Jang Sun-Woo (1995): ‘I met people on the road and recorded what they said about Korean cinema with a 16mm camera. It’s a personal account of the way that cinema has influenced the lives of modern Koreans.’Framed as a shamanist exorcism, the film chronicles Jang’s search through Korean time and space for the past and future identity of Korean cinema, but it climaxes on Jindo Island, where the shaman Kim Dae-Rye enacts the traditional ssit-kkim-kut exorcism to expiate past sins and placate the souls of the dead. Interviewing both well-known film-makers and anonymous individuals met on the road, Jang relates past struggles against Japanese imperialism and Korean militarist dictatorship to present-day struggles against Hollywood’s market dominance. His implied conclusion is that Korean cinema has long been stunted by censorship. There is much to exorcise. Tony Rayns
