Chang-kuk's mother was a prostitute when she was young. During World War II, she married a black American soldier and gave birth to Chang-kuk. After the war, Changguo's father returned to the United States with the army, and the abandoned Changguo mother and son suffered discrimination and ridicule from the surrounding villagers. Mother's only hope is that one day her husband will come and pick them up to go to the United States. For this reason, for more than ten years, her mother has been insisting on writing letters to her husband, although every time she sends a letter, she is called back because the recipient is unknown.
In desperation, Changguo often fights with his mother. Only his lover, Kae-nun, can pity his mother's cry. Changguo followed Ganan to kill dogs for a living. Ganan has a rude and ferocious personality, nicknamed "Dog Eyes", and he beats and kicks Changguo at every turn.
Ji-heum has a kind and weak personality, and has been bullied by two hooligans in the village. The strong Chang-guo acts as his protector, and the two form a simple and profound friendship. Jixin is in love with Eun-wook. Eun-wook accidentally injured her right eye when she was a child, leaving her disabled. Her personality becomes sensitive and autistic, and she always refuses Jixin's love.
Yinyu's father disappeared during the Korean War. Yinyu's family was respected as the family of a martyr, but his fate was reversed when he found Yinyu's father who had surrendered to North Korea, and his status in the village plummeted. Yinyu commits herself to an American soldier in order to treat her eye disease. Zhixin is distressed and helpless about Yinyu's choice.
The American soldier couldn't bear the dull and depressing life of the army and was almost crazy. Before deciding to flee the army, he wanted to tattoo Yinyu to leave a mark. Yinyu grabbed the dagger and stabbed his right eye, which was healed soon.
Zhixin was jailed for shooting an American soldier with an arrow.
Changguo killed Ganan, and he also drove Ganan's motorcycle and fell to his death in the rice field.
Changguo's father finally sent a reply, but Changguo's mother didn't know it. Perhaps for the mother who lost her beloved son, it was not important whether she could be reunited with her husband. Over the years, her longing for the other side of the ocean was only for her son. The mother set herself on fire in the car, a fire destroyed all the past.
Character Analysis:
Several characters in the film are angular, plump and three-dimensional. In addition to the protagonist, the supporting characters who play a secondary role are also generous with their pen and ink and put a lot of effort into it.
Changguo: Changguo is simple in nature. When killing a dog with Ganan, he often turned his head to the side because he couldn't bear it. He is in love with Zhixin. Zhixin was pushed down the rice field by the hooligan, and he went to pull Zhixin up. Seeing that Zhixin was bullied by the hooligan, he repaid the hooligan according to the hooligan's game rules. In order to free Zhixin's dog, even if Ganan handcuffed him to the motorcycle, he had to pry off the wheel to escape. He was only intolerant of his own mother. When his mother quarreled with someone, he did not go to help her, but grabbed her by the hair, carried it on his shoulders like a straw, and forcibly carried it home, and then beat her violently. The act of his mother writing to his father seemed to him to be a fool's errand, and he had long given up hope for that father, who existed in name only. He boiled boiled water, bathed his mother, and then gouged out her breast with a knife, using the deprivation of her female identity to wash away her mother's shame. His hatred for Ganan is not just because of Ganan's violence against him, but because of Ganan's status as his mother's lover. In Changguo's view, the discrimination against him and his mother is all thanks to these men. This kind of rebellious and extreme behavior happened to Changguo, which was unthinkable and reasonable. The psychological trauma caused by the war to Changguo was far more tragic than the physical pain.
Zhixin: Like Changguo, Zhixin has been suppressed for a long time, and finally burst out with amazing power. He was weak, so he was oppressed by the hooligans, and dared not speak out. He used a self-made dirt gun to take revenge on the hooligan, but accidentally injured himself because the gun was not built properly. He is graceful and gentle, good at painting, and full of sympathy for the weak. His love for Yinyu didn't get a response, but he didn't give up. He helped Yinyu get the puppy back and quietly put it back out of the window of Yinyu; he shot the American soldier with an arrow; he silently did what he could for Yinyu. He peeped out of the window of Yinyu and found Yinyu's self-blame. As a share of friendship with Changguo, he took Changguo to peep at Yinyu, and he also drew a fist to decide who would look first. As a result, Changguo was stabbed in the eye by Yinyu with a pencil. After he shot the American soldier, he shot the little hooligan henchman who had been bullying him for a long time. In prison, he and the little hooligan happened to be locked together. Hearing the little hooligan talking about Yinyu's figure, he resisted his anger and made no sound. Instead, he took advantage of the fact that he was fast asleep and strangled his neck with a straight spring. In the end, the police came to stop him and did not strangle him, but he succeeded for a while. He sympathized with Changguo mother and son. After Changguo died, he and Changguo's mother went to the frozen rice field to dig Changguo's body. He saw from the police car that the bus where Changguo's mother lived was burning, and tried to rescue Changguo's mother. In order to stop the car, he restrained the driving policeman with handcuffs until he was stabbed by the policeman, which showed his devotion to Changguo. friendship.
