The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Mr. Im's own aesthetic command is evident in the movie's wealth of beautiful, perfectly framed images of nature -- shots so full of passion and perception that they could almost be paintings themselves.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Korea · 2002
2h 0m
Director Im Kwon-taek
Starring Choi Min-sik, Son Ye-jin, Ahn Sung-ki, Yoo Ho-jeong
Genre Drama, History
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The struggles of an artist. Jang Seung-up in the late 1800s, when Korea was in political upheaval with the conservative dynasty dying and peasant revolt at hand. Jang, born poor, has genius; a merchant, Kim, becomes his patron, finding him a teacher. Jang must convince others that a commoner can have talent, then move beyond his ability to copy old masters and find his own style. It's the life of a restless spirit producing great art.
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The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Mr. Im's own aesthetic command is evident in the movie's wealth of beautiful, perfectly framed images of nature -- shots so full of passion and perception that they could almost be paintings themselves.
Grounded by a vigorous, physical performance from Choi Min-Sik, who brings both earthiness and grandeur to the central role, the film vividly evokes the world of an obsessive natural talent.
Succeeds as the rehumanizing of a near mythical figure.
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
A handsome film, filled with lavish costumes and set designs and told in a series of exquisitely composed images. But even with its visual polish, it's a chilly, largely unaffecting film about an unsympathetic man.
Im distinguishes what might have otherwise been a standard Hollywood biopic through his use of exquisitely composed shots that could have been imagined by Jang himself.
The film is art in all its visual splendor, and no matter how confusing the historic story line may be to Westerners -- and it is -- the images on screen more than compensate for the faults.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Another masterpiece from one of the world's more neglected great directors, a master artist who here reveals the soul of another.
In the scope of things, Ohwon's story is a route into the larger story of an uncertain and tumultuous period in Korea, and it's here that Chi-hwa-seon loses its grip.
Beautiful to look at, with scrumptious period detail and a knowing performance by Choi Min-sik as the portly, goatéed painter. At the same time, Chihwaseon is slow and stilted.
This is that rare art flick whose subject goes nuts because his work is not self-indulgent ENOUGH.
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