The Jang Sun-Woo Variations

Tony Rayns has followed up the Jang Sun-Woo retrospective he curated for the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 1997 by making an intimate portrait of Korea’s most iconoclastic director as he prepares two new films: the live-action cyber-action thriller The Resurrection of the Little Match Girl and the animated buddhist/shamanist feature Princess Bari. Divided into chapters, the documentary examines Jang’s career and films from many different angles and includes the voices not only of those who have worked with Jang but also of numerous ordinary Koreans who have been touched/shocked/excited/offended by his work. Individual chapters are devoted to such topics as Jang’s idiosyncratic hairstyle and the controversy surrounding his previous feature Lies. The documentary tries to place Jang and his work in the widest possible social context, not only in the context of Korean cinema. At its heart is a series of remarkably candid and revealing interviews with Jang himself.