Silver Jade: Silver Jade is another mind twister. When she was a child, her brother used a soil gun to shoot apples and accidentally injured her right eye. Yinyu, who was originally beautiful, could only cover her disabled right eye with her hair. Another form of low self-esteem is excessive self-esteem and defensiveness, and she is hostile to others. The child secretly lifted her hair and looked at her right eye. She grabbed the child and threatened to blind him. When her hand suddenly stretched out from the vegetable shed, she grabbed the child's collar, Her hideous face was like a witch. Zhixin gave her the sketch portrait she drew, but she tore up the portrait and gave Zhixin a slap in the face, just because she has healthy eyes in the painting, which is Zhixin's good wish, but it is ironic to her . She would rather have the puppy as a mental and physical playmate than Jixin. She found someone peeping outside the window, so she picked up the pencil and stabbed the man in the eye mercilessly. She was committed to the US soldiers, only because the US soldiers promised to take her to the military hospital to cure her eye disease, the appearance of the US soldiers made her return to the identity of a normal woman. The American soldier wanted to tattoo her, and she stabbed her right eye. What he gave, she has paid back, and the two owe nothing to each other. Knowing that Zhixin was imprisoned for shooting an American soldier, she went to visit, raised her hair, and let Zhixin look at her gauze-covered right eye, which was a confession to Zhixin—she had nothing to do with the American soldier. .
Changguo's mother: It turns out that a mother's love can be so sad. Being abandoned by her husband and being discriminated against by the villagers is pitiful enough, and she has to be cast aside by her son. This character may be reminiscent of Beckett's classic play "Waiting for Godot," where life is exhausted in the long wait. She knew her situation, but deceived herself. She went shopping in the store and was treated coldly by the proprietress. She deliberately spoke English and said she was going to the United States. As a result, she was laughed at by the proprietress, and the two scuffled together. She could fight back against the discrimination against the villagers, but she was powerless against the abuse of her son, just because she was a mother. Ganan was going to teach Changguo a lesson, and she immediately warned Ganan that if she dared to hurt her son, she would be rude to him. Changguk, mother, and Ganan form a delicate triangular relationship because of love.
Zhixin's father: Zhixin's father has always been proud of his killing and wounding of three North Korean soldiers in the Korean War. A medal of honor. He thinks that he has a noble status, and he sneered at Ganan, the dog killer, who also came to shoot arrows, and almost fought with Ganan for this. He loves a little bit of cheapness. He took the pistol dug out in front of the house for himself. After cleaning it, he found that it was still usable. He sold it to Ganan. For a little money, he even sold his son's dog to Ganan. . But the father is not a simple comic character. When Zhixin shot and wounded the US military, he stepped forward and tried to take the blame. His son surrendered before, and the matter could no longer be concealed. Excuse. The image of the father is respectable due to family affection and becomes tall.
US soldier: His love for Yinyu is more just the catharsis of desire. He was also a victim of war, and life in the army made him feel depressing and tired. Drug use and sex did not relieve him, and he was still mentally depressed.
Ganan: He is fierce and cold-blooded to everyone and things, and only gentle to Changguo's mother. He killed dogs all his life, and in the end he was hanged like a dog.
Thought art:
Kim Ki-duk is a rare genius in the Korean film industry. He dropped out of junior high school and has never received any formal education in film and art. He has achieved today's artistic achievements entirely by self-study. His films have always been good at depicting human nature, and at the same time, the pictures are beautiful, like ink landscapes.
