Crossing

(South Korea, 2008, 107 mins)

35mm

International Premiere

Selected Filmography:  

PRODS: Kim Tae-Kyun, Patrick Cheh, Hong Ji-Yong
SCR: Lee You-Jin
CAM: Chung Han-Chul
ED: Go Lim–Pyo
MUS: Kim Tae-Sung
Cast: Cha In-Pyo, Shin Myoung-Cheol, Joo Da-Young

When Kim Yong-Soo (Cha In-Pyo, in his best performance to date) crosses the Tuman River from North Korea into China, he has no intention of defecting. His aim is simply to earn a little money to buy medicine for his sick, pregnant wife back home in their coal-mining village in Hamkyung Province. He is not a political dissident, although he has tasted "forbidden fruit" (western whisky, satellite TV--and a copy of the Bible) in a friend’s home and has seen that friend hauled off by the communist authorities. He’s just a regular guy, struggling with abject poverty as he tries to care for his wife and raise their son well. But when he’s arrested as an illegal worker in a logging yard, and then identified as a talented soccer player, events quickly spiral out of his control. He finds himself a pawn of the “North Korea Liberation Coalition,” pushed into a group defection at a German consulate and then--to his dismay--sent to South Korea. Meanwhile his son Joon becomes an orphan and finds his way into Mongolia...

Kim Tae-Kyun’s superbly mounted drama is nothing like the crude, anti-communist propaganda movies that South Korea produced in the bad old days of martial law. Unashamedly emotional but not crassly sentimental, it’s more interested in life’s injustices and cruel ironies than in scoring easy political points. It lays out both sides of a situation in which there are no winners. It represents a real change of pace for Kim, previously best known for rom-coms and the delinquent/martial arts movie Volcano High; his view of North Korea and Mongolia is as credible as his distinctly critical view of South Korea. His film is the Korean nominee for the 2009 Best Foreign Film Oscar.

-- Tony Rayns

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