shop. At first she didn't seem interested in Jung-won; however, as she routinely went to his shop they became closer and more attached. She found herself falling in love with Jung-won and she eventually started to transition her appearance by wearing make-up. When Jung-won was admitted into the hospital and no longer went to work Darim went to his shop everyday. At this point because Jung-won disappeared without notice Darim started to miss him a lot. She even wrote a letter to Jung-won that the audience could only assume was contained with her feelings for him. She eventually became angry and threw a rock at the photography shop through her frustration that Jung-won disappeared. Eventually Darim learned to move on and accepted the fact that Jung-won will not come back.Korean Melodramas
Linda Williams analyzed the film Way Down East (1920) and wrote an essay "Melodrama Revised" noting five features found in current melodramas that have still remained relevant in Korean cinema:- 1.) Melodrama begins and wants to end with a sense of innocence.
- 2.) Melodrama focuses on victim-heroes and their virtues
- 3.)Melodrama appears modern by using realism, but realism also gives passion and action
- 4.)Melodrama involves a balance of passion and action such as being "too late" or "in the nick of time"
- 5.)Melodrama presents characters with psychic roles and conflicts between good and evil
Christmas in August does not incorporate all of the features, and is missing the fourth and fifth one. However, leaving out the fifth feature had become common since the 1990s. This was because South Korea's authoritarian government, which advocated moral frameworks in film through censorship, had collapsed. Starting in the 1980s, filmmakers were able to make their work seem more modern by leaving out the conflict between good and evil.
Hur Jin-Ho
The director, Hur Jin-Ho was born on August 8, 1963 in Jeonju, South Korea. He is not only a director but also a screenwriter. Before he became a director/screenwriter, Jin-Ho attended Yonsei University and graduated with a philosophy degree. After he attended Korean Academy of Film Arts and studied film making there. While at Korean Academy of Film Arts, he worked under Yoo Young Kil. Some of Hurs film characters are a byproduct of what he learned from Yoo.Main cast
- Han Suk-kyuHan Suk-kyuHan Suk-kyu is a South Korean actor.-Biography:Han is known as a family man, avid golfer, fisherman and voracious reader. He collects animation by Studio Ghibli and hopes to join Ghibli voice cast one day as a Korean-speaking character. While a student at the Film and Theater department of...
as Jung-won - Shim Eun-haShim Eun-ha-Profile:Shim Eun-ha debuted in 1994 in the basketball-themed TV drama The Last Match, and quickly became the nation's most popular and talked-about star...
as Da-rim - Shin Goo as Jung-won's father
- Oh Ji-hye as Jung-sook (Jung-won's sister)
- Lee Han-wi as Chul-goo (one of Jung-won's friends)
External links
- Darcy Paquet's review at koreanfilm.org
- Korean-language article on Christmas in August as the film that began Darcy Paquet's interest in Korean films