Many people classify Kim Ki-duk as an erotic film director, and this definition is too shallow. As an Asian director, the style of Kim Ki-duk's films is closer to that of French literary films. Perhaps this should be attributed to his early career selling paintings in France. The European artistic atmosphere obviously has a subtle influence on Kim Ki-duk.
"Love Letter to Turn Back" is Kim Ki-duk's peak work, no less than his other film, "Samaritan Girl" (Samaritan Girl), which won the Berlin Silver Bear Award. The film is narrated in a way that multiple main lines go hand in hand, revolving around the fate of three characters, Changguo, Zhixin and Yinyu. The three of them are both the creators of the story and at the same time as bystanders, witnessing each other's lives. In 2005, Gu Changwei expressed the same proposition in "Peacock": a human being like a peacock in a cage, watching others, and being watched by others. However, "Peacock" uses this proposition as the entry point of the film, while "Love Letter to Turn Back" uses it as the golden thread connecting the story, like a string of beads, framing the stories of the three protagonists into a harmonious whole. As a writer-director, Kim Ki-deok's films are all written by himself, and his involvement in the film industry also started from writing scripts. The film takes the war as the background, but it is not a straightforward preaching, but through the details of ordinary life, it integrates Kim Ki-deok's thinking on war, human nature, and the nation, showing the theme of peace and anti-war benevolence. Japanese film master Akira Kurosawa has made a film "August Capriccio" with the same theme, and the method is similar. It uses the mental and physical trauma of the common people after the war to accuse the crimes of war, and see the big theme in the small. This is not like our Chinese directors, who always open up too much when expressing war, want to shoot war epics, but they have no ability to control big scenes at all. But "August Capriccio" is a failure, and its ideological content is fatal. Akira Kurosawa ignores reality, stands narrowly in his own country's position, only expresses the pain of his own nation, and downplays the history of Japan's invasion of Asian countries . And the precious thing about Kim Ki-duk is that he has the courage to face the reality, tear open the wound, and show it dripping with blood. He seems to be telling a story that has nothing to do with him with a smile on his face, and his tone is calm, but you can clearly feel his voice torturing his soul. There is a stark contrast between South Korea and North Korea, who fight in the same room and kill each other. The tiredness of American soldiers from war shows that war is a double-edged sword, hurting others and hurting themselves.
Artistically, the film is also unique. The film uses the method of laying foreshadowing in many places to achieve the effect of echoing before and after. For example, Ganan took Changguo out to buy prey. Because there was no free seat in the car, Changguo let Changguo sit in the dog cage on the back seat of the motorcycle. Later, after Changguo wounded Ganan's thigh with a gun, he locked Ganan in the dog cage for transportation. return. Ganan hanged the dog to kill him, and finally he was hanged on the rack of killing the dog. Tao also governs one's body" is an old Chinese saying. At the beginning of the film, Changguo's mother took a photo of her son. At the end, Changguo's mother lit the photo with a lighter and set the car on fire. At the beginning of the film, there is a set of close-ups of sawing wood and a homemade earth gun (this group of close-ups was used again when Zhixin made his own earth gun), and then the camera switches to his childhood Yinyu and his brother. After the sound, Yinyu covered her right eye in pain and explained the origin of Yinyu's eye disease. The use of montage seems to be messy, but in fact, the transition is natural and simple. There is also a lot of dark humor in the film. Zhixin accidentally injured his right eye by a soil gun, and Changguo was also stabbed by Yinyu in his right eye. The two followed behind Yinyu, walking on a country road. The three one-eyed people formed a strange scenery. Yinyu saw the helpless dog on the road after mating because he couldn't break free from each other's body. Desires bring not joy but burden. In addition, the film uses symbolism. Such as the hovering helicopters and the roaring planes above, symbolize the invasion of the Korean mainland by foreign forces. This invasion is not only external, but also internal. When the American soldier and Yinyu are engaged in the car, "the exhaust pipe of the soldier's car exhausts the exhaust gas, which is a metaphor for the venting of desire.
" , People live like wild dogs, without dignity, long and hopeless waiting, and sick people who break out after extreme depression. That's what Kim Ki-duk told us in "Love Letter to Turn Back". The shouting head of Changguo in the movie poster is very similar to Munch's famous painting "The Scream". Instead of being silent in depression, he erupts in depression, even if the result of the explosion is death without a way back.
2006/2/1-3
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