Korean Movie Review #1: Peppermint Candy (2000)

Although you seem to imply that people should, I certainly don’t take it for granted that Kim So-young’s years of training and gaining a Ph.D from NYU “might have honed her skills in analysis and persuasive power a bit more” than my own I’m afraid.

Having said that, I suspect we’d be having an entirely different conversation now if that’s what you had written originally. But no, instead of using more neutral terms, you chose to highlight the fact that I was a blogger and she a “paid pro”, and implied that as the former I was either uniformed and/or arrogant for my criticism of her. Moreover, if “most all critics of Peppermint Candy find such issues as ‘male subjectivity’/developmental state politics/etc. pertinent to the film,” then heaven forbid that I suggest anything to the contrary.

For someone claiming not to be concerned about policing the boundaries between blogging and academia, you seem to have a strange fixation with reminding me of my place in that continuum.

Regardless, however ironic, uniformed and/or arrogant you find it, you seem to forget that I’m entitled to simply have an opinion of her article. But while it’s not beyond me to provide a more coherent critique of it, you hardly encourage me to invest the time and effort to provide one. ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 1 week ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

Yes, well… invoking the Ph.D in film studies vs. blogger could be all about “policing boundaries”… or it could be about the fact that in training for years and gaining a Ph.D from NYU, Kim might have honed her skills in analysis and persuasive power a bit more than you have. And that you simply saying to her analysis, “no,” is not all that persuasive. But, contrary to the evidence that most all critics of Peppermint Candy find such issues as “male subjectivity”/developmental state politics/etc. pertinent to the film, you seem to have it all figured out. ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 1 week ago by anon on Wordpress

Sorry for taking so long to reply Palapo & Joey.

Palapo, I don’t personally think that he did associate his girlfriend with his accidental shooting of the high school girl in Kwangju, although I remain open to the possibility. But to be precise, he only very briefly thought that the girl was his girlfriend, when she was in the distance and he was hallucinating from the loss of blood , but of course he realized that she wasn’t after he she came close and he talked to her (and there was no way his girlfriend could physically have been there anyway).

Regardless, his choices weren’t fixed after losing his innocence, and – had I not been seeing events in reverse – I could just have readily anticipated his attempting to atone for his mistake from then on. Moreover, although he’s eased into his role as a brutal police officer in 1987, in 1984 he’s clearly uncomfortable with it, so I disagree with you Joey that him becoming a sadist followed immediately (and naturally?) from what happened in Kwangju. Sure, there may not be one or two unequivocal reasons that explain the process, and I’m all for viewers not being spoon-fed everything and so being made to think and figure things out for themselves too. But you still need something to go on, yes?

In hindsight, the treatment of his girlfriend primarily stems from him have tortured someone just a few hours previously, her telling him that he has “good hands” particularly poignant and ironic just after a prisoner was so frightened of him that he shat on them. I take it back that this isn’t really explained in the movie then, and it also adds weight to Palapo’s argument that he wanted to put all memory of the period behind him.

But was that scene in the restaurant really for this new girlfriend/wife? I didn’t really understand it to be honest. And sadistic or not, do you put all memory of a former girlfriend behind you by marrying someone you don’t love instead?

Finally Palapo, you probably don’t remember the specifics of him losing his money because…they’re never actually explained. Again, we’re left to fill in the gaps on our own. Personally, I think the jump from (moderately) successful businessperson in 1994 to penniless and suicidal in 1999 is siimply too abrupt. ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

Wow. You do see the irony in a blogger whose main trade is unpacking the many codes and concepts hiding in TV ads accusing a paid pro of “grafting” various ideas onto a movie, right?

Male subjectivity? Capitalist development? Not there at all???

Seriously, the more I read it, the more I can’t decide whether your appraisal could come across as less informed or more arrogant. ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by anon on Wordpress

Just watched this movie last night…I didn’t think it was so bad. My biggest commentary is about the catalyst of his delve into negativity after his military service. James asked why we weren’t told the reasons behind his treatment of his first girlfriend, why he joined the police force and all the other junk that happened in the movie. I’d have to say it just stems from the killing of the student. It seems in his youth he was just a sensitive dreamer and a bumbling stooge in the military. He’s pretty soft until he kills the girl. Then he becomes a sadist pretty much and pushes everything away.

There doesn’t seem to be a “good” reason to explain it, but is there rarely somethibg you can always pinpoint? If there is I think it had to be the self loathing projected onto everyone else. He hates dogs, yet he barks and growls at people. I think the guy just hates himself and once he loses it all he finally decides to take himself out.

I like this idea of film reviews, gonna try and keep up and comment on them. It should furnish some good discussion. I am always looking for good films to watch as well. ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by Joey P. on Wordpress

Oh, good, you thought it was a mess too. I was afraid I was losing my ability to make sense of academic writing.

