Date and time:
2019-03-04 17:20 - 2019-03-04 19:40
Location:
103 aud., V. Putvinskio g. 23, Kaunas
Ode to My Father (Korean title: 국제시장, translation: International Market), directed by JK Yoon, is an unabashedly sentimental journey through some of the most important, tragic and difficult times in Korea’s modern history. The film was a huge hit in Korea, managing to stick towards the top of the charts for eight weeks after its release, and drawing crowds upwards of 13 million, making it the second most successful Korean film of all time. It depicts modern Korean history from the 1950s to the present day through the life of an ordinary man named Deok-soo (actor Hwang Jung-min), as he experiences events such as the Hungnam Evacuation of 1950 during the Korean War, the government’s decision to dispatch nurses and miners to West Germany in the 1960s, and the Vietnam War.
The story follows Deok-soo’s life from his childhood until his old age. Much like the titular character of 1994’s Forrest Gump, Deok-soo experiences some of the most important events throughout his country’s modern history, all while meeting a cast of interesting characters both fictional and pulled from the annals of history. Among the cast of important individuals Deok-soo meets with is the future founder of Hyundai, Chung Ju-Yung, who a young Deok-soo encounters as a shoe shiner on the streets of Busan. Later on in life, Deok-soo meets with an eccentric fashion designer named Andre Kim, on the search for the perfect fabric he needs for a design. Perhaps the individual with the most influence on Deok-soo is Nam Jin, a famous trot (he oldest form of Korean pop music) singer who he meets on the frontline in Vietnam (portrayed by Yunho from TVXQ).
Deok-soo almost seems to be a metaphor for his entire generation, a generation that lived through the Korean War, was shipped off to foreign lands to earn money to survive, fought through the Vietnam war and more. The main driving force behind all of Deok-soo’s actions is to protect the family he has left and to try and find those they had left behind when they fled North Korea.
The experiences of this character enable the older generation to relive their youth and experience the bittersweetness of nostalgia. On the other hand, younger Korean audiences are able to see how life was in Korea as the country grew and developed during the formative years of its modern history, and are therefore able to appreciate the hardships that the older generation went through in order to make Korea what it is today.
Ode to My Father is a human drama at its heart, but it is also packed full of Korean culture and history. It transcends age groups and has so much to offer to anyone, whether young or old, Korean or not. It will make you laugh, and it will make you cry and at the end of it all you will most likely come away feeling like it was a worthwhile experience.
The film is in Korean with English subtitles.
The event is free of charge and open to all.