NYAFF'09 Schedule
BREATHLESS (KOREA, 2009)
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
131 minutes, digital projection, in Korean with English subtitles
Directed by: Lee Hwan & Yang Ik-June
Starring: Yang Ik-June, Jeong Man-Shik, Kim Gol-Bi
Showtimes:
Thu June 25, 7:15pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Thu July 2, 2:00pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Note: "Buy Tickets" links will take you to the IFC Center website (for shows at IFC Center) and to Japan Society website (for shows at Japan Society). Tickets for each venue must be purchased separately.
Rotterdam Int’l Film Festival – 2009
Winner – Tiger Award
Deauville Asian Film Festival – 2009
Winner – “Best Film”
Winner – “Critic’s Award”
Int’l Film Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – 2009
Winner – “Best Actor” – Yang Ik-June
Winner – “Best Actress” – Kim Gol-Bi
The year is still young, but as of now we feel confident in proclaiming that Yang Ik-June's feature-length debut BREATHLESS is the feel-good domestic violence movie of the year. Brutal, scabrous, and blackly comic, it embraces you even as it's giving you a fat lip, not so much tugging on your heartstrings as yanking them with a vengeance until your guts spill out all over the floor. In the first two minutes, "debt collector" Sang-Hoon (director-writer-star Yang) comes to the rescue of a battered damsel in distress, only to turn around and slap her himself, posing a single, sad question: "Why do you just take it?" The question lingers as we follow Sang-Hoon through his routine of beating debtors to a pulp in front of their children. His after-hours activities mostly consist of awkward encounters with his sister and her meek son, Hyung-In, followed by assaults on his enfeebled father, whose own abuse terrorized their household and led to the death of Sang-Hoon's mother. Every day is exactly the same, until Sang-Hoon meets schoolgirl Yeon-Hee (the wonderful Kim Gol-Bi), whose trash talk is more than a match for his foul mouth. Yeon-Hee has her own demons to contend with at home and, spitting obscenities back and forth, Sang-Hoon and Yeon-Hee become fast frenemies, forming a twisted family unit.
BREATHLESS has stalked the international festival circuit with the furious intensity of a debt collector from a broken home, grabbing top honors in its calloused paws wherever it goes—at the Rotterdam Film Festival, it picked up three Tiger Awards. South Korean actor Yang Ik-June sold his house, worked with friends and scrounged for money to make BREATHLESS and his performance is a revelation. A can't-take-your-black-eyes-off-him portrait of a man who can only communicate with his fists, Sang-Hoon regards his bloodied knuckles every morning with a kind of bruised melancholy, but when he springs into action, he's like a bloodthirsty jack-in-the-box. The international awards are a validation for Yang, who has decried South Korean censorship and fought for more gritty realism in his work. "I want to say f--k you to the world with my films," he explained to the local press. But beneath the expletives, BREATHLESS is a richly-drawn, deeply-felt movie, a meditation on violence and family. Like its fearsome subject, it cares (and scares) with all of its black-and-blue heart.
BREATHLESS (KOREA, 2009)
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
131 minutes, digital projection, in Korean with English subtitles
Directed by: Lee Hwan & Yang Ik-June
Starring: Yang Ik-June, Jeong Man-Shik, Kim Gol-Bi
Showtimes:
Thu June 25, 7:15pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Thu July 2, 2:00pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Note: "Buy Tickets" links will take you to the IFC Center website (for shows at IFC Center) and to Japan Society website (for shows at Japan Society). Tickets for each venue must be purchased separately.
Rotterdam Int’l Film Festival – 2009
Winner – Tiger Award
Deauville Asian Film Festival – 2009
Winner – “Best Film”
Winner – “Critic’s Award”
Int’l Film Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – 2009
Winner – “Best Actor” – Yang Ik-June
Winner – “Best Actress” – Kim Gol-Bi
The year is still young, but as of now we feel confident in proclaiming that Yang Ik-June's feature-length debut BREATHLESS is the feel-good domestic violence movie of the year. Brutal, scabrous, and blackly comic, it embraces you even as it's giving you a fat lip, not so much tugging on your heartstrings as yanking them with a vengeance until your guts spill out all over the floor. In the first two minutes, "debt collector" Sang-Hoon (director-writer-star Yang) comes to the rescue of a battered damsel in distress, only to turn around and slap her himself, posing a single, sad question: "Why do you just take it?" The question lingers as we follow Sang-Hoon through his routine of beating debtors to a pulp in front of their children. His after-hours activities mostly consist of awkward encounters with his sister and her meek son, Hyung-In, followed by assaults on his enfeebled father, whose own abuse terrorized their household and led to the death of Sang-Hoon's mother. Every day is exactly the same, until Sang-Hoon meets schoolgirl Yeon-Hee (the wonderful Kim Gol-Bi), whose trash talk is more than a match for his foul mouth. Yeon-Hee has her own demons to contend with at home and, spitting obscenities back and forth, Sang-Hoon and Yeon-Hee become fast frenemies, forming a twisted family unit.
BREATHLESS has stalked the international festival circuit with the furious intensity of a debt collector from a broken home, grabbing top honors in its calloused paws wherever it goes—at the Rotterdam Film Festival, it picked up three Tiger Awards. South Korean actor Yang Ik-June sold his house, worked with friends and scrounged for money to make BREATHLESS and his performance is a revelation. A can't-take-your-black-eyes-off-him portrait of a man who can only communicate with his fists, Sang-Hoon regards his bloodied knuckles every morning with a kind of bruised melancholy, but when he springs into action, he's like a bloodthirsty jack-in-the-box. The international awards are a validation for Yang, who has decried South Korean censorship and fought for more gritty realism in his work. "I want to say f--k you to the world with my films," he explained to the local press. But beneath the expletives, BREATHLESS is a richly-drawn, deeply-felt movie, a meditation on violence and family. Like its fearsome subject, it cares (and scares) with all of its black-and-blue heart.