4 months, 2 weeks ago by Marilyn on Wordpress

Thanks, and you’re welcome.

But I didn’t mean to imply that nunchi is directly related to Koreans’ proclivity for making black and white distinctions between themselves and non-Koreans sorry. To be more precise then, while non-Koreans supposedly lacking (and being unable to learn) nunchi is just one of many distinctions that are often mentioned, I’d argue that the desire to do so make such distinctions exists largely independently of it.

I’m not actually a sociology professor by the way (sigh): just James is fine (and would be even if really was one anyway! {wistful sigh}). ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

Printed out and read, with thanks.

While it definitely got me thinking, and made me look at individual scenes in much more detail however, I’m afraid I found it to be a simply terrible article, very representative of the sort of academic writing about cinema that has put me off the subject ever since I was an undergraduate.

Of course, I make allowances for Kim Soyoung (presumably) not being a native speaker. I can even forgive her mentioning what occurs in the segment in Kwangju in May 1980 roughly a dozen times too. But not only are there are several factual mistakes in her analysis, but they’re consistent with her grafting onto the movie of a treatise involving (for starters) Freud’s concept of the “uncanny”, US geopolitics, “male subjectivity,” modernism, and capitalist developmental states…that simply isn’t there. Seriously, the more I read it, the more Kim Soyoung reminded me of a medieval astronomer, devising an elegant account of the workings of the heavens consistent with his or her philosophy, but unfortunately largely uninformed by actual observation of it… ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

Kenneth,

well of course people of different cultures are likely to give different opinions on movies. And similarly, as nunchi (눈치) is basically a way of inferring what people are really saying in a collectivist culture that frowns on speaking directly to one another, then of course individual Koreans are going to be better-honed nunchi skills then someone from a more individualistic culture too, and will pick up things that I will miss.

There are definite limits though, and nunchi is not like some combination of secret handshakes, rites and incantations that (say) only eating kimchi and rice for breakfast for over 20 years provides. Personally, I consider it to be no more than one of a number of conceptual tools by which entirely too many Koreans like to create black and white distinctions between themselves and non-Koreans, and like those – foreigners don’t like kimchi, they’re all ready to have sex at the drop of a hat, they can’t speak Korean etc. etc. – ultimately unsustainable. And yet still they persist.

Also after 10 years of watching Korean TV and movies also (not nearly enough though, granted), I’ve seen little evidence of a “flurry of emotions being conveyed” that fabled high-nunchi would enable me to see either (and particularly not in this movie). In fact, you could argue that living in a high-nunchi society would mean the exact opposite – that Korean people like much simpler things in their entertainment than they do in real life – as, indeed, it turns out to be the case for their dramas. Recall this next from Recentering Globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism (2002) by Koichi Iwabuchi for instance, which I talk more about here:

Apart from the comparatively large budget and the sophistication of the production techniques, two structural factors make Japanese dramas attractive for their Taiwanese audiences. First, Japanese dramas are not soup operas; they always end within ten to twelve episodes (each episode being an hour long). By contrast, Taiwanese and American dramas seemingly never end. Most of my Taiwanese respondents commented that they felt such programs were unnecessarily protracted. Because Japanese dramas finish in a comparatively short time and their plots are usually less complicated than those of traditional soap operas, my respondents found it easier to focus on these dramas and enjoy the progress of their narratives. In addition, Japanese dramas, like movies, use orchestral music and theme songs repeatedly and effectively. The use of a theme song in a drama is particularly important. Each week, the theme functions not just as background music but as a constitutive part of the climatic scene. The theme song works in these instances to encourage the emotional involvement of the audience. It thus serves to evoke “romance,” helping the audience to enjoy a “romantic, beautiful love story,” as one of my interviewees put it.

Granted, it’s technically about Japanese dramas, but it’s equally applicable here.

Sorry if sound like I’m really going after you just for asking a simple question by the way(!) – I don’t mean to – but, well, I can’t lie: I think your image of nunchi is a bit misguided sorry, and especially that you think it’s a bigger difference between Koreans and non-Koreans than it really is. But please feel free to disagree with me! ... See all content Hide content

4 months, 2 weeks ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

I also look very forward to future perspectives on Korean cinema from The Grand Narrative paradigm.

4 months, 2 weeks ago by Right Said Fred on Wordpress

Also… get thee to “고양이를 부탁해”

or it to thee. Like it or not, definitely grist for your particular mill.

4 months, 2 weeks ago by anon on Wordpress

Thanks, although I honestly wonder why it is considered a “classic.” Have you seen it yourself?

4 months, 2 weeks ago by James Turnbull on Wordpress

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