Peppermint Candy spans 20 years in the life of Yongho, from his teens to his self-hating middle age. Drafted for military service in 1980, he is sent to quash the uprising in Kwangju, becoming part of the Korean equivalent of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He joins the police after leaving the army and becomes an expert in torturing arrested leftists. He brutally rejects his childhood sweetheart, who brings him peppermint candies he once loved. The film’s seven chapters are presented in reverse-chronological order. Starting with Yongho’s middle-aged death wish and ending with his first date with the only person he truly cares for.
LEE Chang-dong began a career in theater in his twenties and then moved on to work as a novelist. He made his debut as a film director with GREEN FISH, a “one of a kind” Korean film noir. If GREEN FISH was an exploration of genre conventions and the real world, he continued his exploration of life and the cinema with PEPPERMINT CANDY, in which he experimented with a narrative using flashbacks, and OASIS, in which he questioned the nature of true communication between people. It was with these latter two films that he received critical acclaim as well as popular success not to mention international acclaim and accolades. OASIS earned LEE and lead actress MOON So-ri awards for Best Director and Best New Actress at the Venice Film Festival. In 2003, he was appointed as Minister of Culture and Tourism. When he was relieved from this official position, he directed his fourth film, SECRET SUNSHINE. The superb performance by JEON Do-yeon as the tormented Shin-ae in SECRET SUNSHINE earned her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. His fifth film, POETRY won the best screenplay award from the 63rd Cannes Film Festival and won the prestigious awards at various national and international film festivals. After POETRY, he will finally meet the audience again with BURNING.
Myung Kaynam, Makoto Ueda, JEON Jae-Young , Jay JEON, Keiko Lino
SOL Kyung-Gu, Moon So-Ri, KIM Yeo-Jin
