The dramatic "Miryang" examines the role of faith in people's lives through the harrowing experience of a young widow named Shin Ae after her son was killed. "In our life, pain is inevitable," said Li Cangdong, "although we feel that life is quiet and peaceful today, and there are no problems, no one knows what unexpected things will happen tomorrow. Our body. Or in the form of disease and death, it slowly devours us. No one is immune. This is an important reason why religion exists, because we have no way to rationally explain why people suffer. Art can also be used A different way than religion tells us this inexplicable thing. Of course, what I want to tell the audience is not the pain itself, but how to be reborn after overcoming it. The secret of rebirth is hidden in the cycle of life In fact, every epic is an adventure story seeking new life. Everyone's life is limited, and art is asking people, the meaning of this limited life. Try to break through the limitations of life, you can get new life. "
Miryang was created in 2007, but its motives go back decades. This story comes from "The Worm Story", a short story written by Korean writer Lee Chang-joon. From this very simple basic plot I added a new set of character relationships, but the theme of forgiveness is derived from the original story. I read this story almost 20 years ago, when I hadn't even thought about becoming a film director. But when I read this story for the first time, I was shocked, and since then it has been deeply imprinted in my mind, and it has grown up by itself. One day, when I was searching for one in my head to create a story, it came up naturally. The scene of this story must be set in Miryang. Miryang is a small town about an hour's drive from the city where I was born and raised. The name Miryang has fascinated me since childhood, and it means hidden sunshine in Chinese characters. There is nothing special about this ancient and ordinary town, but it has such a poetic and charming name. I am amazed by this. I took it as a metaphor for life itself, which, despite its humbleness and mundaneness, is full of meaning. On the other hand, the original story was about forgiveness, but I wanted to go a step further and question life itself.
Usually I think about the ending first and then start developing the story. As Aristotle said, a story must have a beginning and an end. A good and meaningful story must have a good ending, and even if the story has an exciting beginning, the story will still fail if the author doesn't get the ending right. On the other hand, if a brilliant ending can be sublimated, then the author has solved the biggest problem in creating the story. If there is a beginning, there may be no need for an ending, but if there is an ending, there must be a beginning. When I write a novel, I sometimes change the ending of the whole story, depending on the direction of the story, but when I write a script, I never change the ending, because I only start writing after the final ending is decided, Such a story can naturally develop to the end.
In "Miryang," the heroine Shin Ae lost her son and at the same time fell in love with God because of the pain she couldn't get rid of. One day, he finds that God has forgiven him before he has forgiven his son's killer, and he sinks into a sense of betrayal and despair. Then, like a tragic hero in ancient Greek mythology, she began to fight against God. However, unlike the tragic hero in ancient Greek mythology, she is just a young piano teacher in a small Korean town, how can she compete with God? He couldn't even have a conversation with God. He decided to violate the commandments of God as a means of struggle, and he began to steal and have sex. I believe that this extreme mental state may be difficult for the audience to accept at first, but it is understandable in the end because his actions are the most basic questioning of God, religion, and human emotions that everyone can feel . Importantly, despite his constant struggle with God, he cannot deny the existence of God. Because fighting God already means his recognition of God. We say that believing and following God is faith, and fighting God is madness. Faith, on the other hand, is a man's problem, not God's. So this movie is not about God and faith, but about people. When creating the character of Shin Ae and writing the script, I thought about how to make these things clear to the audience.
"Three collapses of the mind!"
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