End Of Animal (LFF)
A remarkable debut from Korean director Jo Sung-Hee – a filmmaker to keep your eye on…
A cab ride home for pregnant student Soon-Young (Lee Min-Ji) turns into something of an endurance test when she wakes from a bright light to find her driver and a mysterious hitcher (Park Hae-Il, The Host, Memories Of Murder) gone. With all electrical power gone, no cars or mobiles work, even the local village is strangely deserted, she embarks on what she feels should be a straight forward walk to a nearby sightseeing point.
It seems something apocalyptic has happened to the world, and the few survivors she meets do little to help: from a school boy who wants to prove how he’s stronger than the bigger kid; to a seemingly helpful middle-aged cyclist haunted by having to care for his ailing mother; to a couple still seemingly concerned with worldly goods, even if they have little use now.
And somewhere, out in the dark, the mysterious roars of beasts taking the last survivors. And the only person who seems to know anything about what’s happening is the hitcher, now advising Soon-Young over a radio, now the only bit of technology that works.
With a stripped down approach, director Jo Sung-Hee manages to suggest a post-apocalyptic world of few survivors, where a godlike being plays tricks, and celestial angels rip mankind to shreds. It was some of these core themes, Sung-Hee revealed in a short Q&A after the London Film Festival, that appealed to him most. But if the god was playfully random, his script and filming process definitely wasn’t.
Apart from keeping down costs on employing dozens of actors (not that he need worry, Korean superstar Park Hae-Il played his role for free), it helps keep an other worldly menace and inevitable loneliness that echoes Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth. It’s also more than a little reminiscent of TV’s Lost, though Sung-Hee steers clear of falling fowl of explaining too much or representing the dangers too disappointingly literally.
If ever there was a danger in Korean film becoming stale (not that anyone’s suggesting it is!) Jo Sung-Hee, still a film student at the Korean Academy of Film Arts (who also co-funded the movie), is part of a new generation taking advantage of reasonably cheap recording equipment and production to make films. Much like Yang Ik-june, whose Breathless won over audiences last year, though he had far more experience in front of the camera.
By no means the first film student to create a standout piece while still at school, few get to turn it into a full feature length film till long afterwards. Even George Lucas and his original version of THX 1138.
Sung-Hee admitted there were some aspects he wasn’t happy with, commenting on having to rely on post-production for one effect where the light turns to night as two characters are speaking. He also said that he’d come under criticism for the gruelling victimisation he puts the lead girl under, with none of the other characters at all sympathetic, admitting that had he known the reaction he might have had a rethink.
(But without giving too much away, Soon-Young is victimised because it is – actually – all about her.)
With a script that plays up a typically Korean dark sense of humour, End Of Animal is an impressive debut and a filmmaker to watch out for in the future.
Related and associated posts
One Comment to “End Of Animal (LFF)”
Comment on this article
About the Author
Andy HFounder of easternKicks.com, which he's been running since 2002. And it's all thanks to Monkey, Water Margin and those damn fantastic 80s Hong Kong action movies! Andy works as a graphic designer in London... More »
[...] in the 17th century, the story centres on Nam-yi (Park Hae-il, End Of Animal, Moss, The Host, Memories Of Murder), a young, talented bowman who has looked after his sister [...]
War Of The Arrows movie review | easternkicks.com November 1st, 2011 at 1:03 pm