준향 ~ Chunhyang

The movie Chunhyang by director Im KwonTaek (임권택) is very unique and interesting. The film, though simple in plot structure, is still very captivating and original, allowing the viewer to experience an emotional journey with the focus of the movie, Chunhyang (played by Lee HyoJeong) who is an innocent daugther of a courtesan. She undergoes cruel punishments and near execution for the sake of trying to remain faithful to her husband.

The type of story told in the film is a stereotypical folk tale with an ultimately good and innocent party, which is Chunhyang, Mongryong, and their friends, and an ultimately evil and cruel party, Gov. Byun Hakdo. It is the story of the evil governor trying to break the love bond that Chunhyang has for Mongryong, but failing and being punished for his evil misdeeds.

The story starts out with a singing narrator beginning a korean story-telling in lyric singing. This is one of the uniquenesses of the movie—often times, this singing narrator will chant whatever is being shown on the screen at the moment like “Mongryong flips open his fan to block out the sun” or “Pangja jumps over the stones and dances through the bushes.” It is rather queer at first but then one gets used to this concept, and sometimes it is rather helpful to explain a scene. Mongryong, the son of a wealthy nobleman, falls in love with Chunhyang at first sight, and asks her to marry him. This must be kept a secret, however, to allow Mongryong to take his state exam. Under unfortunate circumstances, he has to leave the town that they both live in, and cannot take Chunhyang with him. While he is away, the evil governor becomes instated in Chunhyang’s district, and orders her to be his courtesan. She pleads that for a woman to serve more than one man is like for a governor to serve more than one king. The governor proceeds to beat her and plans to kill her. Meanwhile, Mongryong successfully becomes an emissary for the king after taking the test, and comes back to Chunhyang’s village to investigate. The day before Chunhyang is scheduled to be executed, Mongryong stages a planned mass arrest of the evil governor and all the embezzling nobles, thus saving his love and his country.

The use of special effects in this movie was rather insignificant. Instead, the director relied on subtle scene creation such as camera angle and sound editing that made every scene seem appealing and kept me focused and impatient to know how the story continues. The simplicity of this story had a purpose as well. It was to take a well known general scenario, and explore the details that may be used to put it to-gether.

Chunhyang is a well-known folk tale told in a unique style that takes the viewer through the story not only with the conventional film, but with the traditional Korean way of story-telling.